Royal mail

I was taken with this mail drop at the Empress Hotel when we were in Victoria last month. Beyond its polish, it was a surprise to see actual brass in use for an everyday utility like this.

Two of my very first jobs – in downtown San Francisco – were in an old office building that, in those days, still had old wood wainscotting and I think there was ample marble used in floor tiling and the restrooms. There was a mail drop on every floor, a slot into a tube that went all the way down to the lobby. And if I’m not mistaken the mail landed in a drop in the lobby with a proud looking brass front. I haven’t worked in a big city in decades. Do high rises have anything like this anymore, a mailbox with a fancy brass presence?

Remembering Martin Luther King, Jr. today on a day that celebrates his legacy. The longer I live the greater my respect for the bravery of those who’ve fought for human and civil rights through history.

Working barn

Some time back I posted a shot of one of our local deteriorating barns. One commenter lamented that this seemed to be the way of barns nowadays. And since photographers love a sad and tilting barn (hey, I’m as guilty as the next shooter), we see lots of them. But that got me thinking. We have a lot of barns around here that are alive and working. They may not be as picturesque, nor as nostalgic, but they represent a culture that’s both our heritage and our future.

So I’m going to post pictures of some of our local working barns from time to time. I have a few already. I don’t think they’re necessarily dreamy subjects worth framing, but I’d like to think they deserve a nod, if only to help us remember that agriculture feeds and clothes us. And I for one hope that working barns and family farms don’t become a thing of the past.

There yesterday, gone today

If you’ve followed this blog for any time you may remember that I did a series of seasonal views of a line of windbreak poplar trees along the west side Kitchen Dick Road. There had been a long row of them that ran north to south for easily a full mile, broken in roughly the middle by Old Olympic Highway. As the picture above testifies, for the most part, they are no more.

We discovered them gone on Tuesday afternoon as crews from the Public Utility District wrapped up their work, leaving the trees in a tidy pile where they’d once stood. The trees I photographed still stand, a line of them perhaps 3/4 of a mile long.

Here’s the view looking south. Notice the power lines? Tree meets power line is not a popular pairing and the poplars were apparently close enough to cause concern. They were large and mature. I’m no expert, but they may have been reaching an age where branches get brittle and arborists start to worry. We saw dark heartwood in the stumps of many of the trees and I’m guessing that wasn’t a sign of good health. I hate to see them go but suspect some proactive logging has prevented potentially big headaches for the neighborhood power consumers.

And if you’re giggling at the road name, Kitchen Dick, like many others around here it’s named for two pioneer families who lived along the road. Drive it a couple dozen times and you forget to snicker.

Hey, bud!

Like much of the West Coast, we’ve done our share of shivering here lately. The snow level has crept steadily downward toward sea level – and in the lowlands we’ve even had some drifts of hail mixed with snow that have stuck around in shady areas. In the midst of this chill my husband was positively gleeful when he announced to me that he’d discovered buds on our flowering redcurrant plants. Not photo worthy, but a hopeful sign.

I saw these buds on Sunday at the Dungeness Recreation Area. Bigger. More promising. Enough to warm my face into a smile.