A fine how-de-doo! (by Kat)

"No" said the birds.
"No, you may not use your box for monitoring equipment."

The sparrows dove and screeched in the air above.

"No! The box is ours and we'll do with it what we want!"
We unhooked both your loggers from your battery!
We've incorporated your wires into our nest!"

Okay, possession is 9/10ths of the law.

"I'll be back in two weeks" I said.
"And I'm downloading my data!"

Port Townsend suggestions? (by Kat)

We're heading off to Port Townsend later this summer with Mr. Boom's brother and family.
Four adults, two teens, and one pre-teen.
Any suggestions of good places to stay? Eat? Play?
Has anyone stayed at Fort Worden State Park?
Do you know a good house to rent?
Is the Dungeness Spit worth the trip?
Help me out here, folks.

In other news, I just baked the first rhubarb crisp of the season. I'm the only one here who likes it, so I felt justified in eating most of it in one sitting, right out of the dish. The dish was nice and warm, which helped allay the shivering.

The dish has since cooled, my tummy is warm and full, and I'm heading off to bed.

Guess I shouldn't have gone to work today. Today's wind is less than yesterday's, but I think any wind is really detrimental to this whole "getting over pneumonia" thing I'm supposed to be doing.

Over and out.

Wind and whine (by Kat)

Lord oh lord am I ever tired of being sick!

I was doing better by the end of last week, but then Saturday found me outside from 8:30-2:30 engaged with the public in an outreach event. My little town has a reputation for it's breeze, and, true to form, the breeze showed up to the big event adorned with all her bells and whistles. She celebrated in style, did our blustery friend, with sustained breezes of 18-39 mph with gusts up to 50 mph.

The hardiest of the bunch, the archaeologists, stuck it out the whole day. I threw my exhibit into the back of my work rig a little early so I could hear their final lecture. The snake biologists packed it in quite a bit earlier, much to the dismay of my daughter and her friends.

After a so-called "slumber" party the night before to celebrate Chirp-chirp's 13th birthday, Mr Boom brought the truckload of adolescent sleep-deprived girls to the park so they could participate in the scheduled snake sneak outing. When they discovered the trip was canceled, Mr Boom (my hero!) put the girls back into the truck, drove them down the canyon, and took them on their own private snake sneak. They only found one rattlesnake, but they called it a triumph since the "professionals" said none were to be found.

Anyway, Sunday morning found me nasty sick again, but with a tremendous urge to be...

ELSEWHERE.

I wanted out of the wind that's been howling around our house, I wanted out of the shrub-steppe despite the previous day's extolling of her beauty. I wanted trees and water and stillness and beauty.

I got it.

I love this tiny little pond nestled high in the hills.
It's not always this color blue, usually it's even blue-er.

I started meandering down the old road, but hacking as I was on the way down,
I realized that coming back up would likely kill me.

Something to look forward to...

PS Right now our local breeze is 40 mph with little gusts of 60 mph. I wonder when the real spring winds will hit? Hah!

PPS Beaufort Scale I recorded an "8" on Saturday, today's land conditions indicate a "9," although that's higher than the weather report says.

PPPS Sick people are boring. I apologize.