My Photos | Ain't Complicated

On 99E: Shedd Cafe

So I took a break from hanging out at Linn-Benton Community College (Albany, Oregon) and went driving south on Highway 99E.

Before I got to the Highway 34 overpass, I saw this billboard:

Sign near Tangent (Oregon) for Tangent Mennonite Church

I’ve been to that church! If you can’t go visit them (as they invite), you could at least stop by their website: Tangent Mennonite Church.

That railroad bridge looks mighty rusty; keep Oregon green, I say:

Two bridges on Highway 99E between Tangent and Shedd, Oregon

Not knowing where I was going or what I was looking for, I drove all the way through Shedd and missed the cafe. Read it all

Watchful Mother

After I loosed our dog yesterday, I heard the commotion of a killdeer. So I walked in the direction of the noise, saw the bird, and backtracked from it with my gaze.

There they were. Since I had Dora’s camera with 12X zoom, I didn’t have to get too close:

After shooting the eggs, I stood still and watched Mama Killdeer. She gave up pretending to be wounded and started walking toward me:

I stood my ground. Will she attack me?

She didn’t. I held still. I was amazed she finally went all the way to her nest with me standing less than ten feet away!

What a beautiful bird!

Thank you, Lord! I was so blessed and cheered and encouraged.

Horsetail Falls, Oregon

Via I-84 via old Columbia River Hwy via Crown Point Vista House

We — all 18 of us — were there yesterday for our annual James & Noreen Roth family outing.

Horsetail Falls is upriver two-and-half miles or so from the more-famous Multnomah Falls in the Columbia River Gorge.

We didn’t go directly there, of course. We took Exit 22 off I-84 East to the old Columbia River Highway (Hwy 30) and stopped first at the Crown Point Vista House. What a structure! And what a view!

From there we went to Multnomah Falls to see it (of course) and to hike up to the bridge. Two of us (namely, Russell and Andrew) hastily chugged up to the top of the falls. Before they got back, most of the rest of us backtracked a quarter mile of so to Wahkeena Falls to set up our picnic lunch. Then we drove on — roughly 2.5 miles to Oneonta Gorge where we walked through the old tunnel as well as down by a creek a bit.

Another half mile or so of driving got us to Horsetail Falls.

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Grocery Shopping

Two important lessons, both gleaned from two different grocery stores. And extracted from my cellphone. Beneath each photo, the lesson.

1. Tank up on cholesterol and fat!

Think of it as the CFLM — the Cholesterol and Fat Liberation Movement.

Instead of saying cholesterol-free and fat-free in Spanish, it actually says: cholesterol liberates and fat liberates. 😯

Hence, the lesson caption above.

Alternate lesson: 1b. Have someone knowledgeable edit your translation!

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Water Balloons

Here’s what God said to Moses from the burning bush:

Today’s Thought: When God speaks to you from a burning bush, don’t throw water balloons!

Kissed

It’s June, the very first day thereof!

June — a month with lots of weddings and, presumably, lots of kissing going on.

The sun was rising this morning when I went out to feed the cats, let the hens out, and unchain the dog.

“Kissed by the Rising Sun,” I thought, “makes a good title for a blog post of some photos.”

So I went back in for my little Kodak Easy Share CX7330 digital camera.

Here is my first selection:

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Fowl Photos

Several months ago, Ruby had to exile one of our hens. Otherwise, she would have died at the ~~hands~~ beaks of the other hens. (Wow, she was low on the pecking order!)

(The hen, that is.)

Anyway, as a way of personal relaxation, yesterday afternoon I was hand-feeding her blades of grass and sprigs of weeds.

Her she is, in the process of swallowing a blade of grass she has just pecked from betwixt my fingers:

(I tried — unsuccessfully — several times to catch the grass still in my fingers as well as in her beak.)

Then I decided to do a portrait of her!

Remember the Exile!

Click the above image. Save the resulting bigger version to your computer. Make that image your wallpaper for today. Leave a comment telling the world (or at least me and the seven readers of this blog) that The Exile is now your wallpaper.

Thanks!