Silly Internet Game

Here is a fun little game visit my city and help it grow.

This is the first day of Spring Quarter but I don't go in until tomorrow. I will be well enough to go to class but not well enough to hike. I hope to be well enough to go on a hike next weekend. I'm going to Snoqualmie pass to do some snow innertubing with my family on the weekend too.

This quarter I am taking a class in art theory and beginning drawing. I hope to learn how to draw the trees that I love so much. Last quarter went really well for me, I hope this quarter goes well too. Fall quarter was a night-mare and might have turned me off science forever.

At my evaluation conference (we don't get grades at Evergreen) my prof suggested that I go to grad school. No one has ever suggested that to me before, I was surprised. He also said my evaluation was the equivelent of an "A". Pretty kewl! I did not get that kind of positive feed back last quarter.

Morels are sprouting in Seattle and Carnation so I took the girls out to look for them near home but no luck. I've never had good luck with morels. I was actually looking for verpas and I looked in an area with cottonwood trees. I also looked in a clear-cut that once had cottonwood trees but there was too much snow. Maybe I will go back later this week.


I'll leave you with a picture of a white chanterelle I found last year but did not pick. When I returned to pick it I foudn that someone else had picked it for me. I'm glad I at least got a picture of it.

Our Family Vacation

http://olygeoduck.blogspot.com/ is where I will blog about our summer vacation. It is by invitation only. If you want to read it send a request now so you'll be set when the trip starts in a few months. I just need your email address.

Here is one thing you can do to prevent a slaughter on the river
author: Columbiana In a matter of days, officials plan to begin killing sea lions on the Columbia unless we stop them. They plan to close the area to witnesses during the killing, to prevent anyone from seeing what suffering and murder look like. (Anything that is so wrong that it cannot be witnessed by the public should be a warning sign to all concerned.) The time is now. We must all do something, and we must do it now.
I would like to be more helpful in coming up with ways that you can make a difference, but for the moment, all I can do is to beg you to PLEASE contact the people below, and PLEASE do what you can to educate the people around you about this issue. Tell them the truth about the sea lions. Let them know that it is simply not true that sea lions are "overpopulated." They are not new to the area, they are native to the region and to the river. Give people the facts. Sea lions have ALWAYS been on the Columbia river. They are not to blame for the salmon crisis. Humans are preying on far more fish than sea lions are. Killing sea lions is not a solution to this problem.

It is very, very important that you begin contacting NW state legislators to let them know that you do not support killing sea lions. It's urgent that lawmakers know that you care. Yes, it would be nice to have concrete plans for things we could do that are more flashy than just begging "authority figures" to spare the sea lions, but for now, this is one of the most important things you can do. Washington state is accepting public comments about this right now, until April 4th. PLEASE, it is URGENT that you write. You can contact them here: SEPAdesk2@dfw.wa.gov or you can send a letter to Teresa Eturaspe, SEPA coordinator, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, 600 Capitol Way N., Olympia, WA. They MUST hear from you. If you care, please do this one, little thing. It is not too much to ask, to save a life. For more information about this, you can go here: http://wdfw.wa.gov/do/newreal/release.php?id=mar1808a

Contact the governor's offices of both Washington and Oregon. Governor Kulongoski can be reached here:
MAIL
Governor Kulongoski
160 State Capitol
900 Court Street
Salem, Oregon 97301-4047
PHONE
Governor's Citizens' Representative Message Line
503.378.4582
FAX
503.378.6827

Governor Gregoire can be reached here:
Governor Chris Gregoire
Office of the Governor
PO Box 40002
Olympia, WA 98504-0002
Call:
Governor's Office (360) 902-4111
For relay operators for the deaf or hearing impaired, please dial 7-1-1
Fax Governor Gregoire a Letter:
(360) 753-4110

If you would like to see some of the sea lions who are at risk from this, indeed if you would like to meet your neighbors the sea lions of the Columbia, you can see a short video of them here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQC-NHNK65c

These are the sea lions who are depending upon you. Get up right now, please, for them, and make some calls. Send some letters. Send some emails. Please. Contact this one first SEPAdesk2@dfw.wa.gov. Lives are depending on this. The sea lions are counting on you.

Some Spring Break

I’ve been ill all week, so much for getting in some hiking on spring break. I’ll be lucky if I feel 100% by the time Spring Quarter starts. At least I got to stay home while I was ill. All of my family has this and it is nasty. I was ill last week at this time and today is the first day that I have felt any better. But I spent most of today in bed. The laundry is piling up and the house is getting messy. My 11 year old is sleeping on the couch; she has been there since she got home from school. My 4 year old is sleeping on the hallway floor just outside my bedroom. My husband is sleeping in his shit room (the one room that I never clean) we call his room the “shit room” because he was too lazy to look for the cat poop. I’m sitting in bed and composing this on my lap top.

I’m number one on the wait list for a drawing class and I should get it. I was going to use staircase as my studio but the Forest and Park service have now decided not to re-open Staircase until June 9th. I’m bummed about that. It really has been tough finding anything other then a logging road to hike on this winter with so much snow and all the closed wildlife gates and Staircase closed again.

I’ve managed to lose weight without going hiking. I’ve been too sick to eat for the last week. But my hunger is back today so I know I am recovering. I have not written my self evaluation for the quarter because I have been too ill. Even this blog entry is written at only 5th grade level according to Microsoft Word.

Denny Ahl Hill

I’m sick from September to April every year since my oldest started kindergarten. I was in bed trying to decide if I should hike. I woke up to late thanks in part to the time change. I had to be back in Oly by 5:30, it really was too late to go hiking. I lay in bed trying to decide what to do with my day, and then the phone rang. It was a geocacher looking for company to find a local cache that had been sitting unfound for a few months.

That phone call got me out of bed and onto the trail. I thought we had time to hike 6 miles RT but we had to rush to get back down because there was enough snow to make the going slow. Without the snow it would have been easier to make good time.

We were actually hoping to be able to drive to the cache but snow stopped my Jeep 3 miles short of the cache. The old rail road grade was gentle and there were some pretty spots in the second growth forest.


No views at the top but a good workout. There might be view on a clear day.

6 miles RT with 1024 feet elevation gain.

Wore snowshoes for almost the entire way.

14 miles on my new shoes


Beauty:

Hike Rating

Difficulty: