Tom and Patti Saunders
Dog's Breath Acres 2009 Annual Report
2009 Annual Report
I guess 2009 was the Year of the Dog at Dog's Breath Acres. Our pooch Lydia really came into her own this year, one fine doggie. Snohomish County, bless their hearts, opened a new park, Paradise Valley Conservation Area, less than 10 minutes away, with miles of walking trails through mostly second growth forest. Every morning we head over there for an hour's walk, rain or shine (or cold, it's 13 degrees out as I write this; Lydia and I will be leaving shortly, Patti's wimping out). It's the highlight of Lydia's day, she gets maybe five miles of sprinting through the woods, and great exercise and fun for the humans. A couple more pictures are here and here. Oh, don't worry, Phoebe's doing fine too.
In March we did our big vacation event of the year, a trip to Ecuador. Here are some bird photos from the trip.
Strange as it may seem I managed to avoid hurting myself much this year; perhaps we're getting more careful in our old age. On the other hand, some time after I had stabbed myself in the thumb in the kitchen, Patti and I were watching TV and an ad for knives came on. She wondered why we didn't have a meat cleaver, but looked over at me and said, "Oh, I know why not." But sister Kate stepped in admirably to keep up the family tradition, breaking her kneecap in October.
I did manage to complete one big project at Dog's Breath Acres, rebuilding the two downstairs bedrooms into a guest bedroom and a studio for Patti's burgeoning art projects. The bedroom is now the "Bird Room", full of all our bird artwork and books. Just outside the window a bird saga took place last spring and summer. When we arrived home in late March from our Ecuador trip a pair of robins had built a nest up under the deck just outside the front door. Our sudden comings and goings scared them off, and they built another (after a few tries) under a different part of the deck. Once again we were too close, so it was off to a nearby tree. A couple of weeks later we heard the robins making a big fuss, a crow had landed at the nest and grabbed the chicks. They tried again in another tree, same results. Finally they tried again under the upstairs deck, with its protection from predators. This time we kept away, and they successfully raised three chicks. What surprised me the most was how they could built a complete nest in just a couple of hours, which they had to do about 10 times this past year.
Here are a couple panoramic shots of Dog's Breath Acres, one from the east, and one from the south.
Scott and Joelene and kids Andrew and Michael made the big move back from Connecticut, settling into a nice house in Gig Harbor. They're close to their new jobs, Scott at Cardiac Health Specialists (scroll down to the bottom) in Tacoma, and Joelene at Group Health Cooperative. Now that they're within driving distance we'll be able to visit a lot more. Patti's been down a few time to help Joelene with the baby sitting while Scott's been studying hard for his board certification tests, the last of which was in December. So I guess after about 30 years he's finally done with the schooling.
Allison and Mike and Kiara and Sienna are doing fine, living in nearby Machias. The world is being overrun with labrador retrievers. They've got Susie, half yellow lab and half golden retriever, and black lab puppy Daisy. We put up a fence around their yard to hold them in, and also to contain Lydia when we leave her there while on vacation. It must be a madhouse with her there, the dogs all love each other and the kids. We spent a summer weekend camping out on the Pacific beaches with Allison and Mike, the kids, and dogs; and Scott and Joelene and their kids stopped by for an afternoon. We were using a dinghy to ferry people across a stream when Lydia finally proved she could swim, when she jumped out. But she's still afraid of deep water (but loves puddles), and we have no idea why she's not interested at all in retrieving.
As usual I got in a number of hikes in the Cascades. And in August I took off for some camping and hiking in Banff and Jasper Parks up in British Columbia. Once again (same thing happened last year) I was stopped at the Canadian border and had my car thoroughly searched. Both times everything was going smoothly until the guard ran my passport through the computer. "Could you please step out of the car Mr. Saunders?" Must be some other nefarious Thomas Saunders, or perhaps an evil twin, who they don't want visiting Canada. Coming back at the USA border, just a wave on through. In any case, the scenery and hiking were great. Had a wonderful moment hiking up a ridge in front of Mt. Edith Cavell in Jasper. There were a few groups of hikers strung out up the ridge, and the top group spooked a caribou, which I noticed as he jogged down a snowfield above me. He reached the ridge trail and was headed right for me, and was just yards away before finally noticing me. He detoured around, a little out of breath, with the mountain in the background, and finally stopped and rested in another snow patch below. My first caribou. Here are a bunch of photos from the trip.
Only one new bird this year, an out-of-place black-tailed gull off Tacoma. Luckily there were a bunch of experts at the spot when I arrived, I never would have found her (or him) by myself, among the thousands of other gulls resting out on a log boom in Puget Sound. That's only one new American Birding Association Area bird this year; but I got about 130, including number 1000, down in Ecuador for my life list.
Patti made a couple of trips down to Berkeley to visit her sister Andra (recovering from leg surgery) and Jennifer. And in September Patti and I took a road trip down to there for a couple of weeks, visiting Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks, plus some other spots. Our new Thule pod on the roof of the car was a great help, we could actually see out the back. In 1974, I somehow managed to fit all my possessions into my Datsun 510 for my move to the Pacific Northwest. Nowadays Patti and I need every cubic inch, plus the roof, to just go camping for a few days. Can't understand it.
Once again we spent Thanksgiving in Neskowin with Kate and Carol and Ger and Ken and, of course, Boswell. Kate had recovered enough from her busted kneecap to cook the bird, and nobody else was injured, for a change. Lydia and Boswell again hit it off like long-lost siblings, with plenty of sprinting on the beach, and Lydia managed to avoid being swept out to sea by a sneaker wave. Ger and Kate have gotten the birding bug, and took us up the coast a ways to some good spots. We saw a white-tailed kite, a pretty good bird for the Northwest.
Patti: "I'll stop at Costco on the way home, if they're still open then."
Tom: "No problem, they're always open until 8:30.
Patti: "Oh, I could have been shopping there every evening!"
Patti and the "Garden Girls" (I prefer to call them the "'Gang Green") were busy again making projects in the garage and elsewhere, and just hanging out and having fun. Here are some of their concrete leaves. Patti has gotten into pastels with a passion; here's an early work.
I suppose you should always be honest with your spouse, but I confess there's been one thing (at least) that I'd never told Patti. I thought my nickname from college, "Sparky", would be buried and forgotten once I graduated, and it remained unspoken for nearly 40 years. Then I made the fatal error of signing up on Facebook, where one of my old college buds Hal Kennedy found and friended me. One pleasant summer evening, Patti and I were sitting around; she was surfing on her computer. From across the room I heard her say, "Sparky??....". Hal had written something to me on Facebook. Damn Facebook.