Kingfisher Cove

Wild

So, some people on the island actually captured cougar photos! Can you see it? It’s near the upside-down kayak on the bulkhead.

I’ll crop it:

These are a little clearer (note the highlighted box in the 2nd pic):

They are blurry (pretty low-res—why do people post low-res pics?) (Aha! These two are from an outdoor webcam), but I think it’s quite clear what it is. This one was north of the bridge, so probably 6-8 miles from our place. Other sightings have been south of us just a little ways, like 2-3 miles tops. There may be two of them (or more?), or else this guy covers a lot of territory. Apparently cougars do.

Yikes.

Update: Another Harstine resident captured this on his outdoor webcam:

And here is one that was posted in a news blurb somewhere (not here!) that was a PET! 80+ lb. cougar as a PET? Apparently it’s on the way to a wild animal sanctuary, similar to the one here on the island. (Have to say, they sure are purdy…)

But still, yikes.

Then, speaking of wild animals. Holy weird, Batman. We heard thunder paws on the deck, which isn’t particularly unusual because Nikki especially is inclined to run full-tilt the length of the deck, just because. But this sounded like TWO animals, and my first thought was, “Is Nikki chasing Wylie?” Nikki came flying through the window in our bedroom (floor level) and continued flying into the bowels of the house. I went into the bedroom and here was a calico cat with a collar standing on the window sill glaring at me, hissing and spitting. WTF?! I chased her off and figured that was that.

A short time later, here is the calico inside the house chasing both Nikki and Wylie down the hall, into the studio, back down the hall, into the closet and bedroom! It was a spitting/hissing three-cat circus! This strange cat* was bold. Frighteningly so. John and I finally corralled her in the living room to try to get her out of the house through the deck doors and she actually lunged at John, making him take a couple of steps back. She hissed and spit and lunged again! We finally herded her out the deck doors and closed everything up—the window, pet door, deck doors. Luckily we were able to get OUR cats inside, but we decided to keep them locked up for a day or two. Sure enough, calico cat came back and John had had it, so he squirted the hose at her, which she did not like at all. We saw her once after that and all John had to do was pick up the hose and threaten her with it. Then she was gone.   

*I’ve seen her before, last summer I think. She was sleeping on the deck sofa. She must belong to somebody, what with the collar, but we don’t know anybody else along our little beach community who owns a cat except for one cool orange cat named Skipper. Did you know that 99% of calicos are female? It has to do with the X chromosome. I read up on it, and it’s pretty technical, but interesting. Still, her aggression and boldness was upsetting! (And yes, she was quite pretty. Except while baring her teeth).

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“Left and Center in the U.S. are well in line with the rest of the world; American Right is an outlier. This isn’t polarization, it’s radicalization of the Right.”

Happy/Sad

I’m so glad that my son is home from his Navy “underway” that took place the entire summer (which breaks my heart because we all missed out on so much since he was gone). But, his work schedule, along with his Navy wife’s, is beyond nuts and there’s no good time in the near future to be able to get together. (Weekends don’t mean “weekends” in the Navy). Sigh. I need some Quinn time. (Let alone Nate & Sandra time!) It’s hard to be so relatively close, but so far away.

I realize that I am…down. I haven’t been in my glass studio for over a year and a half. That’s never happened before. I read a lot to escape. I thought that once trump was gone we’d be so much healthier as a country, but the crazies have just become crazier. And the goddamned unvaccinated people have made life miserable for all of us who have done the right (and sane) thing. I am furious with those who are doing the stupid thing. If you are unvaccinated at this point, I have zero regard for you.

Even my deck flowers are struggling. I feel like I’ve kept them watered well enough, and it’s true that they’re still blooming, but they are not thriving. Are any of us?

That is all.

Hazards of Rural Living, Even On the Beach

We still keep getting messages on “Harstine Community” (Facebook), and Nextdoor about cougar sightings, and they are pretty close by (just south of us). I keep reading descriptions of cougars killing deer on the beach. It’s nerve-wracking, but there have been ZERO photos of said cougar(s), much like can anybody point to photos of Big Foot or UFOs (that aren’t fuzzy)?

Partly because of this, and also because it’s August which means Wylie is a nutcase, being gone 23/7, we locked both cats inside for a couple of days and nights to hopefully force Wylie to “settle.” She eventually did, but boy did she make us pay. She became my appendage, draping herself over my arms and insisting on snoozing there while I was perusing my laptop, making my arm completely numb. Or, she’d hang out on John’s neck. And then, she got into vomit mode, which is a rarity for her. I mean, really? Ugh. We finally re-opened the window (and the pet door) and Wylie has been sticking close, which is good, and which was the hope. Yes, the reports of the cougars bother me, but we’ve all got to go on with our lives, right?

The other messages I’ve been seeing on “Harstine Community” and Nextdoor are about “Pigs In The Road.” There are apparently a lot of pigs on the island, because I’ve been seeing these posts for years. Pigs! WTF? Is this the Ozarks or something? (No, I’ve never seen a pig in the road!)

Update: Ha! Here’s a pig pic I purloined from Nextdoor:

 

And then there was our Butcher Box delivery this week. About 10pm one night, Alexa informed us that “Motion detected in driveway.” I punched my phone and could see (in the dark) that a vehicle had parked and a figure was hauling a large-ish square box. A bit later, after John had hauled in the Butcher Box (which I was frustrated with how late it had been delivered), I got a text message from our neighbor saying that he found the box in the MIDDLE OF THE ROAD up by the gate, about a 1/2 mile from our house (so he was the “figure in the driveway.”) In fact, opening the gate scooted the box into the shoulder of the road. It was delivered IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD. (The gate code was printed on the address label!) Oh man, was I pissed. I was very thankful that our neighbor had discovered it, and also that the meat was OK (it was on dry ice that was still active, so everything was well-frozen). But JEEZE! I let Butcher Box know that I was not a happy camper about that. We have been having a whole lot of issues with deliveries lately via UPS and FedEx (Lazy! Won’t even drive down the driveway to deposit them at the top of our stairs. I genuinely appreciate it when delivery drivers actually deliver to the door, but I understand if they just dump them at the top of the stairs because the stairs are steep and a heavy load is dangerous. But at the top of the driveway? OR IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD A HALF-MILE AWAY?!

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Weirdly, all ten of my fingernails are LONG. This has never happened before, ever. They have always been crap nails, and so for about 20 years I had acrylics, until we moved here in 2015. I gave up the acrylics because I didn’t want to have to be obligated to drive 30 miles to have them filled every couple of weeks, plus I didn’t want to deal with the constant expense of that. They looked BAD for a long, long time. And now, suddenly, they are long, and I actually have to continually file them down so that they aren’t hampering pulling up my pants, cooking, or especially typing. Even still, they make typing challenging. I’m flummoxed. Always, I had godawful encroaching cuticles, wimpy nails that split if I looked at them, plus I bit them down to nubbins. I have since I was a child! So this is weird. I obviously haven’t been biting them.

Get a load of that gnarly pointer finger. I suspect that is arthritis? It doesn’t hurt, though. It just looks…gnarly.

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I’ve received a couple of videos of Nate and Quinn watching TV together and Quinn can’t keep his hands off his daddy. It’s so…poignant! Even in this still pic, they’ve gotta be touching:

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“What Donald Trump offered was the freedom to be your worst self. And it turns out many Americans have been waiting for the opportunity.” – Sherrilyn Ifill

A Week in the Life

Just before it was time to jump up and start cooking dinner one night last week, I finally finished my Book Club book, the day before Book Club! Talk about cutting it close! It was a long book, basically a saga, and it really was excellent. The writing was astounding. It took me a while to read it, which is unusual for me, and I can’t really explain why, except maybe there were times when it drug a bit. Plus, there’s the saga aspect. But ultimately, a great read.

And now I’m excited to read the new Stephen King book that just dropped in my Kindle because I’d pre-ordered it months ago and here it is! [Update: currently reading it, and it’s goooooood!]

It hit 97° a couple of days last week, which doesn’t sound so bad after those late June days we endured in the 100s. But oh hell! Hot is hot. It got smokey, too, which hasn’t been a big issue for us this year. Sunsets were surreal.

It’s been over 60 days since we’ve had measurable rain here on Harstine. Jeesh.

Lots going on, and so much of it is not good. The Afghanistan war has finally ended after 20 years, and naturally the “ending” has not gone well. When you invade a country and war with them for 20 years and try to unsuccessfully change their tribal culture, well, it ain’t gonna work out in a good way. (Why did we not learn this from Viet Nam?) Yep, the Taliban immediately took over, and wasn’t that a given? I mean, duh? All the American military training of Afghans over those 20 years stuck for about…3 minutes. And then, boom. The Afghan “president” skipped out of the country and the Taliban rolled in to all the major cities, all was done. This is why no other president has had the courage to go through with shutting this down. It was never going to be a good ending. Biden is taking a lot of heat, but trump set the trap with “negotiating” with the Taliban, allowing 5,000 of them to be released from prison, including the “new” Taliban leader—plus trump’s regime refused to allow Biden’s incoming administration to be involved in the transition. (They also shut down the refugee process, thanks to trump and that evil lizard, Stephen Miller, hence that has been an ordeal trying to get the Afghan allies out of the country before the Taliban hunts them down to kill them).

Taliban + American Taliban:

 
Also, Covid is skyrocketing in the South, and also in the republican counties of just about every state of the country. Even Washington and Oregon are hotbeds right now. Those of us who are vaccinated are OK, aside from some “break-through” cases, which are typically mild or asymptomatic. (They seem to be more frequent now, though, because this new Delta variant is so powerful). Masks for indoors are now required again in Washington (officially Monday) and people are wringing their hands about school starting because kids under 12 can’t be vaccinated yet. I am beyond furious. The goddamned right wing fanatics, including GOVERNORS in Florida and Texas and other southern states, are completely responsible for where we are right now. “No mask mandates in schools!” “No vaccine mandates anywhere!” White hot furious at their imbecility. We’d all have polio if these fuckers were around in the 1950s.

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Time has gone by and I’m sorry! I’ve been lame on here. I blame books, news that makes me stare into the middle distance, TriPeaks (gah, so addicting), and the spinning clock. What a week. And it’s BEEN a week since I started this post.

So, a few things. Remember when I discovered Wylie’s food completely GONE one morning and wondering if the BAT had eaten it? (No, zero evidence of a bat, or any other living flying thing anywhere…) Well, we actually saw Phantom Cat out on the deck one morning! He is feral, and has been around since way back when we had the trailer. Rough-looking Tom, beaten and bruised and stout. We haven’t seen him in a few years! And there he was on the deck and he MUST have come in through the window at night and partook in Wylie’s catfood. A sizeable amount of dry kibble was disappeared as well.

Also, I woke up one morning (early) to fluttering/chirping sounds coming from the bathroom so I hobbled out of bed to see what the ruckus was, and here was a little finch in the window sill fluttering with Nikki up on the counter batting it around. (If I didn’t love cats, I would hate them). I scooped the poor bird into my hands (zero weight) and hauled it out through the deck doors and as soon as I opened my hands, it flew away. (I later found blood on the bathroom floor, so it was obviously injured. I sure hope it survived OK…) Damned cat. With her innocent expression when she head-butts me.

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I just know for a fact that if we lose the House/Senate in 2022, the craven republicans will impeach Joe Biden. For no reason. Just because. Craven.

Worst case nightmare? We lose the House and Senate, republicans name trump as Speaker (doesn’t have to be a House member), they impeach Biden, and then they make trump president. Tell me that won’t happen. Because remember when there was no effing way trump would ever be elected president?

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Nate’s back from his underway! He left soon after Father’s Day, and arrived home today. Here’s a cute video of him surprising Quinn:

 

Outing

For the first time in quite a while, John and I went out to lunch at our favorite diner in Shelton yesterday (it was busy! Which kind of surprised me). It was fun to have my favorite chicken salad sandwich on a croissant with a little side salad. I wish I could replicate that chicken salad. I tried replicating it once, but it was nowhere near the same. What makes it so good are the halved grapes, which I included, but there must be something else that I don’t know about that brings it altogether and makes it so very nummy.

Afterward, we drove to Olympia (actually Lacey) to Mor Furniture (“For Less” ) and put in our order for our new living room furniture: sofa, loveseat, and recliner! And yes, it’s the exact same as what Nate and Sandra bought, including the same color. The only difference is that we got the recliner and they didn’t. But, it’ll be about 6 weeks before we get it all. Thankfully they deliver and even set everything up for us! Nate had mentioned that he about died hauling the pieces in their house (very heavy) and then having to do a fair amount of assembly (crabby). We’ll just need to make sure our old crap furniture is outa here (somewhere?) and I suspect the floors beneath will be, uhm, really gross. I’ll need to scrub, that’s for sure. It’ll be fun, and it’s OK that we have to wait. I like having things to look forward to.

Here’s the sofa with the center console open. It closes up and you can’t even tell it exists! In fact, after Quinn saw a photo (maybe this one), he ran over to their sofa and opened up the center and Sandra about fell to the floor because she didn’t realize it did that!

Here’s how it looks without the opened console:

The loveseat is similar but a little smaller, and the center console is more apparent. And then here’s the recliner (which doesn’t rock, but that’s OK):

I’m excited, but I will be able to tamp it down because I’ll have to (because six weeks). It’s similar to John’s new truck he ordered a couple of months ago that likely won’t be available until far later than our furniture arrives. Supposedly, the Ford Maverick is to begin production sometime this month, but because there has been a huge issue with the supply chain of microchips, it will likely be later. I hope not much later. John has been having a number of issues with his current truck (2007 Ford 150 with uber-high mileage) and we would sure like it to live until the new truck arrives. 

And here's Quinn who figured out the sofa console! (Lol!)

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"Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful." — Lucius Annaeus Seneca (often known simply as Seneca) (ca. 4 BC – 65 AD)

Just a Quickie, Probably

Not a lot of doings lately, so mostly just some thoughts. I’ve been loving our weather these past couple of weeks, even though there have been some mornings with the marine layer that we had to wait to burn off. But this week has been stellar! I love so much getting up in the morning and coming out to the kitchen with my coffee and seeing the blue skies and the blue water out all the windows! It’s just stunning. Yeah, we’ve had some haze from wildfire smoke, but it hasn’t been terrible. I heard that it rained a BIT up in the Seattle area yesterday, and that a number of areas around there had an impressive thunder and lightning storm. Apparently we were too far south for that.

There have been critters, of course. Not long ago I went into the bathroom and noticed that a rug was wadded up and the toilet plunger was tipped over, and while I was “sitting there” a little mouse ran by. Jeebus. (At least it wasn’t a SNAKE SLITHERING BY!) John, thankfully, dispatched it. But I’ve been mostly disturbed about an incident a few days ago when a “bird” flew over my head as I was sitting at my spot at the kitchen dinette where my laptop is. It flew over my head (and I loudly gasped) and then over John’s head on the couch in the living room. And then flew UP to the clerestory windows. AND THEN—nothing. We have not seen it since. Where the hell did it go? There is absolutely no sign of it anywhere, dead or alive. When I commented about it on Facebook, my longtime blogger friend, Karen, said, “Could it have been a BAT?” And that has been stuck in my mind ever since. I recall that the bird flying over my head was entirely black. It was smallish, but not “finch-ish." Is it hanging upside down somewhere? (Our ceilings are hella high). I’ve been looking up photos of what guano looks like. (No, haven’t seen any). I’m also remembering that years ago this same blogger friend, Karen, experienced a bat in their house and every single family member had to have a series of rabies shots, even though none of them ever touched the dang thing. And then there was yesterday morning when it was clear to me that SOMETHING had eaten all of the cat food; our cats would not have done that. They just absolutely do not do that; Nikki doesn’t eat wet food at all, and Wylie only eats a tiny bit and leaves the rest for me to toss out. Always. It was cleaned up. I said to John, “Would a bat eat cat food?” I mean, WTF??!!

Watch this space.

I’ve watched some of the Olympics, but mostly late-night. Last night was OK seeing the track & field, and also Simone Biles’ balance beam performance. But for the most part, NBC makes a point just about every single night to focus on the teeny tiny bikini-clad beach volleyball matches almost exclusively. I made a derogative comment about that on Twitter tonight (mistakenly, obviously) because I was then HOUNDED by male commenters saying that it was the only reason they even tuned in. (I mean, those bikini bottoms they are required to wear, leave nothing much to the imagination). Says so much, right?

Been reading! Currently my Book Club book—Dancing at the Rascal Fair. It’s good, and I’m enjoying it. I don’t necessarily choose to read historical fiction, but when I do, I’m usually enamored. And this is just so well written!

And I’ll leave you with Quinn dancing in his hand-made tie-dye shirt. First, here’s a pic of him making that shirt! (He sure does love making these!)

 

"I am so tired of the sociopaths in positions of power." —Mary Trump

Feeling…Prickly

Here we are with our (lately) typical August sunset:

Almost a tomato. For the last several years, this is what August brings—smoke from wildfires. This never used to be a thing, but now it is. The fires are a thing. The fires are now a season. John told me this evening that he has noticed during his travels (mostly to the Hydro Museum, and also to Olympia for his mom’s ongoing probate business) that a LOT of the fir trees are brownish/red and that is not normal. (Also extreme fire hazard…)

We have many different types of people who live on this island, and I suspect the majority of them are trumpers/conservative/wackadoodle since we are rural, but something we all tend to have in common is a focused concern about fire danger. At least according to the commenters on Harstine’s “Nextdoor,” I get that distinct impression. There are no hydrants here, and the volunteer fire station (I believe only one) has a pumper truck. That’s it. Gulp.

Normally I am enamored with the Olympics; not quite so much this year. Seems like every time I turn them on I’m seeing beach volleyball with the camera lingering over the players’ itty bitty teeny tiny bikini bottoms. (WTF?!) I’m troubled and saddened by Simone Biles’ mental health issues. There is a lot of Covid there, and why didn’t Japan have a better handle on vaccines? This really shouldn’t have happened, I’m thinking. It’s now into track & field, and it’s interesting to watch. Sort of. I dunno. Maybe I prefer the winter Olympics now with Tara Lipinski and Johnny Weir throwing out their snark and displaying their ridiculous amazing fashion. Sigh.

Look what we had for dinner a couple of nights ago:

It was goooood! I’d marinated the sirloin steak tips overnight, and then splashed some of the marinade over the veggies after I’d strung them on the skewers. Mmmm.

Things have finally settled down with our new meal kit service (Home Chef) in that they are finally delivering on time. We’ve been pretty impressed with their food, too. Good stuff! I love having three days a week when I don’t have to THINK about what’s for dinner. Now and then, on those days when I do have to think about it, I come up with something fun, like kabobs! (But it’s certainly not a regular thing).

It’s true that I’m not as full of dread on a daily basis as I was during trump’s administration (oh my god what a horror show that was, every single day). But I continue to be sickened about the aftermath of that terrible time. The lies continue. The insanity continues. The idiocy continues. Dontcha know that THIS is the month that trump is supposed to be “re-instated?” That’s according to the Pillow Guy and Guiliani and the Kraken woman, and many GOP elected congress people, and all of the batshit “Q” people who believe that the wildfires are caused by “Jewish space lasers.” If you are reading this paragraph sometime in the future, you must be doing the “What now?” head twitch.

And now they’re fighting the vaccines. It’s willful ignorance, it’s red state governors refusing to encourage vaccination, and putting the hammer down against masking or other mitigating measures to beat this thing. Cases are skyrocketing again—among the UNvaccinated—especially in the republican states! I swear they are gleeful as they sabotage our collective efforts to tamp down the virus. Why are there so many terrible people?

It. Makes. Me. Furious.