Good walks

I have gotten in some lovely walks this week.  On Tuesday LG and I went to the Crystal Springs Rhododendron Gardens. They are lovingly maintained, so beautiful, and enjoyed by thousands of people and waterfowl.  Here you see a very tall Rhodie with the limbs trimmed, showing the wonderful quirkiness of the trunks.  When these come into bloom (usually around Mother's Day) you walk under a blanket of blooms, and the air is heady with fragrances.  If you tend to allergies, Rhododendrons will kick you base over apex.  I've seen micro-photographs of the pollen, and it looks like long-spined sea urchins with barbs on the tips.  Most of May is penitential for allergy sufferers in Portland.

Luckily, very few flowers were out this early, so we wandered at our ease. And it's a birder's paradise.  We saw - is anyone interested in the list of feathered friends we made?  Coots and grebes and scaups and buffleheads.  The names just make me laugh out loud.


Here is a pair of wood ducks.  He's so bright and pretty, but he follows his drab little hen as if she were his one hope of heaven.  She's looking for nesting sites, and I can almost hear him saying, "This is nice dear. So is the one over there. Are you sure you have to look  at every possible site in the park?  Honey?  Wouldn't you like to stop for lunch or something?  Sweetie?  Please?"  Waddle, waddle, waddle,waddle.





Then on Wednesday, MJ and I took a hike in Mt. Talbert Nature park.  Lush, well, maintained and so very verdant.  It's wild enough that we saw a deer sauntering through the ferns.   The interesting thing about this park - we walked about five mile of trail and they were all uphill!  The whole freaking park is uphill.  Even going back the way you came, it's still all uphill.  I was one whipped puppy at the end of that little jaunt! It was beautiful, and I would do it again with no hesitation, but oh my aching knees.    And next time, even if it's raining buckets, I'm taking a water bottle.  I sweat way too freely to go unprepared.  (TMI, Roxie)

Yesterday, DH and I went mall walking.  It is so spring!  The high school girls are running around in short-shorts and parkas.  And I am so amused by mini-skirts, bare legs, and Uggs boots.
Also, I will be sad when the boys quit wearing their baggy shorts hanging off their butts.  They walk so funny!  And they don't appreciate it when an old woman laughs at them.

Squirrels are playing grab-ass on the roof, and the woodpecker is still tapping out his love songs on our metal chimney cap.  It is SO spring!

This is the week when all the leaves came in -
When hills all went from brown and gray to green.
And so the summer sweetly does begin.

I almost heard them bursting out. This dim
subsonic shout - what does it mean?
This was the week when all the leaves came in.

The air is soft and mild.  My senses spin
in wonder at the seasons' turning speed.
And so the summer swiftly does begin.

The maple trees unfurl, in stylish whim
chartreuse cockades of tiny, tight pleats.
This was the week when all the leaves came in.

The poplars' brassy tint will quickly dim.
For three days  only will that hue be seen.
A million shades of summer now begin.

Birds' nests, once visible behind the thin
and barren twigs now hide behind this screen.
This was the week when all the leaves came in,
and so the summer sweetly does begin.