Sunday Serenity #217

The bridge over the creek on the Plaza in downtown Ashland. This is the same Bear Creek that flows past our trailer park near Phoenix ten or so miles north.



I stood on the bridge and pointed the camera downstream. The ones I took of the upstream view didn't turn out so well as I was facing into the sun.



After crossing the bridge and following a dirt trail several yards I spotted this steep stair. I had to as Ed to come help me down it.



At the bottom of those stairs I aimed the camera upstream towards the bridge.



And then down below my feet.

I adore Ashland Oregon. I fell in love with it while going to college there in the 1980s.

We're just have to stop waiting for internet breakdowns and doctor appointments for excuses to go spend time there.

Read more...

Two Months After the Fire

Ed and I went for a walk with Bruiser on the Bear Creek Greenway that runs between our mobile home park and the creek. We walked through the damage from the fire in July just a couple of days before I left town which I blogged about here.

The top pic is taken from the bottom of the ramp that leads to Fern Valley Road. The nearest edge of fire damage is behind me by maybe 100 yards. The mobile home park is behind me and to my right and the creek is on the other side of a stand of trees and brush to my left.



Above: taken in the middle of the ravaged area facing the creek and showing the stumps of some of the trees chopped down by the firemen because fire got inside their trunks. Five good sized trees were lost this way. And more will probably have to come down before winter winds and ice arrive.

There is an RV park across the creek and on the other side of it is a mall which is beside I5. It was not a paranoid fantasy that the fire could have jumped the creek, taken out the RV park and threatened buildings and vehicles at the mall. It could also have gone the other way towards our mobile home park.

In fact it began just a few yards from the backyard fence of the two homes directly across the lane from us.



It was either maliciously set or accidentally by kids playing with fireworks (just days after July 4rth). And if not for the quick thinking and cooperation of about a dozen neighbors who commandeered or volunteered yard hoses, hooked them together and fought the fire with them over the fence, keeping it off those two homes and from spreading along the fence to either side of them until the fire trucks arrived.

Ed was one of those neighbors wielding hoses over the fence seen above. But that was after he pounded on the door of the house seen on the left to alert the neighbor lady who was asleep in the bedroom abutting the fence. No more than fifteen feet from the flames which damaged her siding and broke her bathroom window.







Above: the stand of trees as seen from our porch over the roofs of those same two houses.

Read more...

Sunday Serenity #55

These are the pictures I took down by Bear Creek last Sunday. A perfect place for a serene moment.

This is aimed down onto the bike/hike trail from the top of the ramp. The creek is to the right and the trailer park we came from is to the left but we live in the middle of it and had to walk up to the road via the park's exit which is over a block to our left. My goal that day was that tiny white speck at the foot of the ramp which you see close up below. It is a raise manhole over a small tributary coming from the hills to the west. One of several directed under ground to the west of town.

It took at least fifteen minutes to get this far. It usually takes about five. I sat here taking pictures and reading for fifteen minutes or so while Ed walked on up the trail with Sweetie to give her a workout and to smoke out of my airspace.

This is taken from my seat on the manhole aimed south to the road and the bridge over the creek. Below I turn and aimed about halfway between straight right and straight ahead. I like the shape of that clump of trees. The last time I saw them the were still naked.

This paved trail is used by bikers, hikers, scooters, skaters, skateboarders and joggers and dogs on leashes. It stretches for 21 miles from Ashland OR about 12 miles south to Central Point OR about 10 miles north of us.

Above is aimed straight ahead at the blackberry brambles obscuring sight of the creek which I could hear from where I sat. Below is aimed to the left/north. The tiny figures are Ed and Sweetie. I should have taken that one first before they had gotten so far.

Below are three pictures Ed took from the bridge on our way home. I waited at the top of the ramp with Sweetie. I was too shaky to trust myself alone on the bridge and we didn't think it wise to take Sweetie onto that narrow walkway. At least not if one of us could not give our full attention to her. So Ed took the shots per my instructions because I had taken three shots from the center of the bridge in March and wanted the same three shots--to the left, to the right and straight down the creek. My goal is to have a set for all four seasons by the end of the year.

That was my first excursion out of the yard on foot since I got sick the week after Easter.

I posted pictures of the same areas taken in March when there was no leaves on the trees yet. I was going to hunt that link down so you could compare but I need to get back to work on my snippet. Here it is closing in on midnight Saturday and the shell I put up last night is still sans snippet.

Maybe I'll update this with that link later but anyone curious can find them in my March archives or by Googling this site for Bear Creek. Once I track down that post I will add the label Bear Creek to it. There will be more as I am planning to get pictures of the creek in all of its seasonal moods.

Read more...