Summer has finally hit Portland and in the last 10 days it went from rainy and grey to 100 degrees!
My garden is finally blooming, although my hydrangeas are quite singed from all that heat. I like the contrast in this marigold pic above. The poppies are my neighbors.
I have been active with my vintage postcard and ephemera hobby. Last week I posted on The Cedar Chest blog about a whole box of damaged postcards that I got at an auction and the surprising family history I found in them - all verified and supplemented by the internet. I adore Google street view.
This month is International Zine Month. I want to actually work on a zine, but I just can't seem to do it. I sit down to work and I end up remembering something I need to do, to order, a blog post I want to do, all kinds of things. Every year I seem to lack even more focus for my own projects. However, at my day job I have become way more focused and creative there than in previous years, so maybe there is only so much to go around.
Not even the deadline of the Portland Zine Symposium is motivating me. And I pretty much mostly get things done because of deadlines. I have lots of ideas! I am hoping to take a few days and go somewhere to focus - my own mini writers retreat.
Last week my friend and I went to the Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge. I have posted about it on here before. It is always different. It changes so much with the seasons. Cheslea is a great photographer and got some good shots you can see on her blog AnimalKind.
I was playing with my camera and found some setting I didn't know existed. You can choose a setting that will pick one color and replace it with another color. This is the result:
We saw some tons of these amazing caterpillars (you can see on AnimalKind) and a raccoon and some sweet birds. We also saw three Great Blue Herons. My camera's battery ran out right after we spotted the first one.
That is the only picture I got. Right after this shot these sweet little red wing blackbirds came down on the Blue Heron pestering it till it left. It got mad and flapped it's wings and made a sound. It was neat to see.
The other wildlife that we actually saw far too much of was the mosquitoes. We tried to go for a little hike on this one trail they have for this purpose and the mosquitoes were completely surrounding us. It was way too much. I think I swallowed one! I recommend that if you want go here this summer you either stay in the car, take lots of bug spray or just wait a couple months.
There were lots of pretty daisies all over and yellow flowers, too This picture below was a mistake, but it's my favorite.
Hope you all are having a nice summer so far!
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