Happenings on the Hill (along with 100th birthday party countdown).
Not the photo of the century (it was nearly dark), but this visitor came nose to nose with my cat through the window screen three feet from my head where I was reading in bed.I can’t remember what this is, some kind of prickly. A lot of bush for a single spectacular bloom.Pass the peas please.
I am a Pacific Northwest native transplanted to the southeast for 36 years. In 2012, I returned to my childhood home and fell in love with this corner of the country again. I am a grandmother, a storywriter, a teacher, an attention payer, a hiker, and a back roads wanderer. Check out my website (and my memoir) at www.gretchenstaebler.com.
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8 thoughts on “Flora & Fauna Friday”
Wow, what a gorgeous prickly! The leaves are also spectacular, with that beautiful, unique pattern. Flower is almost superfluous. (I say before it blooms. I look forward to a pic of the bloom!)
Wow. That’s a bear. I’ve always thought that I wanted to look out a window and see one on our property…but I don’t think I’m really serious about it. I think I’ll stick to the occasional coyote. 🙂 Party on!
That’s what that would be alright. Number 3 in recent years (and my second sighting of this one this year). The first one was live trapped and relocated. The second one the wildlife folks said they could relocate it, but really we are the encroachers here, “get a whistle.” Pick up small children and act big! Coyotes scare me more, really. Bears eat berries, not people. That’s what I tell myself 🙂
Sure…unless you startle one on a hiking trail and it decides to chew on your head. That’s my only nagging paranoia when we’re out hiking. We’re quiet hikers. Just us and the bears. Oh, and Big Foot. But, that’s my husband’s dream, not mine. 😉
Haha. I hike alone–it’s very quiet! There is a bear whistle hanging from my knapsack. The only time I’ve ever been nervous was at Lake Quinault on the loop trail, with its “beware of Cougars, don’t hike alone” signs. Um. Now cougars I’m afraid of. And they could be anywhere, out of sight, ready to pounce.
Here’s why I’m more afraid of bears than Cougars: you won’t feel death my cougar. He’ll drop on you from above and will take you out before you know what hit you. However, you’ll likely see a bear coming and he’ll crunch on you and roll you around for a while before you’re dead. This line of reasoning somehow works for me.
Hah! You’re hilarious. I need to meet you. I never thought of it that way. Bears are really afraid though. I met a bear on a trail many years ago, and it ran like a bat outta hell the other direction.
Writing Down the Story 
Wow, what a gorgeous prickly! The leaves are also spectacular, with that beautiful, unique pattern. Flower is almost superfluous. (I say before it blooms. I look forward to a pic of the bloom!)
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That is the bloom! At least I think so.
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Wow. That’s a bear. I’ve always thought that I wanted to look out a window and see one on our property…but I don’t think I’m really serious about it. I think I’ll stick to the occasional coyote. 🙂 Party on!
LikeLike
That’s what that would be alright. Number 3 in recent years (and my second sighting of this one this year). The first one was live trapped and relocated. The second one the wildlife folks said they could relocate it, but really we are the encroachers here, “get a whistle.” Pick up small children and act big! Coyotes scare me more, really. Bears eat berries, not people. That’s what I tell myself 🙂
LikeLike
Sure…unless you startle one on a hiking trail and it decides to chew on your head. That’s my only nagging paranoia when we’re out hiking. We’re quiet hikers. Just us and the bears. Oh, and Big Foot. But, that’s my husband’s dream, not mine. 😉
LikeLike
Haha. I hike alone–it’s very quiet! There is a bear whistle hanging from my knapsack. The only time I’ve ever been nervous was at Lake Quinault on the loop trail, with its “beware of Cougars, don’t hike alone” signs. Um. Now cougars I’m afraid of. And they could be anywhere, out of sight, ready to pounce.
LikeLike
Here’s why I’m more afraid of bears than Cougars: you won’t feel death my cougar. He’ll drop on you from above and will take you out before you know what hit you. However, you’ll likely see a bear coming and he’ll crunch on you and roll you around for a while before you’re dead. This line of reasoning somehow works for me.
LikeLike
Hah! You’re hilarious. I need to meet you. I never thought of it that way. Bears are really afraid though. I met a bear on a trail many years ago, and it ran like a bat outta hell the other direction.
LikeLike