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.
What a shame!
The Cosmos between me and Nora’s house also took a battering.
wind tunnel
The rest of the garden looked normal… Allan took the opportunity to mow the lawn.
Allan mowing in the distance
Not one branch had come off the danger tree, but some large pieces of bark had fallen.
shedding its bark
where the bark came from
Next door in Nora’s back yard more wood had come down than in ours, so I collected some for a future campfire.
Smokey helped, as usual.
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.
needles windswept into patterns in our neighbour’s driveway
house for sale across the street and two doors down.
in the middle of Lake Street
windfall at Lake and Advent
from this tree
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.
in the port parking lot…a boat thing.
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.
high tide at Ilwaco marina, looking east
high tide sky, looking west
looking east
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.
a sure sign of autumn
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.
Jessie’s high tide…
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:
after the storm
Below, all kinds of fish hauling carts are lined up on the entry to the docks.
looking east from Jessie’s
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.
Jessie’s west wall
working boats at rest
I expected to find a lot of wind damage at the boatyard garden on First Avenue. It looked surprisingly good.
boatyard garden, looking north
Some cosmos was a little sideways
Some was broken, but not as much as I expected.
The Cosmos in my garden boat at home had fared worse than most of the ones at the boatyard.
Aster ‘Harrington’s Pink’
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.
telephoto
not telephoto
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.
looking east
interesting stuff!
crab pot reflecting pool
There’s a second boatyard to the east end of the alley where boats are stored while not being worked on.
storage yard
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.
one of the crows
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.
Warrior of the Seas
on the north side of the alley
by the old Kola Brothers boathouses
gulls resting up in the port parking lot
I have absolutely no idea what THIS boat thing is:
mysterious thingie…some sort of trailer
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.
dusky view from my window
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