Views of Sequim, the Olympic Peninsula. . .and beyond
DH gathered a bouquet of poppies from our garden. They’d been pretty beaten up by our recent winds and began to droop within a day or so. Maybe it’s my personal familiarity with the term “past its prime,” but I have an increasing appreciation for faded beauty.
You don’t always get to see some of the business end of a boat.
I read several months ago that underground utility work in Port Townsend had required removal of street trees along Water Street, Port Townsend’s downtown main street. I’ve known the street as a leafy concourse which, for me, has been a blessing and a curse. The trees are beautiful and shady. And they’ve partially or completely hidden the fascias of Port Townsend’s beautiful Victorian buildings, as shown here.
Looking along Water Street here you can see the mature trees on the right, and the newly planted street trees further left. Work is still ongoing.
The new trees are big enough to make a statement but have a ways to go before they shade the sidewalks as before. In the meantime, Port Townsend’s Victorian buildings are looking good.
The phrase “better angels” came to mind recently. It was a term used by Abraham Lincoln in his first inaugural address. Speaking of the U.S. Civil War pitting the country against itself, he said, in part: “We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies.” He ended saying that we surely would again be touched “by the better angels of our nature.”
I’d like to think that today, in broader terms, we need not turn friends into enemies, nor lose our humanity in pursuit of political goals. We can learn much from history, not to mention critical thinking.
Calling all better angels.
DH pointed out this beautiful tool chest to me while we were at Port Townsend Shipwright’s Co-Op last week. Not only is everything fitted in beautifully, the chest/cabinet is gorgeous. Notice the grain in the wood of the righthand door.
I have great respect for that kind of beauty and order, a hallmark of craftsmanship. It makes me more dismayed at my own “heapers and mounders” approach to desktop and craft bench order.
Almost five years ago I first posted about Western Flyer, a boat with an interesting provenance as a vessel chartered by author John Steinbeck and marine biologist/ecologist Ed Ricketts in a seminal research exploration of the Gulf of California in 1940. The voyage became the basis of a book they co-authored, “The Log from the Sea of Cortez.” The boat had fallen on hard times, as illustrated in my first photos, taken in 2013, and reposted last year. Its fate was in flux until the Western Flyer Foundation was formed and intervened to save it.
Western Flyer has been housed at Port Townsend Shipwright’s Co-Op where the Western Flyer Foundation has been undertaking its restoration. When I’d seen it last, almost a year ago, it was much improved and plans were afoot to retrieve white oak lumber to replace rotted wood.
When I saw Western Flyer again last week new lumber was coming into place.
You can see replacement wood both on deck and inside the hull. There’s a lot of work to be done but the Foundation also has high hopes for the boat’s future to continue as an education and research vessel.
This just about covers it.