Sopping Wet Birders, No Extra Charge

We've always opened our home to birders, butterflyers, dragon and damsel flyers, moss experts, orchid geeks, and various other ne'r-do-wells.  Last night was the annual Owls of Oak Openings field trip by the Toledo Naturalist Association, and even though the weather sucked, 18 people drove and trudged around the park calling owls.  Alas, none were to be found by the hardy and/or insane birders.  They made our house the last stop, hoping to get the Great Horned Owls we've been hearing.  And since they could stand on the front porch or back deck to call for them, and stay dryer, they were all for that.  And the Big Bonus was our heated indoor-working-plumbing.  They couldn't believe we'd let all those soaking wet folks in.  Hey, that's why God invented those fantastic laminate floors.  Today the puddle marks don't even show.

And they loved the yellow spots I painted all over, trying to chose a new color for the dining room and foyer.  And today, Jason Tansel of Blue Jay Painters was here and got the first coat completely finished!  It's awesome!  and it's really Yellow! Pics tomorrow.. er, later today, I guess.

And a quick note, the Ranger Anderson Auction has ended.  I'll fill you in on that later. But for now I can say that I am truly blessed and humbled that anyone would pay anything for the quilts I made.  Holy cow.

Happy Thinking Day!

Today, February 22 is Girl Guide and Girl Scout Thinking Day, a time to learn about Scouts from around the world.  In lots of new troops, girls receive their WAGGGS pin, which is worn about their country's pin. For many children this is their first in-depth look at children in another country.  A great tradition!

In other news, my quilts in the Margaret Anderson Trust Fund charity auction on Ebay are going through the roof.  For the winner of the arrowhead quilt, I've also made a pillow that is similar, along with 4 matching mug rugs.  The Madison quilt winner will get a poster of OF from the WPA Ranger Guide series.


I am truly amazed at the prices being offered for the quilts.  I thought maybe maybe maybe at least one of them would fetch $50 (and if it didn't I would buy it back).  Holy cow.


So you have a day and a half to bid on these and many other way cool items.  The auction was organized by rangers at Grand Canyon National Park so there's lots of good Arizona stuff to check out.

Bid early, bid often!

Charity Quilting Time

I posted a while ago about the Ebay auction for Ranger Margaret Anderson's children.  I did get my quilt done, and the auction is now up and running.  They had a few glitches with travel certificates, apparently Ebay staff wants a bigger piece of that action or something, but all is good now.

And, since we're such good friends and all, and since I've just gotta tell somebody else, my Madison Junction Tree quilt is now up to $51.00.  I prayed and prayed it would go for at least that, and if it didn't I would buy it back for at least $50.  Whew.  But here's the news that brought me to tears last night.  My arrowhead quilt is up to $200.  I was in my crafty corner in the basement when I saw that, and couldn't catch my breath.  There's no way in hell it's worth that, so I'm making a pillow and some mug rugs to go with it.  Sorry for the hubris here, but holyshit.  Just thinking about it makes me weepy in an odd way.  Happy weepy that so much money is going to the Trust Fund, and also happy weepy that well, just because.  Also sad weepy that we have to be involved in such an activity.  I would much rather have made something for a birthday or anniversary or something.

Now back to the real world.

Anybody get engaged for Valentine's Day?  Need a minister?  Call me!  I'm all good to go.  Even bought a nice new, dressy black suit.  For me to spend any quality time in a department store is a Big Deal.  Not a shopper. . . .  but I like how it looks.  Anywho, it's been interesting having discussions about marriage and weddings.  I'm a believer in it myself.  Marriage, that is. Damn hardest job I've ever had, and also the most rewarding.




What the hell was I thinking when I bought iron on quilt batting?  Yuck.  Sadly, I have 2 queen size (I think) rolls of it.  I'll use it up for mug rugs and stuff, but blah.  Back to Warm and Natural for me!

Next up, the invites for All Things Danny Day are out.  It'll be Sunday March 11.  And of course, YOU are invited!  Oddly, he didn't want to invite any of the kids from his class.  He's all about grown-ups.  I think he's figured out that most of them have the skills to figure out what he's talking about, whereas kids, especially other kids with special needs, don't get him.  More about this later, speaking of rites of passage.


We finally got some snow--including a whole one and a half inches for Winterfest!  We only had half as many participants this year, but it was also a whopping 15-20 degrees with 10 to 20 mph winds.  I wasn't able to get any pics, but when I do, I'll share them.

Last up for random stuff, I'm boldly going where I've never gone before.  Sorta.  I'm going to put colored, yes colored paint on the dining room walls!  When we built the house, we had everything done in an nice white.  Crisp and clean.  And that meant we could put crap all over in various colors and it all worked.  So now I'm trying something new.  Actually, we painted FTD's room in 2 shades of green, and the master bath has 2 pale shades of yellow, green, and blue all blended in.  But the yellow we picked for the dining room is bold and warm.  Sheesh.  And we're gunna pay to have it done.  None of that being on 17 foot tall scaffolding for us anymore.  DH didn't even argue the point.  Well, he did, but only because he's programed to say it.  I just looked at him and grinned.  Silly old man.

Let's see... he can be outside playing with my chain saw or inside painting.... no contest there.

Ranger Auction Begins Today!

Get your PayPal ready!  Today is the first day of the auction to benefit the children of Ranger Margaret Anderson who was killed in the line of duty on January 1, 2012.

There's lots of cool stuff so check it all out.  And most importantly, remember that all the proceeds from the auction will go to the trust fun that has been established by the National Park Foundation to help support Ranger Eric and Margaret's two beautiful little girls.

 http://stores.ebay.com/rangeranderson

So why are you still reading this?  Go!!

Ranger Margaret Anderson Ebay Auction for Children (New pics 2/9/1

As you know, Ranger Margaret Anderson was fatally shot and killed in the line of duty on New Years Day, 2012.  Her friends, her Church, the National Park Foundation, and others have created a trust fund for the care of her two darling daughters, ages 2 and 4.

Next weekend, these same folks are sponsoring an Ebay auction site to help to continue to raise funds. I'll be donating a couple of small quilts.

Here's the link at ebay:

http://stores.ebay.com/ranger-anderson?_rdc=1

Items will go up on February 14 and remain up until the 23rd of February.

You can also look at the FB page/event to show your support.

So I'll donate one of these:

The top quilt, as you may recall, is the motif that is on the Madison Historic Trailside Museum at Yellowstone National Park, now the Junior Ranger Station and Information Station.  It's an exact size copy of this:

Isn't is just the cutest thing?  I usually only make these for the super-coolest folks who have served at Madison Junction, but for Ranger Eric and his little girls, I'll donate one.


And here's the new one:

Arrowhead Quilted Wall Hanging 

So mark your calendar and get your PayPal ready!  I've also seen a few of the other items that are being auctioned.... the really, really cool stuff!

Ranger Margaret Anderson

I've been able to fight back tears, until I read this:

By Bruce Barcott from the Seattle Times:

Guest columnist Bruce Barcott writes about his gratitude for Mount Rainier National Park Ranger Margaret Anderson, who was murdered on the mountain on New Year's Day. She was protecting the mountain and possibly averted a more serious tragedy.



"The Ranger Who Protected Mount Rainier from Greater Tragedy

I didn't know Margaret Anderson, the Mount Rainier National Park ranger shot and killed on New Year's Day. But I know what she died protecting. And I wish I could thank her for saving the mountain.

For many of us in the Pacific Northwest, Mount Rainier isn't just a national park. It's sacred public space. We go there to play and we go there to pray. Young mountaineers test their mettle on the Emmons Glacier. Elderly women stand and lay their hands on Rainier's old-growth cedars near Kautz Creek. Young couples hike into the backcountry at Indian Bar. Mothers take daughters snow camping at Reflection Lakes.

Memory is Rainier's most powerful attribute. We live in a place where family history is often thin on the ground. Here in the West there aren't many ancestral estates. Our family migration stories aren't traced to the Mayflower, they're traced to last week. Amid all that transience the mountain offers a place to connect with permanence, to create the personal back stories that bind us to the land. Every day hike at Sunrise, every car-camping weekend at Ohanapecosh, every Paradise snowball fight forms a tendon that ties us to our chosen home, and to each other. On a busy day in Seattle, when the clouds part and Rainier reveals itself, the mountain doesn't just come out. It opens the memory album of the mind.

There's no irony in the name Paradise. Rainier's most popular visitor destination sits at 5,400 feet, more than a mile above Puget Sound. Virinda Longmire named it in 1885 after witnessing the breathtaking wildflower bloom of its subalpine meadows. But the place lives up to its name not by flowers alone. Because it's accessible by car, Paradise draws a comically diverse mix of people in the parking lot: World-class climbers gear up next to flip-flop-clad Aussies and Sri Lankan immigrants who have driven up to touch snow for the first time in their lives. It's Paradise for everyone, open every day.

This is the mountain that Margaret Anderson was protecting.

The weather has been gray and depressing for weeks around here, so when blue sky and sunshine showed up last Sunday, New Year's Day, a lot of folks piled into the car and headed for Paradise.

One of those people didn't have snow play in mind.

When trouble finds people, sometimes they go to the mountain. As a young man, I often hiked into the backcountry to try to sort out my life. It did me a lot of good.

Others are not so fortunate. An old friend of mine, a former ranger at Mount Rainier, once told me that one of the toughest parts of his job was finding suicides in the Park. "People come up here for a lot of different reasons," he told me. "Sometimes they want it to be the last place they see."

When Anderson responded to a traffic call on New Year's morning, she had no idea what kind of trouble was coming up the road. A blue Pontiac had just blown past the tire-chain checkpoint at Longmire. She set up a roadblock about a mile away from Paradise.

We have no way of knowing Benjamin Colton Barnes' intent. But the evidence suggests. This was a troubled 24 year-old Iraq war veteran, possibly suffering from untreated post-traumatic stress disorder, a gun collector, with a history of suicidal thoughts and erratic tendencies. He'd allegedly shot four people at a party a few hours earlier. In his car was an arsenal of weapons and body armor.

Barnes might have gone to the mountain to think things over. That's a generous reading. Some have speculated that he planned to flee into the woods. But the road from Longmire to Paradise is a 12-mile dead end in winter. And 5,400 feet up Rainier in January is no place for criminal flight.

Once Barnes reached the parking lot at the Jackson Visitors Center, there would be nowhere for him to go. But there would be an estimated 200 innocent visitors and park employees around him.

Maybe he'd have taken his own life quietly. Maybe he'd have forced a suicide-by-cop situation. But in this post-Columbine age, it's hard not to imagine the darkest possibility. Though she couldn't have known it, I believe that Margaret Anderson positioned herself between Benjamin Barnes and a possible mass murder at Paradise.

The story's tragic denouement has been well documented by Craig Welch, Steve Miletich and other Times reporters this past week. At Anderson's roadblock, Barnes stopped the Pontiac, drew a shotgun, and pulled the trigger. Rescuers were unable to reach her for an hour and a half, because Barnes unloaded on anyone who came near. Then he fled on foot into the snowdrifts and mountain streams that would ultimately claim his life.

Spree killers murder more than people. They desecrate a geographic space. They rub dirt on our memories. Last year's mass murders changed Norway's Utoya Island from an idyllic retreat to a place of haunting sorrow. Nearly 50 years after the fact, it's impossible to pass under the University of Texas Tower in Austin and not recall, if just for an instant, Charles Whitman and the day he turned it into a sniper's nest.

That's why I wish I could thank Anderson. By responding to a common traffic stop, and laying down her life, she diverted a killer and allowed Paradise to remain paradise.

On clear days, when the mountain comes out, none of us has to look at Mount Rainier and be reminded of mass murder. We can look and see beauty, adventure and a symbol of our connection to this place. We can look and think of Margaret Anderson. And say a little thanks."


Bruce Barcott is the author of "The Measure of a Mountain: Beauty and Terror on Mount Rainier." He lives on Bainbridge Island.