Author Archives: Pamela

Someone has been breaking into my house and putting so, so, so many clips of raccoons on my computer. Also downloading too many photos and many of the same ones over and over as if they don’t understand how an iPhone works.

Last weekend the plan was to go to the Native American Art Market in Santa Fe, NM with my cousins for a girls weekend. My niece was a model in a fashion show and it was going to be a weekend of fun and getting away.

BUT, life intervened and there were some elders with health situations and everyone cancelled at the last minute and went to Orleans instead.

I am oversimplifying but this isn’t the place for the whole story.

This is the Klamath River at Tashawnik. There was a big fire upriver called the McKinney Fire that killed three people and vaporized a huge swathe of gorgeous scenery not to mention many homes. This is different than the Slater Fire from the 2020 fire season that killed two people and also vaporized a huge swathe of different gorgeous scenery and many homes in Karuk territory. I didn’t get to see the damage from that until June of this year.

I don’t know how to articulate what it’s like to see the damage from wildfires like that other than to say it’s hard not to cry and it’s really awful.

Back to the photo above, there was a huge rain storm and debris went into the river — I think below Happy Camp. The river looks like chocolate milk. Also a bunch of fish died.

Getting back to the Orleans trip, we had time with Mom and time with the health-impaired elders who are hanging in there like champs.

This is an elk track from Tashanik — a big one.

I got the news that the trip was cancelled while I was en route to the airport so I arrived in Orleans with my Santa Fe ‘let’s go out on the town clothes.’ I wore the same shorts (borrowed from my sister) for most of the trip. It was much hotter in Orleans than forecast for NM.

We worked around the place. Here is a giant bear pile kindly left right under Mom’s window, in the garden and on the hose to make sure we didn’t miss it. We ate lots of zucchini and cucumbers. Went on some nice walks. I read a lot. We managed to wring a decent weekend out of some not great circumstances.

This is from the trail cam. I liked the silhouette.

I found a whole folder of great clips that I set aside. And that’s other than the big folder of saved clips. I try not to save too many. And I fail at that.

My sister-in-law gave me some heirloom seeds from Fort Vancouver gift shop. I tossed a bunch out there but only a little bit of success. Look at this beautiful lavender poppy!

The seed packets had these ridiculous suggestions for spacing out the plants. Six feet. Maybe I misread it and it’s six inches. I will be more aggressive next year.

This is the garden from a few weeks ago. Looking wild.

It’s dried up a bit now. We had a great bean harvest and I’m letting the rest stay out there to harvest as dried beans that I will use to plant next year and to eat. I let a bunch of peas dry out, too. I dug up a huge bunch of potatoes. We need to eat potatoes. Cucumbers look worthless as usual.

There are a few pumpkins, not a huge crop this year which is fine since we still have a ton of pumpkin in the freezer. Tomatoes are starting to come in. I picked two in one day last week.

Look at these cute little guys playing. At the moment, most of my camera card is raccoons playing around the bucket. I’ve been meaning to put the camera in another spot in the yard but never seem to get around to it.

I am scheduling posts again — busy week and big adventure next weekend in Santa Fe and hopefully I will have photos to share when I get back. Or rather, hopefully I will get around to sorting through the photos and posting a a few.

Look! Babies! I have been wishing we’d spot some babies riding on mama but also worried about getting what I wished for. Where is everyone going to end up living?

There was a special where we could add Paramount Plus to our extra-large existing menu of TV choices for cheap so we hopped on it.

I started watching one of the new Star Treks. I didn’t expect to watch the whole series but this show is perfect.

It’s like a crime show. There’s a problem introduced at the beginning. In the middle it seems like all is lost. But then they solve the problem and everything is good by the end. There are some threads that carry over several episodes but it’s not like a mini-series where it’s really a long movie.

There are so many great shows out now but sometimes I need something that isn’t dark or grim and gets resolved at the end.

I brought my camera card in after only a couple of days and it had over 100 clips on it. I assumed it was going to be waving sunflowers in the wind but instead, this mama and two little ones hung out in the yard a couple of times.

More of these funny guys to come.

Bob bought some yummy bread that was delicious but also covered with sesame seeds and those seeds got into every little crevice in our kitchen. I’m still finding sesame seeds.

But also: I would get that bread again in a hot second.

We have to add peanut butter pretzels to the ever growing list of things that I like that don’t like me.

I love them so much but they don’t sit quite right — not really indigestion. It’s like even if I carefully count them out and eat say, 5, my body feels like I ate half a bag and I feel bad for the rest of the day.

I think this is the last bag.

Other foods that I like that don’t like me: scallops (oof, the indigestion) and most of the time sparkling and white wines give me a gruesome headache.

And in even more tragic news: I gave up on the project of forever. This is a writing project very near and dear to my heart that I have picked up and set aside a number of times over the years.

I tried many, many things. I used it as a project for a class. I added characters. I tried splitting it into shorter interconnected stories. I can’t figure out how to make it work. I realized that it was making me hate writing.

It’s always funny to read articles (listen to podcasts, whatever) that talk about writer’s block. It’s not a block. I can write forever. But a story isn’t just typing. The parts need to fit together. And it seems weird since you’re making it all up — figure out a way to fit it together.

But I can’t. So. It’s put away and I’m working on some short stories for fun and in the fall I plan to write another romance.

Kathy took this one. Hello, Tommy Shaw!

Last week I went to a concert: REO Speedwagon, Styx, and Loverboy aka High School Jukebox.

It was super fun — great afternoon/evening not too hot with clear skies. We saw the space station pass overhead.

Hearing all those songs — some I haven’t even thought of in years.

Huge barn filled with people my age: having a blast.

Me and two other guys wearing a mask. hehe.

All the bands sounded terrific and gave great performances. Tommy Shaw is the true immortal and looks exactly the same.

Rockin’ the Paradise.

I kept joking that when I was young, I would have spent so much time getting ready for a concert and picking my outfit and puffing up my hair and taking 15 minutes to apply eye make-up.

This time I was like: pants with pockets! I’m ready to go.