Spring in the Pacific Northwest

Spring was wet and cold.

As it mostly is.

The wonderful green of the Pacific Northwest comes with a price.

I walk in our forest and watch the season change.

Not many trees to cut this year, but the ground is a swamp.

After all the lovely hot springs on our trip home from Mexico (click here) we soon had withdrawal symptoms. Time to fire up our own hot spring in the woods.

It’s a rather primitive cattle feed tank with a small metal box inside that is actually a wood burning stove and heats up the water on demand.

  

It sits deep in our forest right in the middle of all the natural beauty. It is a superb delight to soak there when it’s raining cats and dogs or other miserable conditions try to wear you down.

 In the forest the fern babies get up now and unfurl.

You can see them grow every day.

They unfold in jubilant celebration.

They don’t know how the economy sucks.

 The frogs couldn’t care less either.

  They sing in the night and have nothing else in mind but sex.

  The “endless” rain has subsided; its miraculous power is dormant now in the ground waiting to do its ceaseless transformation. It will take a while before we can walk in the forest without rubber boots again.

The plants have bent under the weight of the rain, now the water rolls off; clean and fresh a new season begins.

Tokens from the last rain remain like precious pearls.

  The birds go crazy in the woods. Parvin collects dandelion leaves for our spring salad.

This year the skunk cabbage is so big that you can hide in them.

Spring-sushi in the woods.

And the nettles are coming big time.

The first harvest for nettle tea is already stowed away.

The cherries were late but are doing well.

When I have my back pains I often look at this whale vertebra-disk hanging on the wall of our house.

A new lampshade was needed. I didn’t wait long and made one myself. Some plywood left over from a project, an old broken tent pole, and some old surplus fabric.

It cost almost nothing.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

                                                                           Klaus May 25. 2011