Sunny Morning

So, how about that weather last Saturday? It started out a bit chilly - a few rooftops and lawns around Seattle had frosted overnight - but the sky was clear and beautiful, and the air warmed up in one quick hurry. It is the first truly clear day for some time; I can't remember the last one. A lot of our "sunny" days recently have had clouds either in the morning, evening, or milky high clouds during the day.

I celebrated the spring warmth by a double-header, visiting two parks. First, that inexhaustible fount of early morning goodness, Magnuson Park. Here is my favorite of the lot:

Magnuson Park isn't a huge park; at least, those parts interesting to me aren't. A lot of the acreage is taken up by sports fields, buildings, and such. Considering that, I have always found the natural parts of it to be very right in photographic opportunities - sunrises over the lake, general views of the lake, and summer wildflowers and grassy meadows are some of the highlights.

I took some pictures of cottonwoods, and realized their spring foliage looks a lot like their autumn foliage:

What season is this, anyway!?!? I could probably pass this picture off as autumn if I really tried.

Yes, like autumn except the leaves are a little bit greenish, and smaller. Maybe cottonwoods aren't the most interesting trees to photograph in the spring.

After this, I headed to Carkeek. I spent most of my time in Piper's Orchard, a remnant of an old homestead in the eastern half of the park. Apparently a lot of the original fruit trees, 100+ years old, are still living. The trees there are beginning to come into bloom, and so are the weeds in the grassy lawn. The dandelions and daisies were all closed when I arrived, but as the sunlight came up over it, they opened! I tried to take some pictures of the dandelions but they were not working for me, so I won't embarrass myself with them here. Here are some of my highlights from the orchard, though:

Buds!! There's more in store!

The rest of Carkeek Park is looking nice to, as the forest understory there has largely come into its own and the maples are finally blooming in a big way:

Took them long enough!

This is the March that never ends...

...in some respects. It seems as though the stereo that plays our weather got stuck on the "early March" track, so to speak. Today was slightly better, but still not up to snuff.

Today was an interesting day, to say the least. When I went out to take pictures this morning, the Internet tricked me. The radars weren't showing any showers, and the meteorologists were saying that there wasn't any shower activity within Seattle. Wrong! It was raining (actually, rain-and-snow mixing) in Ballard when I drove through it, and raining the entire time I was at Carkeek Park. I squeezed out a few pictures in periods of lighter rain, but mostly the morning was a bust.

Frustrated, I sought to redeem myself this afternoon at Discovery Park. It was sunny and actually rather mild; when walking back up the hill from the beach, I was comfortable in just a T-shirt. It is really starting to look like spring there, although the maple trees, among others, are still way behind schedule. On the other hand, most of the weeds don't seem to have minded our cold spring so far.

Late, late, LATE!!!! Silly maple tree.

Also, I shot a picture of the same path that I managed to capture in our November snowstorm. Looks a bit different, doesn't it?

Some others of note. Note the non-spring-like-ness of the trees, in comparison to the same time last year.

I don't know why I'm so obsessed with these flowers.

Come on, maples! You can do it!

Oh snap! Convective clouds over the Olympics! I wasn't caught in any showers or thunderstorms this afternoon, thankfully! Two washouts in one day probably would have killed me.

Arboretum

Once again, my shoes and pants are coated with mud. You can tell what season it is by monitoring my clothes. In the spring, mud and grass. In the summer, grass and dirt. In the autumn, mud and leaves. In the winter, mud. So if you ever forget what season it is, just look at my pants, you'll figure it out in no time.

This morning, the mud came from the Washington Park Arboretum, across from the U-District. I'm starting to get used to mud, although it was a bit stickier than usual this morning. The flowering trees were in bright array:

The Arboretum in all of its tranquility and splendor.

These plants are coming up everywhere. I am not sure what they are called (I haven't found them in my book yet) but they're pretty widespread in wet, muddy areas. They're a bit odd-looking, but I think they're cool:

The morning's calm was briefly interrupted (shattered?) by a group of kids on a field trip. They looked like they were in first grade, or maybe second. Our paths didn't really cross until a time when I was taking a closeup picture of a flower, and heard a soft shuffling noise behind me. I turned around to see a little boy, who looked up and simply said, "Oh." I said hello, he said hello back, and he skipped off to his class. As the kids passed, two girls straggled behind in the rear. They were beating their feet into the ground chanting, "Mud! Mud! Mud!" Other kids, already in the distance, were exclaiming such comments as "I found a trail! I found a trail!" They tried to exhort their admirably patient adult chaperones to extend their park visit, to no avail.

It was good to know that someone was enjoying the park as much as I was.

The Endless Hike

Sometimes, hiking/photographing in Lord Hill Regional Park can feel endless. The trails are rather far-flung, especially compared to the city parks I usually visit, and it seems there's always another muddy hill to climb. So my trips to Lord Hill, like this morning's, are usually marked by long trudges up slippery trails. Because all this takes time, visit this park rather seldom.

Still, it's definitely a worthwhile park to visit, especially in May and June. The main trails, for the most part, aren't steep or muddy enough to be prohibitively difficult. And, importantly for me, all that excess water running around makes for very lush vegetation and very mossy trees:

The lush vegetation hasn't really come into its own yet, I found to my dismay. It probably will in a month or so, when all the random undergrowth plants grow, and when the alders, cottonwoods and maples have all leafed out. And when the grass has grown - yes, some parts of the forest here have grass, and it's still pretty small.

Thus, I had a rougher time than I expected getting good pictures. Still, some parts of the park are looking very spring-like:

Also, I finally managed to take a picture that included the inside of a salmonberry flower.

It's hard to budget the time to visit this park on a very frequent basis. You have to allow for half the day, preferably more, since it takes so long to hike in and out and a few of the trails are a bit strenuous. But it's worth it. Sometimes. And it's good for the heart...!

Thunderstorms, Thorns, and Bees, oh my!

As much as dependably warm, sunny days in summer are my favorite kind of weather, there's something viscerally satisfying about spring weather. Dramatic and unpredictable, it keeps me on my toes and always has a new surprise around the corner. If it's raining, there's always a chance that it'll stop and the sun will come out. On the other hand, one can't get complacent about sunshine, or one will find one's self in an unexpected rainstorm. This was the situation in which I found myself yesterday.

At the time that I arrived at the park, the sun was out. I could see rain showers to the north, but at Discovery Park the weather was great. I did see this storm to the west, but assumed that it was one that had formed over the Olympics and didn't really pose a threat:

No problem...right?

That was at about 2:30. I ambled around taking pictures in my characteristic fashion. About twenty minutes later, I noticed how the storm cloud I had photographed earlier had evolved:

Not quite as benign-looking.

After this point, the air cooled off and the winds got quite a bit gustier. About ten minutes later, the storm cloud was so large that, at my widest camera angle, I couldn't fit the entire thing in the frame anymore:

Danger!!

At that point, the clouds moved over the sun and I hot-footed it back to my vehicle, not really in the mood to get rained or hailed on (or wet-snowed on, as apparently happened in some places around the Puget Sound). As I drove out of the park, a few raindrops hit my windshield. Although it wouldn't actually start raining in earnest for an hour or two after that, I complimented myself at the time for a clean escape. Since my backpack is pretty hardy, getting rained on wouldn't have been the worst thing that could have happened to me; I've dealt with it before. But it's nice to avoid it when possible!

Now I'm sure you're wondering about the thorns and bees. My encounter with the thorns was my own fault. Tip: if you're going to sit or lie down in the grass to take a picture, check the ground for thorns and other unpleasant objects. There were some dead thorn branches hiding in the grass that gave me a hostile greeting when I got down to take a picture. Oh well, I got some good angles out of it.

Yesterday also marked the first time this year I had seen (and heard and felt, flitting around me) bees. That is one of my classic spring milestones. I still consider it early spring yet. Mid-spring doesn't come until I get my first mosquito bite, usually in mid- or late April. Late spring happens as soon as it's warm enough to get the shorts out - which, if our weather pattern continues, may not happen for quite some time.

Meanwhile, fare you well, and may your paths be bright and........stormy??

Mud and wind at Discovery Park

...Well, it wasn't all muddy and windy. The winds were actually fairly still when I arrived at Discovery Park this morning, at about 7am. But the winds kicked up by midmorning, such that there were areas in the park where I couldn't even depend on my tripod (which is pretty heavy and sturdy as tripods go) because the wind was wobbling it so. At that point, Fate was entirely responsible for any good pictures I took.

Some of the plants were still wet from yesterday's rain, such as this red-flowering currant. Even with the winds pretty still, it was still quite difficult to get any sharp pictures of this plant, because even the slightest breeze (sometimes too light to feel) can move the plant, and without sunlight the slower shutter speeds compound this problem. And the closer you get, the stiller the plant has to be to look sharp in the picture. But breezes seem to "pulsate," so to speak, so with patience I was able to take pictures like this during breaks in the breeze.

It even got gusty in wooded areas at times, as evidenced by the shrubs' motion blur in this one:

I think that's about it for the cool ones from this morning. The meteorologists are telling me that it's going to stop raining for a little while later this week. If this comes true, there will be more pictures. Even if not, I might risk going out if showers are forecast. I've done it before, and while it's kind of annoying to have to pack up the camera every hour or to and stand there in the forest getting soaked, it's not an insurmountable difficulty. Besides, I have mud boots now! And the rain keeps the parks nice and empty for me...=).