Sean

Beautiful day in the PNW!

Mt. Baker from the Lopez Island ferry terminal.

I don't have a photo credit to share, but this is a recent aerial image from my home state showing McLeod Farms in McBee, SC (that's "MAC-bee").

You are seeing the blooms on McLeod's peach trees!

Good spring morning, Orcas!

The forceast last night said we'd have showers most of the day today, but it was wrong. We took advantage of the sunny skies to hike up to Orcas Knob, where we had a clear view of both the Olympics and the Cascades.

#PNWspring is here!

Vernal equinox evening in my part of the PNW:

44°, wind chill is 26° with a second night of extended howling winds.

The Canadians call this -3°, which is so much more accurate. Thanks, Canada 🇨🇦

Feels like winter to me, but the daffodils say otherwise.

The sun came out yesterday, and despite the cold, I bolted out the door to take advantage...only to have clouds immediately roll back in. Still, a beautiful PNW Spring of Deception afternoon. Photo at Emmanuel Episcopal on Fishing Bay in Eastsound Village.

The colors of a gentle sunset are reflected off of Fishing Bay near the head of East Sound, Orcas Island.

Walked the dog down to Fishing Bay and caught the last 10 minutes of light. That’s Indian Island in the foreground, part of the San Juan Islands National Monument (Thanks, Obama!), as the tide creeps back into the sound.

Today was a great day on Orcas!

NB: Several knowledgeable local sources have said we’re actually in Spring of Deception, as Fool’s Spring was what happened when it stopped raining for that last two weeks in January. Either way, I’ll take more of today! #wastateparks

This is my first time wintering/springing in the #PNW, so I'm not sure how much of this meme is truth versus jest.

But so far, it checks out!

Have just started watching #thetraitors, and am absolutely living for the crackling fashion plate Alan Cumming.

Photo credit: Peacock

Lots of love ❤️

Following from the Pacific Northwest

#librarypeople

Family photo at Mountain Lake, Orcas Island.

The fog is dense in some places and light in others because of the microclimates resulting from the enclosed, sheltered terrain around and above the lake.

A tree stump is reflected in the waters of a fog-covered Mountain Lake

The trail from Mountain Lake to Twin Lakes runs up a narrow, steep-walled valley that was completely free of fog, a microclimatic rain shadow where fog and mist that form over the lake can’t settle into the valley due to differences in air flow, temperature, and humidity.

@shawnsteffy.bsky.social came out to see us for the long holiday weekend. We hiked Mountain Lake and up to Twin Lakes, which still had snow and slush from the storm at the start of the month. 42°F and 100% humidity made for excellent hiking conditions in the old-growth forest in Moran State Park.

A photograph of the facade of the Orcas Island Public Library showing its name in a classic sans-serif all-caps architectural font.

One month into my #PNW adventure and taking stock of the many ways life has changed.

Here’s a fun one: I’ve stopped using my Kindle and instead…

#librarypeople

My girl, peering out the back door.

My dog in the passenger seat of my truck, ready for a ride to the park. Dog is my copilot

My dog walking across the first snow of the recent winter storm on the deck. She hates water, but goes bonkers in the snow.

During low tide at the head of East Sound on Orcas, my dog excitedly sniffs the mudflats for dead crustaceans. On warm summer days at the shore back on the East Coast, her idea of heaven is a walk out on the mudflats. Her favorite find is Provincetown Hot (but dead) Crab. 🦀

Honestly, don’t we *all* need to see some more dog content at this point? I ❤️ this black mouth cur

Now THAT’s a good boy!!!

I really like the part of Bluesky where people post photos of their dogs.

Thank you, Dog People. And Good Boy! and Good Girl!

🙏🏻

Marion Wiesel, Translator, Strategist and Wife of Elie Wiesel, Dies at 94 A fellow survivor, she was a literary and political adviser who helped her husband gain recognition as a singular moral authority on the Holocaust.

ICT mourns the loss of Marion Wiesel. Marion and Elie Wiesel were beacons of freedom and friends to Tibetans worldwide. The world is lesser without their voice.

Read more about Marion: www.nytimes.com/2025/02/02/o...

Flying snow monkey
Bounding through white drifts—
Tracks tell of her joy.

飛ぶ雪猿、
白波駆ける、
足跡の詩。

🙏🏻

#Gamechanger: a *fleece-lined* toboggan!

We’ve got friends out there who will keep watching over him. 😉

I hope he makes it. Good on you for giving him the best shot.

That you, Mt. Baker?

🙏🏻

@phatbatt.bsky.social you need to see this

You’re a good soul! Hope they make it.

A sunset view over East Sound on Orcas Island with the Olympic Mountains just over the horizon.

View of a lowering sun over East Sound on Orcas Island.

A view across the treetops of Douglas firs on Orcas Island, with snow-capped peaks of what the photographer thinks is the Garibaldi Range in Canada.

Scenes from a winter afternoon's walk on a rural island. The mountain peaks of the #PNW continue to tease. L-R, the Olympics, the sun over East Sound, the Garibaldi Range*, and #sunset from my porch.

*My compass says these snow-capped peaks are northeast of Vancouver.

So peaceful, your princess! 👸

A stylized collagelike representation of a figure, seen from behind - a representation of the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. - arms outspreadd, between two groups of silhouetted figures at left and right. A hilly landscape is in the background, with the sun and some clouds in the sky above

Romare Bearden, Martin Luther King Jr.—Mountain Top, color screenprint, 1968

“We shall overcome because [poet] William Cullen Bryant is right: ‘Truth crushed to earth will rise again.’

“We shall overcome because [poet and abolitionist] James Russell Lowell is right: ‘Truth forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne.’ Yet that scaffold sways the future.”