Just Pretty Pictures and Stuff

More photo essay than anything.

First, paper flying-eagle silhouettes in the local school. Very well done, no?

At least a little art in this school. One of the teachers yawped at me that I'd said bad things about the school, when they're a good school, and have lots of good programs.

Really? Is that why the kids can only get art classes from the local little old ladies' art club, who are volunteers, and nobody gets paid? Pull the other one. You don't have dance or music, either. Plenty of money for the football team, and the dying industries, but nothing for the actual future.

Hallowe'en skeleton with ripening tomatoes. Next year, I'm working out how to plant the tomatoes upside down, and then, when they're loaded with fruit and the frost is coming, I'll just cut 'em and hang 'em in the house to ripen and dry.

Here's a shot from last summer, when the calla lilies were in bloom. It's the newly painted empty room. That's right - we have an EMPTY ROOM. Yeah, the upper shelves are full of DVDs and the lower shelves full of stuff - but the room itself got nothing but space and Fearless; that's her curled up in the box down there.

Karin Ashton told me about the "bed sculpture" up by the mouth of a the Sekiu river. Dan and I went up and actually found it. It made for a misty, spooky, warm beach walk. Thanks, Karin! Dunno who built it - forgot to ask her last time I saw her. She's threatening to do comic books and bring them to the Clallam Bay Comicon, so I look forward to that. I wonder if she knows about Fumetti?  The American version. I love well-done Fumetti.

Somebody went to a lot of work on the campsite and bed area. The winter tides will sweep it away, but it must have been a lot of fun for parties this summer. 

There's always something like this on the local beaches. They're temporary and don't hurt anything, but they're always fun to find.

Kind of like local art installations. Could be artists, or surfers, or just bored people. Who knows?

Salmon carcasses in the Clallam River, visible this autumn off the bridge. People throw 'em in there for the otters - an to attract the silver salmon run up the river. Yes, there might be one yet, as the river continues to recover. 

Now if we can only convince the traditional ignoramus fishermen to not catch the last ones in the run, so they can breed. I sometimes think these guys believe that fish and trees just get abracadaba's back into place, just for them. 

We call those guys BWS - Born With Servants. There's always somebody there to pick up after them, starting with their moms. And godlets help you if you have to clean up after them when they move. Finally. Late. They're the same ones telling us "alders aren't native" because it gets in the way of them logging off the land so it can be sold to developers. And don't tell the game warden about any fish they caught, especially if they gave you one.

The neighbor got many cranberries from the Folly Bog up the Hoko river road. It was started a long time ago by a guy just to see if he could do it, and not only went through three generations, but continues today under new owners. really wonderful cranberries. Good with everything, and enough to last until January.

The salmon carcasses remind me of a party I went to recently. Lovely silver salmon, baked with herbs. But finding out who caught it, I said that maybe they didn't want to be telling the game warden about it. I've seen these guys brag about catching eleven fish on a two-fish limit, and then not eating them - it's all about the fish torture. And the salmon was taken in the river that was recovering. In other words, he'd taken a fish that had actually made its head cells up to go up the river to breed.

It's hard living with children who think the planet and everything on it is their playtoy. And then have to clean up and repair after them. I wish they'd learn to wipe their own butts. But not with the toilet paper they make from the lungs of the planet.