Yesterday morning, I sat on the edge of our rocks. Cats paws rippled the water’s still surface; pale sunshine bathed the mountains and me, while wisps of cloud shrouded their heads. I sipped coffee from my favorite mug. Sea lions a few miles across the water at Gran Point growled and howled, as ever. Three ruby crowned kinglets interrupted each others songs in the trees behind me. Somewhere across Lynn Canal an avalanche banged its way into a ravine. The morning’s freshness, salt tang and warming spruce and hemlock, with a touch of birch and alder bud, sweetened my morning “mug up.” Every so often, spaced just enough to make me start slightly with its sudden appearance and deep “whoosh” of breath, a humpback whale surfaced beneath me, slowly, almost lazily working its way through our bight in large loops.
The herring run has started! Continue reading