See slideshow, A Sunrise Drive; Creatures and Other Things of Land, Water and Air, on my photo blog, Phall Photos http://wp.me/p3J4Ab-gp
Phall Photo Friday is a weekly feature here. Phall= P(atti) Hall.
Patti, the early riser
Tag Archives: photographs
Phall Photo Friday; The Bay and The Bike
Wild Bleeding Hearts, Phall Photo 2014
See The Blossoming Of The Garden Bike on my photo blog, Phall Photos http://wp.me/p3J4Ab-fH
and Morning Glory Evening On Willipa Bay at http://wp.me/p3J4Ab-fq
I’m setting this to publish on Friday morn, as I’m off to more adventures. I’m going to see Kevin in Packwood. Hopefully, we’ll have good weather and I can go check on all the wild plants that I’ve been following with photos. I look forward to seeing how Kevin’s veggie garden is going too. Oh, and the hummingbirds. I hope to see some new birds at the feeders with seeds.
Saturday morn, we’re taking off for the Portland area to see his mom, Mrs. M. We’ll stay over one night, then head back to Packwood Sunday afternoon. The latest school shooting took place just down the road from his mom’s place. I can only imagine the anger, fear and sadness of that community. I took a lot of photos there this fall and it was one of the places I was going to take Kevin, but we’ll probably do that next trip. Instead, I hope I can find one of the back roads to some vineyards and a great view of Mt. Hood.
If we’re not too tired, we’ll probably play a game of pool and listen to some music. I’ll head home Monday, with a stopover in Centralia to see my children, grands and maybe an uncle, aunt or cousin. If there’s things for me to do at my aunt’s, I’ll probably stay the night at Sara’s.
Then I’m home for the rest of June, except a trip to Bremerton to consult with an oral surgeon. Since I got some white picket fence from my aunt, the secret garden has been extended, so there is a lot of work to do on that. Greg does most of the structure work and I do the planning and planting. I hope to incorporate a sampling of the wild plants, berry bushes and shrubs from the strip of woods on his property. They will go along the length of my beach cave, where there is mostly shade.
I’ll post again on Newsday Tuesday. Phall Photo Friday is a weekly feature here. Phall= P(atti) Hall.
Take Care,
Patti, the gypsy cave woman 🙂
Phall Photo Friday; The Wild Side
See Getting Wild On My Dentist Travels on my photo blog, Phall Photos http://wp.me/p3J4Ab-eQ
My dentist is 40 minutes away. I have to go, but I can have some fun on the way back!On the way to my appointment I was running late and could barely keep my truck on the road… I kept seeing cool things to photograph and explore. That’s why it took me two hours to get home 🙂 The road between Grayland and Raymond is filled with pullouts and logging roads. The winding 2-lane road holds back Willipa Bay on one side, and the wilds of the forest on the other side. Big job for such a little road. Of course, I was enticed by the wild side.
Phall Photo Friday is a weekly feature here. Phall= P(atti) Hall.
Patti, the wild one
Phall Photo Friday; Another Walk In The Woods
See Another Walk In The Woods on my photo blog, Phall Photos http://wp.me/p3J4Ab-dG
Phall Photo Friday is a weekly feature here.
Patti
Phall Photo Friday; Mount Rainier and The Beauty Below Her
See Mount Rainier and The Beauty Below Her on my photo blog, Phall Photos http://wp.me/p3J4Ab-cV
Phall Photo Friday is a weekly feature here. Phall= P(atti) Hall.
3 views of a bouquet that my friend, Greg, picked in his yard at the beach and a few of the secret garden…
Patti
Photo Friday on Saturday
Dandelion in seed
Out gallivanting and missed my deadline to post photos on Friday. Have fallen far behind on posting them on my photo site, but hope to catch up this coming week, when I’m done gallivanting. I love that word!
I had a unpacking some old boxes, installing cupboard, gardening, crafting and repairing frenzy Thursday night and Friday morn. Finally got in my truck to head to Leslee’s near Olympia for a visit. She is still pretty frail from her stomach surgery and broken shoulder. Leslee doesn’t let anything stop her for long.
We had a wonderful visit and I took her some irises, then planted them and a few other plants that needed my help. Two big tomato plants, a bleeding heart, a phlox, the irises, along with a few stray bulbs? maybe daffodils or tulips? She sent me home with all sorts of home and garden goodies.This is an iris that I finally got planted in the secret garden. They got tugged out of the earth in late fall and spent all winter and spring on the lawn in a black bag. The one in the photo has 3 blooms! The ones I planted in Greg’s yard and our shared front garden are purple and blooming away. Hopefully, Leslee’s fares as well.
I had to call her on my way there, because I kept stopping to take pictures.
I hope you enjoy. I’m off to more gallivanting and visiting family and friends for the rest of the weekend.
Patti
Rain Coats and Fairy Slippers In The Forest
Vase of vanilla leaf. PHALL PHOTO 201
ONE NIGHT THIS WEEK: Kevin is in the kitchen making one of his irresistible pizzas, while I work
Rain drops on vanilla leaf in forest.
PHALL PHOTO 2014
in the office space he set up for me. The wild back yard here is carpeted with large, thin Vanilla Leaf plants and Kevin brought me a bouquet of them for my desk one morning.
Vanilla Leaf, achlys triphylla, also known as Deer’s Foot and Sweet After Death. That last name is in reference to the vanilla smell of the dried leaf. Both dried, and fresh leaves, are said to repel flies and mosquitoes.
Carpet of Vanilla Leaf
When I got here to Kevin’s house in Packwood, WA last Friday, we set straight to unloading the gardening goodies that I brought. The seeds that we started in March, along with those Kevin has planted since then, are all ready to be transplanted to their own pots. Just before I arrived, Kevin got a small box in the mail from my mom. She sent us some yellow fragrant day lilies from her Alaska garden!
We’ve been rained-in since then. One day, I kept looking at the vanilla leaf bouquet and thinking about all the amazing understory plants that were coming up in the nearby forest. There is a very distracting book shelf next to my “new” desk and I just couldn’t help myself…I found a favorite, which I also have at home, Northwest Foraging by Doug Benoliel (1974). Each plant has line drawings by Mark Orsen that are almost as good as color photos, especially when coupled with the perfectly detailed plant descriptions.
Then I came across the 1984 edition of Plants and Animals of the Pacific Northwest by Eugene N. Kozloff. There are 3 sections with very good color photos of the trees, plants, moss, fungus, snails, slugs and a few common bugs in our woods and fields. That’s it, I proposed a walk!
Kevin and I pulled on our rain coats and our rainy walk began with the colorful Mountain Fire, pieris japonica, shrub in his front yard.
Next, a bright pink flowering fruit? tree in a neighbor’s yard. I’m still using the camera in my phone and downloading to email, then to photo file on my hard drive is a tedious, slow process. Kevin brought his camera, but had battery issues. I don’t care. I am maddeningly determined to show you our woodland discoveries!
Entering the forest trail, the first plants are the Vanilla Leaf, Oregon Grape, and the delicate and mysterious Fairy Slipper, calypso bulbosa. She’s a pretty one, but aside from several dozen at the beginning, we (Kevin) only saw one more all the way to the falls and back.
Another of my favorites is the Smooth Violet, viola glabella, with its tiny yellow flower and heart-shaped leaves. We saw trillium ovatums, but well past their flowering stage.
Hugging the ground in sunny spots, were the white little wild strawberry flowers. The Indian Plum/Oso Berry, oemleria cerasiformis rose from waist high, to above our heads. They were still dripping with flowers and bright green new leaves, which smell like cucumber when crushed. These small trees will yield the first ripe berries in the woods, but the birds eat them so quickly, humans rarely get to see them.
There were ferns, chickweed, mosses, fungus, and a lot of Trail Plants, adenocaulon bicolor, which we always called Pathfinder Plants, because the backs of the leaves are silvery and easily show where someone has walked through them. There were plenty of Cleavers, galium aparine and Avens, geum macrophyllum.
When we walked this trail to the waterfall in March, it was pretty quiet. Today the air was filled with the trilling birds serenading us all along the path. I recognized the American Robins, round from a plentiful diet of worms, and chickadees flitted everywhere and nowhere, never landing long enough, or close enough, for us to catch sight of them.
Some spiders had a busy spring weaving webs in interesting places.
This sturdy web is weaved on the root of a fallen tree, with a ray of sun shining through a hole in the back.
PHALL PHOTO 2014
Last, but not least, was a beautiful (to me) snail, Monadenia fidelis, and a couple of slimy Army-green slugs.
It has been many years since I walked the woods, then came home and learned about the flora and fauna with my children. Much of it comes back, as I wander through these woods with Kevin, and reacquaint myself with my old green friends. In the past, I have made salads, and medicinal oils, tinctures and salves from wild things in the forest. For now, I’m satisfied photographing and sharing them with Kevin and you.
I apologize about all the spaces in this post.
Also see Jill Swenson’s recent post here about spring surprises on the east side of the country.
I hope you enjoy this back woods tour,
Patti
Phall Photo Friday; Art Along The Way
See Horse Manure and Art on my photo blog,
Phall Photos http://wp.me/p3J4Ab-aJ
Daniel Klennerts “Spirits of Iron” Sculpture Park is located off State Route 706 on the way to the west entrance to Mount Rainier National Park in beautiful Washington State. NW Trek is up the road a piece too. Klennert’s life-size (and bigger) wood and scrap metal sculptures, Spirits of Iron, have been displayed all across North America. He has web page http://www.danielklennert.com/, which includes photos, a map, and the title of a movie that his art is featured in.
Phall Photo Friday is a weekly feature here. Phall= P(atti) Hall.
Patti
A-Z April Challenge; M is for Midway Meanderings
We are midway through the A-Z April Challenge and I thought we could meander through some Packwood, WA photos that I never got posted here. My muse is a little jealous, so She requested that I offer a tidbit of the mermaid story, right in line with the M today. If you don’t believe in magic wands and mermaids and such, just enjoy the photos.
The names and some details are real, some of the story is from my real imagination. This is just a sample of the story, so some elements are missing…
The Mermaid and The Magic Wands
Grani-at-the-beach called Nola and Cora yesterday and asked them to come to the beach to help her solve a mystery. It seems that their adult friend, Mermaid Carol (who owns a really cool deli close to the beach) had given Grani some beautiful magic wands to give to Cora and Nola, but then Grani lost them. Well, that’s the mystery part, because she didn’t actually lose them, they just disappeared! Grani was taking her beach walk looking for ocean treasures, right after she had been to see Mermaid Carol. Oh, and her deli happens to have a big beautiful mermaid and dolphins painted on the pretty blue outside walls! Just so you are clear about it, Mermaid Carol is not really a mermaid, it’s just what we call her because of her deli.
Grani had been totally focused on her agates for almost an hour and had a pocketful of them, when she decided to head home for lunch. She went to grab the wands and her backpack, but the wands were gone! She looked all around the boulder, and even checked the boulders around it. There had been no other beach combers on her part of the beach that afternoon. Grani was stumped!
A few days later, Grani was still sad and trying to think of a way to find the magic wands. She’d been back to the beach every day, once at high tide, and once at low tide. Grani didn’t even look for ocean treasures! That’s huge; Grani never steps onto a beach without bringing home some little thing. She frantically searched for hours at a time, all the way up and down the beach. She was glad no one was around to hear her grumbling to herself about what a rotten Grani she was, and how could she have lost Nola and Cora’s magic wands!?
The next morning Mermaid Carol called Grani to ask her to come to the deli for a few minutes,
“There’s something Surfer Dustin wants to show you.”
Grani was still sad, but she got dressed and went to The Mermaid; maybe Mermaid Carol and her other friends there would cheer her up. Surfer Dustin probably had a great agate to show her and that would make her smile again.
Grani opened the bag and pulled out a beautiful light blue bottle. It looked like it had been beaten by the sand and waves for many years. It wasn’t an antique though, since it had a screw-top cap. She held it up to the sun and could see something inside,
“What is it, Dustin?”
“Just open it, it’s not gonna bite you!”
Now Grani was so curious that she couldn’t wait; she unscrewed the cap, tipped the bottle and gave it a gentle shake. Surfer Dustin reached over and took the bottle and the cap, while Grani uncurled the paper. It was a rolled up piece of newspaper with black writing on it. The writing looks like a young child wrote it with charcoal. Weird. What it said was even stranger, but it made Grani’s heart sing!
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Nora, the mermaid, couldn’t wait to tell her mama about the fun she had today. On second thought, mama doesn’t like me taking any chances by being on the beach near humans; they have not always been nice to our kind. Mama and daddy say it’s because they don’t understand us and that makes them afraid of us. They say that humans are sometimes mean when they are afraid.
Plus there was the little problem with the treasure she had found that day; a little problem that could get her into big trouble. Nora decides to talk it over with her Granz before she tells her parents. Maybe Granz will understand what she did about the treasure. Her Granz always finds a way to help her deal with hard stuff, plus she is a very silly Granz and makes Nora laugh. It was a long swim home and when Nora saw Granz sitting on the rock outcrop beside her ocean cave, she immediately swam toward her and fell into her arms.
After telling her Granz the whole story about her day, she felt better and worse. She knew that she would have to tell her parents and promise not to go near the beach again. But she needed to find a way to make sure the lady found the stars. Granz solved the problem,
“If you make a solemn promise to stay close to home, I will go see if the stars are gone tomorrow.”
“Oh, Granz, thank you thank you thank you, and I DO promise!”
“Now scoot off and go tell your parents what you did wrong, and keep it simple girlie. Make your super promise to them and see what they say. And NO POUTING, no matter what they say!”
Every day Nora waited to hear that the stars on sticks were gone, but by the third day Granz came back with bad news again. To make matters worse, Granz overheard the lady talking angrily to herself while she searched for the stars on sticks. Granz was a GOOD detective and she found out things about the lady that Nora didn’t even know. Like that she was called Grani. That she had two young granddaughters with names that sounded like Nora’s own name!
“Yes, the human Grani was talking to herself and said, “what a rotten Grani she was, and how could she have lost Cora and Nola’s real magic wands.’”
Nora just had to think of a way for that poor human Grani to find the stars, especially since they were really truly magic! Her and Granz talked and talked and finally came up with a plan. It wasn’t a perfect plan, and there were risks, but they both felt so bad now that they agreed on it.
The next morning Granz & Nora swam out to the end of the jetty to look through Nora’s stash of ocean treasures. They crawled into a small cave of black jetty boulders and soon found what they needed. Granz knew how important this was to Nora, so she sat back and let her do the work, only helping a little with the spelling. It took some time, but soon Nora held up the piece of old newspaper. The note was written with a piece of charcoal from a beach fire made long ago. The note was simple,
“Dear Human Grani,
I’m so sorry for taking the magic wands! So sorry! Please bring Nola and Cora to the beach where you left the stars. Bring them to the boulder when the sun is straight over your head, in two days.
Sorry again,
Nora, the mermaid (with help from her Granz)”
Granz thought the note was just right so she helped Nora role it tight and put it inside a pretty blue bottle.
To be continued…when published! 🙂
Patti Hall 2014
Hey, I hope you find time to check out some of the other A-Z April Challenge blogs here:
http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com/p/a-to-z-challenge-sign-uplist-2014.html
A-Z April Challenge; I is for Intense Labor
The secret garden transforms…slowly, but surely.
Only this far last week.
Dug out around pond bricks.
Lined with weed barrier.
Added first layer of beach stones.
Practiced making glass wall. Will even out and measure and re-do tomorrow.
Four little lilacs to plant along fence. Putting bird bath/fountain in place.
Got my fav garden shelf placed on porch.
***Most of my photos open onto larger screen when you click on them.
Hey, I hope you find time to check out some of the other A-Z April Challenge blogs here:
http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com/p/a-to-z-challenge-sign-uplist-2014.html
Peace,
Patti Hall 2014
A-Z April Challenge; H is for Hawaii, of Course
Sunset on Hawaii Island, 2012
Green bananas and flower bud.
Feathered friends of Hawaii:
***Most of my photos open onto larger screen when you click on them.
Mom and I dream of living in Hawaii some day….
Hey, I hope you find time to check out some of the other A-Z April Challenge blogs here:
http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com/p/a-to-z-challenge-sign-uplist-2014.html
Peace,
Patti Hall 2014
A-Z April Challenge; G is for Goofy Gecko
I’m going easier on all of us, making this challenge a little lighter. We all know I’m gonna slip up again and bring up some thoughty topic, a longish story or a heart ache or two, but for now, I’ll stay light.
These gecko photos are from the vacation that The Wallet (dad) sent mom and I on, at the end of 2012. We had spent four months together earlier that year, while she recovered from serious injuries from a dog accident. Yes, dog accidents can be as bad as car accidents!
I apologize in advance; some of these are out of focus, but I wanted you to see all the mischief that they got into.
***Most of my photos open onto larger screen when you click on them.
Hey, I hope you find time to check out some of the other A-Z April Challenge blogs here:
http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com/p/a-to-z-challenge-sign-uplist-2014.html
Peace,
Patti Hall 2014
Weekly Photo Challenge: Reflections
Reflection. Water not sky.
Packwood, WA.
PHALL PHOTO 2014
Photo of small creek through twigs and branches, with drops of water clinging to their tips.
This week’s photo challenge calls for reflections, literally and figuratively. This fits my world well. Much reflecting going on here. Going to see kids and little grands in a few days, on my way back to beach cave at Westport, WA. Have doctor and dentist appointments, as well as cleaning and sorting to do. I miss my peeps and my beach, not so much, my dentist!
Peace,
Patti
One Year on Word Press. Thanks!
Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
Yes, it has been a year since I began blogging. Even though it was very lonely the first few months, you eventually found me and have kept me going with your support and encouragement ever since. The secret to bringing folks to your blog is so simple: Get out and visit, comment and “like” other blogs. That’s it. Go forth and make friends :>)
PHALL PHOTO 2013
Here’s how the first 6 months went for me. I didn’t know one blogger and had no idea how to blog. After a couple months of loneliness, I started searching for info about memoir and children’s writing and publishing. During my quest for info I started visiting other blogs, I made some friends. Adding photos to my posts seemed to bring more people to this little community. Popping in on Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites, really brought some new faces to The Write Place.
I hope to add some highlights of the second half of my first year in the next few days, but for now, here is what I was up to my first six months…
PHALL PHOTO 2013
Six entries in March 2013, including things like:
I posted a quote that seemed to fit my state of mind as I began this new endeavor of public blogging, writing and (hopefully) publishing. “Do not hurry, do not rest,” by Goethe. As fast as I wanted to get started, I knew that I also wanted to take my time and not make a bunch of (public) mistakes.
I was unsure of what/how to begin, but decided to use my long dormant maiden name for my writing. I posted a poem inspired by my mother, who instilled the love of reading and humor in me. Another poem that I posted that first month reflected the pain of the sudden and unexpected loss of one of my sisters the year before.
Sunrise at Westhaven Beach, WA w/Coast Guard Tower. Phall Photo 2013
The post, Keeper Book Synopsis, http://wp.me/p3i5jo-x tells the genesis story of the handcrafted “Keepers” that my friend (Leslee) and I created years ago. My hopes are to publish the stories that I wrote for each one. I also finished typing a 2500 word story that I wrote for my children in 1996.
The last entry of March 2013 says, in part, “I woke up this morning, well, it was really almost 11. Anyway, I was looking around and my eye caught on some star wands that I need to give my granddaughters, from a mutual friend. Soon I had a story rumbling in my head and I was off. I have been writing and editing all damn day long, and half the night! I made some coffee, finally ate a snack, packed some things for my move [home relocation] tomorrow and wrote like crazy. I completed a children’s story 10 words shy of 4000 words. Crazy. It just came out. Does it happen like that for you? And, hey, I have no illusions that this would not get whittled in half by a real editor, but I’m good with that. It is the process that is so…gripping, so addictive.”
April- 12 entries. This was my third month going to the local writer group that I joined, and I posted, “Have been checking out and “following” several other writer blogs. Have been “invited” to join a writer site that allows us to give and receive feed-back. I am learning about the current trends in writing and publishing…” Another entry, Good Grief, A Widow Writes A Memoir, http://wp.me/p3i5jo-V explains some of the things I was learning about memoir writing and how painful it can be to write about Paul’s illness and death. Still is.
Breakfast for fawn. Across from my driveway.
PHALL PHOTO 2013
I posted about a writer retreat and a writer conference in Homer, Alaska, which is also home to one of my sisters and her husband. I began taking a writing class taught by a local writer, and I met several other writers there. I posted a poem that I wrote for Paul’s 60th birthday in 2007. I made an ambitious attempt at a blogging schedule. Hilarious, if you really know me; the “s” word and me are not close.
I signed onto several more social media venues and shared some sites with helpful information for writers. I touched on some newsy information in one post, about the way technology is taking away our privacy. I wrote a poem about the deaths and injuries in the Boston marathon bombing and the explosion in Texas. I posted a short story about a child molester/monster.
Kites down on beach.
PHALL PHOTO 2013
I moved Maggie (my trailer/cave/home) from the bay outside of Westport, into Westport proper and closer to the beach. The worst shock and heartache of my life happened on the 26th, when my grandson died. Still dealing with the other recent losses in my life, I stopped blogging for awhile.
May- 13 entries. I lost my mind a bit, but returned to blogging late in the month, with 2 poems on grief and loss. Lady In The Cave http://wp.me/p3i5jo-1N and Treasured Souls http://wp.me/p3i5jo-1P were followed by a post complaining about the new parameters for the medical definition of grief. I wrote a few other poems/essays and shared some of the writing/publishing information that I was learning. Still very few visitors or followers on my blog, but I kept on. This was my first poetry/photo combo post: Beach Bird Bliss http://wp.me/p3i5jo-2c and it made me realize how much readers enjoy photos along with the words.
Fresh seed pod on tree.
PHALL PHOTO 2013
Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS19
June- 22 entries. This was a very busy writing month and I had some fun with the essay, Things That Go Rrrrr, Crash, and Drip In The Night http://wp.me/p3i5jo-4w. I also got better at working with photos and started posting photos for Word Press Daily Prompts and Weekly Photo Challenges. I posted quite a bit under Writing Journal as I learned about and organized for successful memoir writing. The post, New! Dedicated Memoir Page and Sneak Peek of Prologue http://wp.me/p3i5jo-3m tells the story of how I got from the house that Paul and I shared, to living at the beach. What I Would Tell You Now http://wp.me/p3i5jo-3v is a letter to my late husband, written long after he was gone. I also started writing and submitting book reviews this month.
Butterfly on Flower in my friend’s garden.
Phall Photo 2013
These are busy days, but I will try to post the summary of July-December 2013, in the next few days… Still not smoking and happy about it, over 2 months later!!!!!!!! Was thrilled to know that one of my sisters quit smoking 4 days ago too. So cool.
Happy Almost Spring!
Patti
Thistles
PHALL PHOTO 2013
AEDDD 29: Word
29 days and counting. You have probably already noticed that I’m never out of words or topics. The trick is, mining my thoughts and finding words or topics, that will connect with others. So, that’s it for today: words.
WORDS AS PET PEEVES
See above, where I wrote the word “connect”? Well, we all know what word could, or should have gone there, but aren’t we getting tired of it? I am. It is a beautiful word that evokes images of music, of human connection on the deepest level. It goes back to that “you too!” moment that we’ve talked about in other posts here. However, we’ve been over-using the word so much that it has begun to grate. Have you guessed it yet?
You are right. Resonate: To evoke a feeling of shared emotion or belief, or to correspond closely or harmoniously. (aside from other definitions) I hope that I haven’t offended anyone who just wrote and published a post using that word. Truly, it fits perfectly in YOUR post! :>)
If I were into numbering, as Marie and John do so very well every week, this next one would be the absolutely #1 most irritating word in slang usage today. This time I don’t really mind if I offend you. I’m that sick of the word. I see it in advertising, it’s all over Facebook and Twitter, my best friends use it, my kids use it, I’ve heard/or read it used by the very young and very old (even hippies and bankers use it). I replace it with the word, “stinks,” when my kids use it. They know the word I’m talking about. I’ve been on the case of replacing this word for probably 6 years. This has just gone on for far too long, I say!
Chain that pet peeve to a wall in the basement! It’s time to eliminate, or at least severely diminish, the use of “suck/s” as a cute slang term.
Word,
Patti
What are your pet peeve words? Have I used them in this post? Let’s hear about it, don’t be shy:>)
Pretty pictures to soothe anyone whose toes I stepped on, and just to enjoy, for everyone else:
(Almost) Every Damn Day? Who’s idea was this anyway? The culprit can be found here: Every Damn Day December at http://treatmentofvisions.com/2013/11/26/evdadadec/
THE WRITE PLACE... 