It's almost time to head for Alaska!  Yippee!!!  We've hit a couple of speed bumps, though.  I developed an abscess at the root of a tooth that gave me lots of problems last March.  I see the "interventional dentist" Monday and hope he can cure my ills.  Our navigation software on the laptop got upgraded and now won't work correctly.  We took the boat out for a test run with the Munch's yesterday and the GPS had about a 15 second delay.  If it were foggy and we had to rely on it, we would have hit an island!  Hmmm, I'm wondering what the third bad thing will be!


In the meantime, I thought I'd tune up my blogging skills and show you a little of what's going on in our neck of the woods.

 April in Skagit (rhymes with gadget) County means tulips, fields and fields of them.  The last two years we missed the tulips, but not so this year.  What a glorious display!  What amazing colors!  What a huge amount of busloads of tourists on the little country roads to see the flowers.

Even the worst photographer is bound to get some good shots of these lovely tulips.  Thank goodness for digital cameras and the ability to experiment!  I'm rather proud of this one!

One of my goals this year is to be able to identify more birds.  I think I've conquered eagle spotting...they're pretty easy.  I can even recognize their call, wimpy as it is!  This photo was taken from the marina, looking across the channel at two eagles in the top of a pine tree.

We took Cosmo Place out for a test run and I caught this flight of geese passing in front of Mt. Baker.

I've learned to recognize loons this year and have seen lots of them around the marinas.  They are amazing aquatic birds.  This pretty fellow was swimming just off the port side of the boat and I watched him dive for a fish, following him as he "flew" through the water.  Cool!

We've got lots of great blue herons in the wetlands.  I think we have a nesting couple here in the marina.  This heron was fishing for breakfast along the channel at low tide.  They are quite large birds and rather intimidating in flight.  Their piercing, shrill call only adds to their scary persona...we call them "pterodactyls"!

I love these funny little ducks!  Or should I say, common mergansers?  The drake is swimming in the middle of his harem and he looks very suave.  The ladies, on the other hand, appear a little harried!