Day Trip – Page 42 – Sequim Daily Photo

Dahlia dazzlement

In front of the Port Gamble Post Office is one of the most spectacular displays of dahlias I’ve ever seen. Gorgeous, healthy, and diverse specimens filled a small garden.

A postal employee told us that the Kitsap County Dahlia Society is responsible for the display and a fellow named Michael maintains it. They really know what they’re doing.

Each plant is labeled with its name so the truly smitten (moi!) can track down one (or a dozen) for home gardens. (We were told the Dahlia Society has a yearly sale.) This splendid garden is going to be cut down soon. I’m so pleased I happened on it before it disappeared for another year. It’s well worth a visit during the dahlia growing season.

Day trippin’

I took a day trip to Port Gamble yesterday. It’s a sweet little former logging town on the Kitsap Peninsula. This is the Port Gamble Post Office building. Notice the floral display in front of the building. It’s worth a closer look. Tomorrow I’ll move in for a better view.

Seattle skyline

We took a ferry into Seattle in the early evening recently. It was truly a Best Ever view.

Shoe shopping

Beyond my fixations with paper crafting and rubber stamps I’m not usually much of a shopper. But I wandered into About Time in Port Townsend a couple of weeks ago and found myself transfixed with shoes. Actually, it was this amazing boot. If other stores sell something like this I’ve never seen it. (If you’re wondering, that tag reads $170.)

Some of the other shoes were amazing too.

And they’ve got just the thing to sit on while you’re trying on shoes.

File under “miscellaneous”

Do you see the face formed at the bottom of this tree? There’s a prominent eye, nose and chin and it tilts to the left.

It had rained for a week before we went to the Hoh Rainforest. And it rains from 12 to 14 feet per year on average. It may be a sunny day but it’s not a bad idea to prepare for mud.

Decomposing forest life

Life in the Hoh Rainforest bursts forth both as new growth and as decomposition. They go hand in hand in breaking down and building a forest. This fungus is one of many kinds that we saw. It decomposes and absorbs organic material.

Slugs are another type of decomposer. They eat and break down plant materials. They are voracious and can daily eat several times their body weight.

What’s this? It’s a rotting log and it’s been helped along by one of the top predators in the food chain, a bear. Bears paw through soft dead wood like this, searching for grubs and other little critters that feed on decaying wood. We just missed seeing a bear on the trail where we saw this log. Other hikers excitedly described their sighting further down the trail. It was gone by the time we got there. Phew!

Cycle of life writ large

Nurse logs are an environmental feature of a temperate rainforest and the Hoh Rainforest provides abundant examples. Fallen trees break down over time and facilitate germination of seedlings. Small trees grow along the length of the decaying trunk. The roots you see above are growing through and over the side of a nurse log.

As the new trees mature the original nurse log decays into humus and eventually disappears. The roots form strong, intricate webs.

Tangles of tree roots are left once the nurse log is gone.

The roots sometimes have air gaps and voids where there once was a decaying tree.

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Here’s a Native American prayer, a peace offering for a world in pain.

“Creator, open our hearts
to peace and healing between all people.

Creator, open our hearts
to provide and protect for all children of the earth.

Creator, open our hearts
to respect for the earth, and all the gifts of the earth.

Creator, open our hearts
to end exclusion, violence, and fear among all.

Thank you for the gifts of this day and every day.”

Alycia Longriver, Micmac Native American