You've got tumbleweed

I took this photo with my cell phone while I was out for a run on Sunday.

I thought it was funny not only that a tumbleweed had gotten caught in a row of chest-tall mailboxes, but that no one bothered to remove it. I didn't either.

When I looked at the photo, I really liked the contrasting colors of the mailboxes, the tumbleweed and dry grass, and the deep blue winter sky. I am a bit annoyed at the telephone pole sticking up in the background.

Entertaining advertisements

Here are a collection of advertisements I saw in the passing pages of The Athena Press.

Thinking of 1909 as the 'new year' is a bit astounding. It's also interesting it held as much importance as it does now.

Suits for $1.50!

The elixirs and cold remedies are always entertaining.

I just thought this last one had a neat design.

Bright and shiny

Here are the pages of The Athena Press as they come out of the laminating machine, looking a lot like when they leave a printer. Even moments after the process, the print already looks a bit bolder encased in plastic.

The ladies rolled the pages up to transport them back to the Athena Public Library. There they cut them apart and straighten the pages out, sometimes weighing them down with heavy books. If the pages were laid flat to begin with, they told me, the drying plastic would warp and make the pages wavy. The best way to let them cool is to roll them, the ladies said.

Toe the line

While laminating the pages of The Athena Press, the ladies had to be precise and line things up exactly right. This meant not only watching to prevent wrinkles and folds, but also making sure there was enough distance between the pages for a border of plastic, but not too much to be wasteful.

The Athena Press

Monday I visited with volunteers laminating 100-year-old pages of The Athena Press.

Kayla Durfee and Deborah Johns put in several hours' work at the machine. The pair operated much like a machine themselves, sorting, aligning and feeding pages into the laminator, and rolling pages as they come out.

Melting

I took these photos Saturday when everything started melting. I did this from the safety of my dry porch. It wasn't until late afternoon that I was able to safely leave the house without shoe chains or ski poles.

A lot of ice collected on the rose bushes in our front yard.

Frozen

Yes! I am back!

The recent ice storm has inspired me to take photos, and post on my blog again.

The last few months have been busy, and it's hard to make time for the little things.

Speaking of little things, I took this photo on one of my haphazard walks to work last week. One of my neighbors has a cute little sapling, that had one cute little red berry left . The ice perfectly encased it, as if coated in glass. The dim light made it hard to catch, and this is my best effort.

Protest

As I said before, I spent a bit of time with the protestors at the Nixyaawii Governance Center on the Umatilla Indian Reservation.

I didn't spend the night, though I commend those who did. When I spoke with them Wednesday morning, my car temperature gauge read 18 degrees. I think it was about 10 degrees warmer the second morning.

Though it was a short occupation, about four days, it was still interesting to see people out and talking about what they are passionate about.

Sunrise

I spent much of last week visiting the protestors at the Umatilla Indian Reservation. I heartily respect the fact they spent some of the coldest nights this year with little shelter other than a sleeping bag or heavy blanket. They said they watched shooting stars and listened to coyotes sing.

Happy Halloween!

I visited the Harris Jr. Academy Fall Festival on Saturday. Here are two photos — Spiderman vs. a storm trooper in a pillow fight and a witch riding a mechanical bull — I took in addition to the one that ran in Sunday's paper.

Cogs on the prowl

At the risk of becoming one of 'those' people, I've posted these photos of our cat, Cogs, bravely exploring the front porch.

Cogs is an inside cat -- we've done this on purpose as we live on a busy street -- but we're starting to let him out every once in a while.

As shown in the bottom photo, he was very nervous at first. But by the middle and top photo he had carefully walked out to the edge of the porch.

This particular evening, sometime last week, had a brilliant sunset. The yellow, orange an pink light turned everything a nice summer color.

Jumpin' Jack

Here are two of my more off-kilter shots of the Hacky Sack guy in Seattle. Of course, these could have been some of the best shots, if I had aimed right. But I still like how they turned out.

Hacky Sack

I know it's been a while since my last post. I have been on vacation for part of this month, then in a manic rush to catch up at work after being on vacation. Apologies, apologies.

I spent last weekend in Seattle. At a park near Pike Place Market a guy was feverishly playing Hackey Sack in the afternoon sun. He was great to watch, especially because he kept flinging out his arms every time he did a difficult move.

My challenge was in aiming the camera just right to get his silhouette while holding the camera low to the ground. This meant I couldn't look in the viewfinder, so I was shooting blind. I do this pretty often, but it is still a haphazard technique. My post tomorrow will show a few of my less on-target shots.

Smoke screen

There has been a lot of field burning going on around Hermiston and Pendleton this past week. I spent some time on Saturday chasing smoke, until I realized it had to be a controlled burn because there were no sirens or lights.

This smoke stack is from Monday, when a field burned just of Interstate 84. This picture doesn't seem to give the sight justice. It seemed much larger when I drove by it.

Learning lessons

OK, these are my last camp photos.

Though the above photo isn't the best shot, I like the look on the girls' faces as they laughed. As teacher Trisha Shell, the one holding up the thermometer in the lower photo, put it: the kids really got into the science when they split into their small groups. However goofy they may act as a pack, those who came to camp were focused, inquisitive and very interested in the world around them.

In the details

Sorry my posts haven't been up to date, but I still have camp photos I want to post!

These more photos of kids counting rings, with the help of Katy Gray, with the Umatilla National Forest.

Counting the years

I learned about an increment borer at science camp. This T-shaped tool drills into a tree and takes out a pencil-width cylinder. The kids can count the rings on that sample to find the tree's age.

This girl had great expressions. Above she works hard to drill into a dense Tamarck tree. Below, I like the look of intense concentration as this girl carefully counts the rings on the sample. The wooden piece was also delicate, and often fell apart as soon as she took it out of the device.

An eye for the forest

Here two boys at the camp measured the slope a patch of ground using a kilometer. One boy held it up to his eye, while pointing it at the other boy, who was about the same height. The instrument told him the difference in slope between the two of them was 10 percent.

Then the boys drew the landscape around them in their camp journals.

I really like this photo, as both of them look so intense on what they're doing

Off to camp

I had fun at a science camp with Milton-Freewater kids last week. Other than getting eaten alive by mosquitoes, it was a great day in the mountains.

I was only able to use one photo for my story over the weekend. But I took many more. Deciding on which photo to submit wasn't easy (I actually submitted four, but the editor only used one). Fortunately I have lots of room here to post many more science camp photos.

This was my best group shot. It has all the kids following their intrepid leader, Bob Chicken, with the Walla Walla Basin Watershed Council. In addition to running the camp, he also runs a science club during the school year.

Get 'em sheep

Another competitor at Caledonian Days — this one had four legs and not kilt.

I always enjoy watching dogs do what they love. This was no exception. Though some of the sheep dogs had trouble getting the sheep to comply, a few handled them masterfully.

We stood at the bottom of the bleachers, where dogs took the sheep through one gate and around another. It was a good spot to get them on the run, if my shutter is fast enough.