Sunday, September 22, 2013
The storm arrived as predicted, I am told at about three or four AM. I slept through that part. By eight thirty the roaring wind had me awake and I got up after awhile to root for the danger tree to fall harmlessly. It didn’t. After reaching 60 mph at Cape Disappointment (just to our southwest) and 50 mph in Ocean Park,the wind completely died down in the early afternoon. I had been planning to spend the entire day inside but I just couldn’t when the weather got unexpectedly lovely.
A walk around the garden revealed the garden boat Cosmos had gone all sideways.
The Cosmos between me and Nora’s house also took a battering.
The rest of the garden looked normal… Allan took the opportunity to mow the lawn.
Not one branch had come off the danger tree, but some large pieces of bark had fallen.
Next door in Nora’s back yard more wood had come down than in ours, so I collected some for a future campfire.
I could not muster much interest in cutting back plants in the garden. My excuse is that they make a good home for our tree frog populations. The good weather did not allow me to have my day indoors so I decided to take a puddle walk. Rain always creates good photo opportunities on our not quite level streets.
I thought about walking to the beach below Yellow Bluff but had not checked the tide. So I turned to the port on Advent Street.
When I saw the marina, I knew it was a good thing I had not gone to Yellow Bluff. High tide would have prevented walking along the river beach there.
Since yesterday, Don Nisbett Art Gallery and the Port Office hanging baskets had been removed. The office ones were stashed safely behind the building, while Don’s sat on the south side.
I wonder if the baskets will be re-hung? The ones in Long Beach town are down for the year now. I had brought my clippers with me and attended to a few broken stems in the port office garden.
As I walked toward Jessie’s, I kept hearing the strangest squawking.
Finally I located the source on a boat by the last dock ramp.
This view would have been such a different picture two hours before, if I could have stood up to the wind:
Below, all kinds of fish hauling carts are lined up on the entry to the docks.
I walked around to the west side of Jessie’s to see if perhaps a boat was offloading…but of course, no one had been out fishing in the storm.
I expected to find a lot of wind damage at the boatyard garden on First Avenue. It looked surprisingly good.
The Cosmos in my garden boat at home had fared worse than most of the ones at the boatyard.
I picked up some windblown trash and when I went back to the boatyard wheelie bin, I saw that the boat washing station looked like one of those infinity pools.
Then, sighting north up First Avenue, I saw that the street planters still looked pretty good , so I turned to walk home through the interesting alley to the north of one of the Jessie’s Ilwaco Fish Co buildings.
There’s a second boatyard to the east end of the alley where boats are stored while not being worked on.
I kept on walking too noisily and a lot of little brown birds had flown off of the crab pots, but bathing crows were fearless.
Not THAT fearless; I did use the telephoto. I will have to do better at not scaring the little brown birds so I can get some photos for the amusement of ace bird photographer Mr. Tootlepedal.
The storage yard is home, permanently as far as I can tell, to some very old boats whose stories I would like to hear.
I have absolutely no idea what THIS boat thing is:
Having done my duty by enjoying the garden and a walk, I retreated to my desk, glad to get back to some sorely postponed computer work that I’d been planning to spend the whole day on.
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