Herons and Eagles

They're not as abundant as in Alaska, but there's a great place to watch eagles and shore birds that's a lot closer to home. Just up the road from Seabeck, a wonderful tiny village on the shores of Hood Canal, is a small inlet that's a mud flat during low tide. And it's a magnet for birds, who come in at tide change to fish.

We were there last Saturday, out for an afternoon of geocaching. When we spotted two photographers with massive telephoto lenses, we pulled over to see what they were watching.












While I pulled out my camera, two juvenile eagles flew right over Dave's head. There were 6 adults flying the currents, and another half dozen sitting at water's edge. The herons were the bravest, though... one landed right near the bridge, and walked across the stream to look for lunch. These are probably my favorite bird. There's a heron rookery near my home, and I love to watch them build their nests in the spring. And if we're lucky, herons will visit our small pond and fish for frogs.

There's lots of room to pull over on the shoulder on both sides of the road. The bridge is narrow and sits at road level. Still, a fellow geocacher said that he recently stood there to watch eagles, and saw an eagle fly underneath the bridge toward the water, swooped down to grab a fish, and kept right on flying out over the Canal. Wouldn't that be a sight to see!

Delete on closing...

This morning I noticed that Outlook wasn't warning me about emptying my Deleted Items folder when it shut down (the setting was probably reset by a Microsoft update pushed down by IT). When I looked at the folder, there were 1300 files in it!

So I stopped by Greg’s office to tell him I broke my own record for deleted items, and he looked puzzled. When I explained, he turned to his computer and checked his own Deleted Items file. He  said, "Geeez," and just laughed... his folder had more than 8000 deleted files in it!

I appreciate the security and efficiency updates that our IT group is able to do for us these days, but sometimes the oddest things get changed in the process. I shared the story with Davey (he's in California again), saying that I need to go look for the location of that magic toggle switch, and get it reset!

His response was a subject-only message: Tools, Options, Other, check “Empty the Deleted Items folder on exiting.”

That is so very, very Dave!

Speed planting

Twenty-one containers all cleared out and topped off with fresh potting soil, all I need is plants. I went in search of all my favorites this morning: lobelia, geraniums, sweet alyssum, petunias, verbena, nicotiana, sweet William, yellow and pink and red lilies, million bells for hanging baskets, plus new lavendar and rosemary to replace some that died over the winter. And another hollyhock for the new border, still in the planning stage.

Two hours and 134 plants later, all my containers are full and fertilized and watered. Only 65 plants to go... I may have gotten just a little carried away, but the gardens and patio are going to look great this year!