I will be on vacation for the next 10 days, so probably won't be able to post, but I'll have a bunch when I get back! See you then....
Got another book back from the Photo Art Journals group - YAY! This one is "Curiosities", and boy, does it have some odd photos! It's a very fun book, and I'm really enjoying being a part of this group!

Well, I didn't think I'd take any more mushroom photos, but I couldn't resist. These are growing profusely about 15 feet away from my back door. They're just so funny looking! And knowing that they are just the fruiting stalks of a giant underground fungus is just a little creepy!

Thursday Art Day! Jamie brought the book that we made for her with our memories of her mom, Margaret. We had put it together and given it to her at the memorial, but not everyone had seen it, (and I forgot to take any pictures!) so here she is holding it.

The group made the cover by making little squares and collaging them on the cover. Red was one of her favorite colors. She wrote the poem and sent it to Audrey one year for her birthday - we all just loved it! And the page that Jamie has open is the front of the card Margaret made, a collage.

After a couple of nice days, it rained, and rained, and rained today! Toward late afternoon, when I went in to do my errands, I saw this large hole in the clouds, and went down to the beach to see it better!

The sky was covered with dark, low clouds, except for this one clear spot toward the mountains. The tide was high, and the waves were bigger than usual, too, pounding the driftwood onto the beach.

The clearing stayed until after sunset, and then the moon rose almost full!

I had recently joined a new group, the Surface Design Assoc., and the local chapter had a meeting today, so Carol picked me up to attend. It was pretty early, the sun was low, the sky was clear, and mist was lying in low areas. I snapped some car shots as we drove...

We made a minor detour to pick someone up at the Keystone Ferry, so I got some shots of Crockett Lake. On the right is the farm where the historic Crockett Block House is. On the left is a row of pilings, left over, I've heard, from a far distant bridge. Now the whole area surrounding the lake is a State Park.

At the meeting, the hostess gave a talk about her time in Indonesia, and showed many wonderful examples of their textiles. She had a beautiful home and was very gracious.

Very fine day today! Sunny and almost balmy for late October, a pretty sunset with the moon rising in the east.

I went to town today, for a meeting with the Retreat Committee for our Basket Guild. It's the fun meeting - we have all the workshop proposals from the teachers, and we get to choose which ones will be offered for Retreat! It was also very hard - we had almost 60, and could only choose less than 40, so we had to make some tough choices. We want to offer diverse techniques and materials, but also try to include all of the teachers (many submit several options). So it takes quite a while, and our hostess had soup and sandwiches, so it was a good meeting. Later, on the ferry home, I was pretty tired. I hadn't taken my photo of the day yet, and couldn't think of anything to shoot, and just plain didn't feel like it. But I got my camera out anyway, and decided to try and shoot a blur shot of the Mukilteo city lights from the ferry. It ended up being very fun, and I tried different settings, catching the wake of the ferry as well! The section of horizon at the far right that is lighter than the rest is the Boeing building at Paine Field, where they make the 747's and 767's.

Turned out to be a pretty nice day, so I went swamp stomping, a pass-time from my past! Only, at this time of year, the swamp is dry, so I get to explore places that are unreachable most of the year. The skunk cabbage leaves are battered and flopped over, and wild buttercups run rampant over the squishy soil. Strange white fungi extrude out of soggy logs, above, along with other slimy stuff. And then, getting out is not as easy as getting in, for some reason. The edges of the swamp, where there's more light, are choked with brambles, nettles and willow. By the time you have won free, you have put up a good battle! So, back to tamer lands, and the neighbor's Japanese Maple trees. They're pretty all year round, but especially lovely in the fall.

After the storm. It was very wet and foggy this morning, when the sun rose and broke through the clouds. Every leaf and branch had rain drops on them, sparkling in the sun. The fog and mist filtered through the trees, sunlit from behind.

Of course, then it clouded up and rained off and on. At least the wind didn't gust.

I had to hurry and get these photos posted - the Big Wind Storm hit this afternoon, and the power was out for a couple of hours. It came back on, but you never know when it will go off again! We are well prepared, and in fact it's kind of fun for a while. We had a lot of rain earlier, too, then the clouds cleared as the wind blew harder.
Thursday Art Day, and Audrey's Birthday! We had everyone here - Gretchen, Andy, Janet, Jamie, Carol and Audrey. We were out in the main dining room today, as someone else had reserved the private dining room we had been using. And the bridge tournament was taking place in the community room. But it worked out just fine with two tables pushed together.

Andy brought a pretty cake for Audrey, complete with candles!
And there they go!
Andy also brought the quilt that she's working on - a Log Cabin pattern, with two insets of batik panels that she got in Hawaii. It's very lovely, and she's doing the quilting by hand, so that will keep her busy for a while!

Well, they're still forecasting a big wind storm, and we are starting to get some gusts. This row of poplars is tall enough to catch the final light of the setting sun, and the wind starts at one end, bowing the tops to the right at it moves down the row. Time to hunker down and secure all loose items! Of course, the most heavily forecast weather seldom delivers as predicted - the worst storms are those that catch us unawares.

And I swore that I wasn't going to take any more mushroom photos, but there are more and more in the woods every time I walk there. And new types are popping up, too! This is one of the huge ones that cluster around the cedar trees.

Pretty sunrise today - maybe the calm before the storm. Forecast is for a big windstorm in the next day or two. Time to stock up - the first big storm usually knocks down all that stuff that has gotten loose over the summer.

Not much time for photos today - but did go out for a client meeting to look at a remodel job. The clients didn't come home, though, but the contractors and I talked about the project, and I got some photos of the house. I got a kick out of their storage solution for the patio chairs. The house is on the bluff, where it is very windy most of the time, so they have to secure even large items like the chairs. One of their remodeling goals is more storage!

This is a page from an Illustrated Manuscript that we received for a wedding gift. We just remembered about it, and decided to try and translate the Latin, but are finding it very difficult to read the calligraphy! So, if anyone out there happens to know Latin, go right ahead and give us a translation!

Today started out very foggy and damp, and as the sun rose higher, it brightened all the dew-dropped spiderwebs. And they are everywhere! When they're dry, you don't notice them until it's too late.

This one is just getting started - she has a long way to go.
They are strung between the trees everywhere!
Nothing escapes un-webbed.Later on, after the fog burned off, I went for a little hike on some nearby trails, the Putney Woods. It was a very pleasant walk - no one else was around, and it was a part that I hadn't been on before. And, I had a little friend waiting on my car when I got back! The camera books say to focus on the eyes, so I'm assuming that those are his eyes. Very prehistoric looking!

It was a beautiful day today - sunny and warm! And, it's going to be like this for the weekend, too! How nice! So I played hookey in the middle of the day and took Buzz for a long walk in the woods. These tiny fungi crowded the moss on a stick.

And this furry guy was in a hurry to cross the driveway, but I kept putting my camera in front of him. I didn't catch it, but he would raise his head (on the left) when he heard the noise the camera made.
And, there were mushrooms everywhere!! Most of the cedar trees, like this one, had a miniature forest of these large mushrooms around the trunk. Then, there were other types and sizes everywhere I looked. I have never seen so many mushrooms around here!

Thursday Art day again. Audrey, Janet, Carol and I were there - Gretchen stopped by, but has had a really bad cold, and didn't want to stay. I got my photo pages ready to mail in for another Photo Art Journal, the theme for this one is "Curiosities". Carol showed us the quilt she made for a fund-raiser for African women. They produce beautiful dyed fabrics, so members of the quilt group bought the fabric they liked and made quilts to be raffled. Most of the colored fabric in her quilt is their cloth, the black and whites and some other colors are fabric she already had. We all think it is quite fun.

A very unusual cloud formation at sunset. I was in a large parking lot, hence the lightpoles, on my way to the Northwest Basketweavers Guild meeting.

At the meeting, Kay Harradine, standing at right, demonstrated her methods for weaving with natural materials on a cardboard loom. She created a piece of "cloth", then folded and sewed it together to make either a pouch, or a little tissue holder.
Ann chose greens for her project, and we all had a good time weaving back and forth.

Tonight was our Book Club meeting, where we discussed "Water for Elephants", by Sara Gruen.

Above is Dayle, Audrey, Robin, Cathi and Karen in Audrey's apartment. We met downstairs in the private dining room of her apartment building, and it worked out very well.

The book was really good - everyone liked it, which is rare! It starts in the voice of a man in his 90's, and goes back and forth between that time and his 20's, when he worked in a circus. The plot may be a bit fanciful at times, but the descriptions of being old were excellent. It was a quick read, and very entertaining.

Mushrooms! These are all growing right around my house - some in the yard and some in the bark chips in the gardens. It seems to be a good year for diversity!