Hunting the Horny Back Toad

I'd hoped it would cool off once we'd once again gained some altitude.  Up on the Anatone Plateau, it wasn't so bad, but it was now mid-afternoon and the sun was to the west, i.e. still on my side of the vehicle.

We passed our first bluebirds (Mountain and Western both) on the way up to Rattlesnake Summit.  No time to stop at The Best State Park in Washington!  No time to stop anywhere.  We passed by all of our favorite pullouts.  I just had to snap photos from the window as we snaked our way down to the Grande Ronde (and the afternoon heat).

And soon (actually, it felt eternal on all those curves and hairpins) we were across the Grande Ronde and headed toward Oregon.  After a few miles, the road started climbing again.  We did hit one pullout at the top to view the valley below.

I don't remember much of Hwy 3.  A lot of forest.  Mostly ponderosa pine.  Very westerny.  We made a pit stop at a scenic viewpoint/heritage site*.

(I think that's Idaho's Seven Devils Range in the distance.)

And then before we knew it the Wallowa Mountains were in sight.

And just south of Joseph - Wallowa Lake.

The air was blissfully cool.

 

 

* This was above the Nez Perce tribe's wintering grounds.  The Nez Perce couldn't understand why the white settlers didn't go to the lowlands in the winter.  The white men thought the Nez Perce were nomadic wastrels.  The story didn't end well.**

 

 

** The white people fucked the Nez Perce over.***

 

 

*** But you knew that already.

It's a long drive to Wallowa Lake from Seattle.  So we decided to go the even longer way.

We left on one of the warmest, sunniest days (if not The . . .) of the year.  And this was after several days of cooler, cloudier weather.

See how bright and beautiful Seattle was as were driving across the ship canal bridge.

The smart thing would have been to take a right by Ellensburg, then drive down to Yakima and onto the tri-cities, then over to Walla Walla and down through Milton Freewater.  But we were having none of that!

We've always wanted to get a look at Oregon Hwy 3 (from WA Hwy 129 out of Clarkston) after leaving the Grande Ronde Valley.  So we continued on I-90 to across the Columbia then took Hwy 26 to Othello.

As we neared Othello, it first started getting (what I'd call) hot.  Not enough to roll up the windows and put on the stinking air conditioning but enough to feel it burning my legs and my right arm.  (Ouch.)  We dropped down 17 to 260 toward Connell, and that's when it got really hot.  We stopped very briefly over the Washtucna Coolee for a couple of pics (and a bit of rummaging for sunscreen), and then we were rolling again.

I thought it would cool off some when we hit Hwy 261 towards Lyons Ferry but nothin' doin'.  Bucko had mentioned Palouse Falls more than a few times in the past couple of days.  As we neared the turnoff, he said, "We don't have to go to Palouse Falls today."  "Too goddamn hot," I said.  And we kept on.

HU Ranch Coolee.

Surely, it'll be cooler down on the Snake River, I thought.  Wrong!  (For the most part.)  We made a pit stop at Lyons Ferry Park.  It was pretty pleasant in the shade, but the sun was brutal.

So we kept driving.  (Still had a shitways to go.)

Finally somewhere on Hwy 12, the heat lessened.

Must've been the wildmills.

Up to Pomeroy and the temperature was abolutely perfect.

 

But once we dropped down toward Clarkston from Alpowa Pass, the heat was back.

Ugh.

(Sadly, this store in Clarkston was closed.  So many of our needs could have been filled in one quick stop.)

The week before we went on our May Vacation, we finally got rid of the van and bought a new (used) truck.  It's one of those little ones and it's golden!

Bucko and I thought it looked very cute parked next to the cabin.

The Weather People scheduled miserable weather today, so we decided to forgo our customary Memorial Day Adventure.  But they must be trying to pull some kind of fast one because Outdoors is loaded with sunshine.

So maybe I'll spend the day in The Garden.

Peace.

(Elvis tribute artist) Ted Roddy's cover of Joe South's "Fool Me" is the Best. Freaking. Song. Ever!

 

 

and, like, on so many levels.

It's a Mourning Cloak.

Back when I first decided I wanted to start butterfly-spotting, I longed to see one of these.  I thought I saw one on a windy day a couple of years ago.  And last year, I could have sworn I saw one or two through the summer, but they never stayed still long enough for me to know for sure.

This year, however,  I've been seeing the hell out of them.  They're as common as Cabbage Whites.

In case you were wondering . . .

Compare to May 2007 . . .

. . . and October 2008.

 

 

So while there was a dramatic change from May '07 to October '08, there's been no change since.  Unless you count the part about the dogs.  Which I don't even begin to comprehend.

What are they saying, that if another stinking dog drags its sorry ass to town, it won't make it till sundown?

Beats me.

Remember how I got a bird nestbox a couple of years ago hoping to attract some Violet-green swallows to our yard?  But I put it up too late in the spring, so no Violet-green Swallows came?  (Not that I've seen any but the highest flying swallows in our immediate neighborhood anyway.)  And Bucko saw a Bewick's Wren checking out the box some time in the summer?  Remember that?

Well, last year, when winter was finally over (~June), a pair of Black-capped Chickadees moved in.  We never saw them moving nesting material into the box, but it was obvious after a week that they were nesting there.  Eventually, only one bird was flying to and from the box, so I figured that the other was then sitting on the nest.  The All About Birds told me that the incubation period was 12-13 days, and sure enough, within a couple of weeks, we could hear tiny peepings from within.  After a week or so, the peepings turned into rudimentary, scratchy-sounding chick-a-dee-dee-dees.

The parent birds worked hard, both of them constantly out catching bugs to take back to the little ones.  Probably no more than three minutes (tops!) passed without one parent flying back to the box with food.

Eventually, I could even see the young birds scrambling up to the hole whenever the parent would leave after dropping off a morsel.

And then one day, they were gone.  They had fledged.

It was the day after that when Bucko first caught sight of the young ones.  Two of them.  Usually sitting on one of the wires up front while the parents went to fetch them a nibble.  By the next day, we were seeing them regularly.  The parents would lead them to the seed feeders and pluck our sunflower seeds, hopefully showing the little dumbasses how to do it themselves.

And then the babies grew up and looked just like all the other chickadees, so we couldn't pick them out of a crowd.

A pair of chickadees moved into the nest box again this year - maybe a month ago.  The babies were hatched before we went to Wallowa Lake.  Yesterday, I went outside to check on the progress of The Garden and saw one food delivery to the box.  I haven't spent much time outdoors this week though, as we've been having a cold/rainy spell.

It's a little warmer and drier today though.  Every time I've been out, I've not seen a single chickadee around the box.  I'm guessing that the babies fledged this morning.  I hope that we'll get to see them soon.

Here's one of last year's babies, just a few days after fledging.

Still got a bit of pink on its bill.

I finally finished sorting and editing my trip pics late yesterday.  I didn't think I'd taken that many photos on this adventure, but evidently I had.  Possibly because I took dozens of photos of things like this:

Do you see it?  Do you see it?

What about this one?  Do you see it in this one?

Um, no?  Okay, then.  How about in this next one?

Still no?

Ah!  There it is!

Water Ouzel!

Ta-freaking-dah!