Sunday, May 26, 2019, 2:45 pm — Six baby birds … house sparrows … discovered today! … sunbathing after the rain … they live in the shrub next to the deck … free to go anywhere they want … the mesh was to keep cousin cat, Moka, safe on the deck …
Teeny Tuxedo meows in the 1st video … she and Perkins always stay inside …
Saturday, September 22, 2018, 1:34 am — Teeny … queen of Mom’s china cabinets …
A perfect sky-high cat track … when they’re feeling lively, Teeny, Perkins and cousin cat, Moka, like running from one end to the other …
Tuesday, September 18, 2018, 12:55 am — Perkins … loveseat … focused on something new … something plaid … a new vintage 1980s sheet … freshly laundered …
Take a gander at the nifty, makeshift Moki babygate cat blocker … brilliant yellow yardstick … painter’s-taped to the inside of a fan box …
Tuesday, September 11, 2018, 12:57 pm — Cousin cat Moka … changes are afoot …
Thursday, August 9, 2018, 12:00 am — Midnight … time for Perkins to ramble, while cousin cat Moka is in his bedroom … She’s found his toys … and the vintage Made in Finland … Didas Deken 100% Zuiver Wol (Dutch) … Didas blanket 100% pure wool … Christmas present from L …
… Snapfish photo book … created for L from the Pylkki archive … cover, at Grandma and Grandpa Ahola’s, Hockinson, WA, 1960s …
Wednesday, August 8, 2018, 11:57 pm — Perkins … and cousin cat Moka’s pet stroller … “So, you think I’ll get in and go for a ride, do you?” …
… “Nope! … think again!” …
… “Not when the sign clearly says … WARNING: Never Leave Pet Unattended … that squirrel on the scarf looks plenty apprehensive, too!” …
Sunday, July 1, 2018, 7:11 pm — Hummingbird and fuchsia … first time on video … through the sliding glass door screen … cousin cat, Moki, was watching, too …
Wednesday, June 20, 2018, 5:57 pm — Cousin cat, Moka … livingroom Kitty Sill … just missed photo of him chewing his new-ish wheat grass … Cooling down nicely with evening breeze from the west … 90° … back to 70s tomorrow …
Saturday, May 19, 2018, 5:36 am — Last night’s raccoon was up early … ready to watch Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s wedding on the telly … 5:36 am … the carriage ride from the church … but cousin cat, Moka, was vigilant … no wedding crashers allowed! …
Below … BBC … a relief not to hear yammering American commentators …
Before all that, the Investiture of Charles as Prince of Wales, July 1, 1969 … up close to the tv with my Craig reel-to-reel tape recorder (audio) … from my blog, Movies, Of Course! … pre-VCR days …
Sunday, April 15, 2018, 12:31 pm — Cousin cat, Moka, and his organic wheat grass …
Saturday, February 24, 2018, 6:27 pm — Teeny Tuxedo … Who’s that back there? …
Cousin cat, Moka … in his red pet stroller …
Tuesday, November 28, 2017, 7:10 pm — Perkins … brand new Kitty Kick Stix … short style, but still great fun … a gift from cousin L and cousin cat, Moka … Perk’s on top of the cat condo … watch where her tail goes! …
7:12 pm … Kitty Kick Stix … on the floor … and Perky’s there …
Thursday, November 23, 2017, 9:12 am — Perk and Teeny Tuxedo … welcome their first Thanksgiving bird guests of the day …
… a Mourning Dove and Steller’s Jay …
Cousin L has gone to Aunt D’s … Moka will get special stroller treats while she’s gone! …
Saturday, September 16, 2017, 4:00 pm — Cousin Moka visits Teeny Tuxedo … the safest way … in his pet stroller … cat condo on bed to make room …
Moka Meister …
Eagle Creek Fire, Columbia Gorge (Oregon) began Sat, Sep 2, jumped Columbia River to Archer Mnt. (Washington), early Tue, Sep 5 … Smoke, ash falling all the way over here … Kept windows closed all Tue thru Wed evening … new fans helped, but felt claustrophobic after midnite, Wed, opened windows … closed again during day Thu … Thu night smoke finally disappeared, wind blowing from west.
Tuesday, September 5, 2017, 8:27 am — Cousin cat, Moka, looking up at the falling ash …
Ash on the umbrella … wood chips … rather than papery thin …
“Eagle Creek Fire taken from Washington side of Bonneville Dam on Monday, Sept. 4, 2017. Photo by Tristan Fortsch via KATU News” …
This is horrible news. According to the Oregon State Fire Marshal’s Office, the Eagle Creek Fire jumped the Columbia River Gorge last night and is now burning on both sides of the Columbia river as of Tuesday morning.
The Eagle Creek Fire, which was originally started by fireworks, moved approximately 12 miles westward through the Columbia Gorge last night between 9 p.m. Monday night, and 5 a.m. this Tuesday morning.
According to the Oregon State Fire Marshal’s Office spokesperson, Damon Simmons, a spot fire broke out on the Washington side of the river near Archer Mountain burning 10-20 acres. On the Oregon side, another spot fire of approximately 100 acres is burning near Rooster Rock State Park and Multnomah Falls.
Pray for rain, thank you to all the firefighters risking their lives, and god bless to all who have lost during this tragic fire season. — Sasha Lyons – September 5, 2017
Photo gallery, Tristan Fortsch … Eagle Creek fire … from Washington side …
By Michelle Nijhuis, The New Yorker, September 7, 2017
Where I live, on the edge of the Columbia River, in southern Washington State, the light is yellow and strange, scattered by the thick smoke of a wildfire about twenty miles downstream. The Eagle Creek fire, which started last Saturday afternoon, on the Oregon side of the Columbia River Gorge, quickly spread over more than thirty thousand acres of dizzyingly steep terrain; as of Thursday morning, it was only five per cent contained. Over the holiday weekend, the fire trapped a hundred and forty day hikers on a popular trail, obliging them to spend a cold, hungry, and terrifying night in the woods. It has since forced about seven hundred people to evacuate their homes, and hundreds of others to prepare to leave on short notice. Some of the most beloved outdoor spots in the Pacific Northwest are in the path of the blaze. Already, the region has begun to mourn the transformation of its waterfall-fringed forests of Douglas fir and hemlock.
My neighbors and I are lucky: we haven’t been evacuated, and we don’t expect to be. At this distance, we face not mortal threats but inconveniences and oddities. Sticky white ash coats the laundry outside, packages are delayed, major roads are closed, and outdoor recess is cancelled. The sunrises and sunsets are lurid. The streets are unusually quiet—everyone is staying inside as much as they can—but the smoke sneaks around windows and doors, and the smell is inescapable. We cough and rub our eyes and hope for the wind to stop.
I’ve lived in rural parts of the western United States for the past twenty years, and every summer has had its smoky spells, some more than others. I know people who have lost their homes to wildfire, and I know what I would take from mine if I had to evacuate. Fire is part of most of the region’s forests, and as such it’s an occasional part of our lives, too. But wildfires are bigger and more destructive than they used to be, and the fire season now stretches beyond the summer and well into the school year—in some places, even nudging into what we used to think of as winter. Climate change, combined with a century of overenthusiastic fire suppression and the resulting buildup of fuel, has turned the once occasional emergency of wildfire into a chronic condition.
The smoke that lies so heavily on my town is mostly from the Eagle Creek fire, but some of it surely comes from the dozens of other wildfires under way in the Pacific Northwest. In early August, we were wreathed in smoke from British Columbia; in late August, it was coming from central Oregon. As of Thursday, seventy-six fires were burning over a million and a half acres of the western U.S., and a hundred and thirty-nine were burning in British Columbia, which is suffering its worst fire season on record. So much ash has rained down on Portland and Seattle that many residents are recalling the 1980 eruption of Mt. St. Helens. Like Atlantic hurricanes, our wildfires are now overlapping, with little or no relief between; on Monday, when a friend posted on Facebook that he was “doing fine,” another asked, “Sorry, but which disaster are you in?”
The Eagle Creek fire was apparently started by a fifteen-year-old boy from Vancouver, Washington, who on Saturday afternoon was seen lobbing a smoke bomb from a hiking trail into the steep basalt ravine cut by Eagle Creek. Liz FitzGerald, a Portland woman who witnessed the incident, told me that the boy was part of a group of about a dozen teen-agers, and that his friends looked on, some giggling, as the firework dropped into the two-hundred-foot-deep canyon. “Don’t you know how dangerous that is?” FitzGerald told them. “This whole place is so dry!” They shrugged.
FitzGerald continued up the narrow trail, but after a few minutes realized that she should heed her own warning; when she turned back, she saw that the thin plume from the smoke bomb had already thickened into something more threatening. She ran the mile and a half to the trailhead, and when she passed the group of teen-agers, she told them that they had started a forest fire. “What are we supposed to do about it now?” one said. “Call the freaking fire department!” FitzGerald replied.
In the trailhead parking lot, FitzGerald told a Forest Service law-enforcement officer what she’d seen, and, as they talked, she noticed that the teen-agers had reached their own vehicle and were already pulling out onto the highway. The officer, with FitzGerald in tow, gave chase and stopped the alleged perpetrator; charges have not yet been filed, but an investigation is ongoing. Social media has since lit up with fury at the bomb-thrower, but FitzGerald points out that the entire group of teen-agers—and a number of passing adults—watched his actions and did nothing. “Everyone wants to just nail this kid, but so many people saw this crazy behavior,” she said. “They were all complicit.” Five days later, the smoke has settled in—a stinking, gritty reminder that the rest of us are complicit, too.
Sunday, August 6, 2017, 7:33 pm — The red pet stroller has mysteriously shown up again … with cousin cat, Moka, inside … Perkins and Teeny Tuxedo are intrigued …
Butterfly bush … planted by cousin L
Sunday, July 16, 2017, 6:33 pm — Perk and Teeny Tuxedo think cousin cat Moka’s red stroller is a pretty cool ride …
Moka is just as intrigued by Perk and Teeny watching him … through the butterfly bush …
Saturday, July 1, 2017, 5:13 pm — Teeny … cat-loafing on the sofa … eyes on birds on the deck … L and cousin cat, Moka, are in Seattle … house-sitting at Uncle Robert and P’s while they’re in Europe …
Wednesday, June 21, 2017, 8:23 pm — Cousin cat, Moka … going walkabout in his new red Pet Gear stroller …
Wednesday, February 22, 2017, 8:06 pm — Perk spies the reflected eye of cousin cat, Moka, on the other side of the baby gate … The gate is up during the day, then moved at night when Perk and Teeny Tuxedo have the run of the livingroom …
Wednesday, January 11, 2017, 12:21 am — When all this snow showed up at midnight, there sure as shootin’ wouldn’t be any classes when the sun came up … campus closed … finally went back Wednesday, Jan. 17 …
3:17 am … After watching Sometimes a Great Notion, 1970, Paul Newman, Henry Fonda, Lee Remick, filmed around Lincoln City, Oregon … looked outside again … snow is as high as an elephant’s eye …
Cousin cat, Moka … stepped out on the deck for a few seconds … quite enough for him …
Sunday, December 25, 2016, 12:17 pm — Cousin Moka … Christmas centerpiece cat …
Hyvää Joulua! … Merry Christmas, Finnish-style! …
1:09 pm … ADORABLE vintage Scotty dog … he rolls on four red wheels … and squeaks!
Card from Perkins and Teeny Tuxedo … “Person . who . is . not . our . Mom . but . takes . care . of . us . and . is . our . equal.”
Rollo, the vintage Scotty, surveys nine hand-painted feline faces … He’s fearless! …
Rollo meets Kirky … a true Scotty from Kirkintilloch, Scotland … Brought him back from my 1999 home exchange … a month in Kirkintilloch … a month in Durham City, England … with a wee week in between, visiting Korhonen relatives in Mikkeli, Finland …
1:29 pm … Orange tabby Perkins is watching the festivities from the top of the scratching post in the bedroom … blurry Moka stopped by to see how she’s doing … red bag of World’s Best Cat Litter holds up the baby gate …
This year’s new ornament, ordered from the White House Gift Shop … “2013 White House Historical Christmas Ornament, American Elm Tree, Honoring President Woodrow Wilson, 28th President of the United States, 1913–1921, Handmade in the USA” …
The 2013 White House Christmas ornament honors Woodrow Wilson, the twenty-eighth president of the United States. The years of Wilson’s two terms in office, from 1913 to 1921, are defined by the unprecedented devastation of World War I, yet Wilson himself would be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1919, and his life is distinguished by his resolve that the Great War would truly be the war to end all wars. It was President Wilson’s extraordinary quest for a lasting world peace that inspired the design of our ornament.
The centerpiece of the 2013 ornament is an American Elm tree planted by President Wilson on the North Lawn of the White House on December 18, 1913, just before Christmas. This snowy scene is surrounded by a 24-karat gold-plated frame comprised of elm leaves on the innermost circle, a wreath of olive branches in the middle, and holly leaves bordering Wilson’s monogram on the outermost circle. Two peace doves perch upon the olive branches, bearing banners that announce “The White House, Christmas 2013.”
The words inscribed on the reverse side of the ornament were delivered by President Wilson in his War Message to Congress of April 2, 1917: “Peace must be planted upon the tested foundations of political liberty.” — White House Gift Shop
Sunday, December 25, 2016, 12:53 pm — Perk’s official Christmas Day portrait … no snowy white Christmas for us …
One of the fairly new Kitty Kick Stix still magnetizes her curiosity …
On top of the scratching post … whatcha lookin’ at, Teeny Tuxedo? …
Beyond the bedroom door … must be cousin Moka …
Friday, December 16, 2016, 12:45 pm — The bird herd is back! … the bushbazooms … dare you to enlarge photo and count ’em …
Wait! … this isn’t Perkins … or Teeny Tuxedo … it’s … Moka … on the 3rd Kitty Sill … prime bird herd viewing spot …
Monday, December 26, 2016, 1:26 pm … Bird herd! … flying in for more delicious, nutritious suet …
Friday, November 11, 2016, 2:48 pm — Hey, Perky … why’s the hair on the back of your neck wet? … Teeny Tuxedo and I had some smelly prescription flea medication put there … That’s why the window’s open in November … Cousin cat, Moka, got it from the veterinarian … now we’ve all had one dose … We’ve never had fleas before …
Perkins and Teeny Tuxedo 