JADED

June 14, 2010

Some places are just prettier, well more picturesque than others. Where I just moved from on Hood Canal in Washington State was very photogenic. Water, mountains, green everything everywhere. Driving down the road to the turn-off to our street we saw a pair of mountains, actually the Sisters, poised above the Canal. If it wasn’t raining it was gorgeous. Even though I lived there twenty years, I never got used to the view. The view from my house was nearly as spectacular with the exception of the houses across the street. It truly was a lovely place to live, except for the rain.

I knew what we were getting into when my late husband and I moved from Big Fork Montana to Poulsbo Washington. Neither of us was stupid and we could read the papers and weather reports. When we scouted the area out prior to making the decision to move it was February. The grass was green (we had just come from Montana remember, snow up to the nose of a tall Indian) the flowering trees were all in bloom and it was warm. It was still snowing in Big Fork. There wasn’t any snow in Poulsbo, and we didn’t have any false illusions as to why the grass was green. But there wasn’t any snow and it was warm.

We told people, after we had lived there a while, that yes it rained but at least we didn’t have to shovel it. You say things like that when you live in places where the sun really doesn’t shine nearly as much as you’ve been accustomed to. Live and learn.

After my late husband died and Trav and I married we had this terrible decision to make. What it amounted to is we had two homes which were nice places to live in the summer. (It doesn’t rain as much in Washington in the summer) Only one of those places had really good fly fishing and it wasn’t the one which was three hours one way from rising trout. So we made the decision.

There were several things I had wanted to show Trav before we moved, but we ran out of time to do it all. I mentioned that to him and he said, “Well, that’s why people take vacations back to where they lived, so they can see and do all the things they couldn’t do while they lived there.” And hopefully we’ll do that because Washington really is a beautiful place. I never took for granted the beauty around me - nor did I ever forget who created it.

We spent last Tuesday morning checking bluebird boxes up Trail and Divide Creek. Trav does the checking; opening the boxes and either counting the number of bluebird eggs/young or finding the nests abandoned cleaning them out in hopes another bluebird will make a new nest there. Unseasonable cold weather kills baby birds and keeps sitting females too cold to successfully incubate her eggs. Lack of bugs leaves babies unfed. So nests, eggs and sometimes babies are abandoned, which is discouraging for those monitoring the nests.

In some nests there was a tiny flock of babies. One nest had seven little mouths hoping the man checking the box was dad or mom about to feed them. One box had babies just hatched, so fresh they were still wet. Occasionally a mother bird was sitting on eggs in the box and Trav could capture her long enough to band her leg. We laughed about daddy bird coming home and asking where the new jewelry came from.

Trav checked and I recorded the results from the 50 bluebird boxes he monitors. They will be checked again next week and some of the hatchlings will be big enough to band then. The purpose of this is to report to the US Department of Fish & Wildlife the numbers of birds and the recovered bands themselves give information on how widely spread they are and the general health of the species. I had been along with Trav on a couple of these trips and I’m amazed about everything associated with the birds. The arrangement of the feathers, how they overlap, and the varied specific lengths of the feathers, how they are aged again by the feathers and how very tiny the babies are is an absolute marvel.

As we were driving back down the trail to the valley the scene before us was beautiful, snow topped mountains rising up from the green winter wheat and alfalfa growing on the valley floor. I said something about how beautiful it was and Trav said, “That’s why I live here.”

A week or so ago Trav did a demonstration for the U.S. Forest Service as part of International Migratory Birding Day on how mist nets are used to catch birds for banding purposes. The birds were very cooperative and the folks who attended got to see the whole process - and like everyone who is exposed to it – they were truly amazed. Why?  These little tiny yellow warblers migrate from Montana to South America, no compass, no GPS - nothing but instinct. We couldn’t do it with a compass, GPS and Google.

I lived in Washington for 20 years, and before that I lived 17 years in Montana. I haven’t forgotten that it’s cold here in the winter, and that the bloody wind blows too. It’s not rain and if we’re here we probably will have to shovel it, and thank you God, it sure it beautiful.

I haven’t forgotten.

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