Monday Morning Blog

OK, I know it's been a while. I am exerting great discipline in sitting down and writing this morning. Waylon has been sitting in a ray of sunlight for 45 minutes without moving and that just seems so lucious. I'd like to do that, too. It seems I've been caught in some cyberspace trance where all I want to do when the computer is on is follow various news items or catch up with other people's blogs. My friends are returning from Israel and Zambia so that will cut down on time spent reading their blogs.

Yesterday I traveled to St. Paul, Oregon and found more roses than my yard can hold! That cuts down the internet search for roses. It's not really rose buying time in Portland. Most of the nurseries have only the left over tattered roses no one wanted. But I am ready to plant roses and wanted to find a couple that I'd cared for at St. Boniface. In my stack of old rose catalogs I found a long forgotten one from "Heirloom Roses" and discovered it is located just 40 minutes from here! Since this is the Pauline Year for Catholics, I decided a trip to St. Paul, Oregon would be an appropriate adventure. The Heirloom Rose Garden rivals any rose garden I've seen so far....and that is saying a lot for someone from The City of Roses. Even the map of their garden layout is 25 pages long! (No pictures - just mapping out where each rose is located) They have a greenhouse full of rose starts and I picked out 9 to take home. Ballerina and Sally Holmes and Play Girl were three of the starts I'd been looking for. The others are variations on old single roses that I hadn't seen before. One is Kew Rambler and another is called Summer Wine. I picked out one called Mavourneen just because of the name and can't find that rose's description anywhere. But you know it's got to be good with a name like that. They gave me a "mystery rose", too, so I'll have a couple surprises next summer.

Blue and I drove up to Ridgefield one day. I was feeling sick but too restless to stay home in bed. We were the only ones at the Refuge. Got to see the American Bittern I saw on my very first trip there. Maybe it was the same. They are such a funny looking bird. I'll try to post a picture if I can find one. Also got to watch a bald eagle fishing. He was great. Usually I see immature eagles which still have brown plumage and don't look so regal. This one had his whites and definitely ruled.

Then we saw our coyote! He was almost invisible. Crouched down in the middle of a recently mowed field, he looked just like one of the clumps of hay. We stopped the car and watched him for an hour or more. At first I thought he must be a young coyote waiting for his mom to come back from a hunting trip. Every minute or so he'd pick up his head from the ground and look around. He got up once and stretched, then turned a circle and lay down again just like any old dog. Finally I spotted another coyote moving along the fence line. Our coyote jumped up and chased that one off so far and fast it was amazing. Then he proudly sauntered back to his watch spot, so satisfied - an accomplished guadian of his territory.

My next blog will be entitled "Ghost Stories". SIE and I have been playing camping. Lately it's involved scary stories around the campfire. Stay tuned!