In lieu

Been playing some poker the last couple days and getting nowhere. Card dead and second best, and none of it is worth writing about. The good news is that I haven't lost an arm and a leg. Guess it's what I get for crowing last week.

Instead, how about a couple photos?

I was walking out to the garage today and these colorful little buggers caught my eye from a good forty feet away. They're right between two big yews. As one might imagine, up here in the temperate rainforest that is the Northwest coast, we get a lot of fungi. I have not seen this type on our place and wonder just what it is their food source. My guess is that it is a weed that I killed in this location last summer.

While we were in Chicago, the Willamette Valley experienced one helluvan ice storm. We came home Christmas Eve in the dark and had no idea just how bad the lowlands had it. I was driving into Salem last week, came across this scene, and muttered "Oh shit!" The house is eight-months new, not yet sold. There is a little pond to the left and this "stand" of poplars surrounded the place. The trees have yet to be cleared. I think I'd have a hard time bringing myself around to clean up the place too.