Happy Birthday

 Happy 33rd Birthday, Spencer.  Here are some photos from Julia of times past!

Skagit River Eagle Festival

Julia and I spent Sunday walking old growth forest up the Skagit River in Rockport and Marblemount.  We saw trees that were 300 -to 500 years old.   And lots of lichen and moss.  All part of the month-long upriver "Skagit Eagle Festival."  Oh, yeah, we saw a couple of bald eagles too. . .

Because I Bee

Charles's New Book "Because I Bee" is now available on Amazon! 
Critics say "Profound Fun!"  and "A Riot, Pure Genius with Gorgeous Bee Paintings too!"

Here it is.  (When you get to page, click the "Look Inside" image to the left.)

http://www.amazon.com/Because-I-Bee-Charles-Grimes-ebook/dp/B00S2789G0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1421358846&sr=8-1&keywords=charles+grimes

Charles's Prologue to "Because I Bee": My Response to Going Live on the Internet Wire

Oh man does this

Mean that I am now

Beeing scrutinized or

Euthanized or criticized

Or better yet marginalized by the cultured eye?

Or maybe this means beeing held over the

Hot coals by the powers that bee for beeing such a lousy

Speller and for beeing complicit

In so many run on sentences after continual

Run on sentence and finally before I was

Even a man I was sentencing my 10th 

Grade English teacher a certain Mr. Brandt I want to 

Remember who was forced into eternally pulling his hair out in class

And pronouncing to everyone all around the classroom as

He walked around in circles and circles and

Around the desks and around the chairs and

He was want to restlessly storm about the classroom on his

Own two clumsy feet and then teaching us in outbursts of his

Heartfelt and truly tested and sometimes frustratingly

Tested humanity and how he would say to all of those still awake

And maybe even awake and responsive

In that sun drenched little classroom at Omak High that

I Charlie Grimes was the King of the Run On Sentence

And Oh my god will this ever cease

And Oh My God if Mr. Grimes will please work harder

On his next assignment and then maybe even write an original Thought or
Two about all of these great stories of American Literature

That I continually bring to you on a regular basis

Week after continuing week like a drubbing that won't stop so that

If Mr. Grimes could just bee a little more responsible  

We can all then get back to

Everyone's favorite subject Moby Dick and some day you

Can all learn to remember that I told you all to call me Ishmael.

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Field Work

Lori writes: This is Spencer, my brother in law, and his son Everett in their hay field in Silvana. The Stillaguamish river got a little high today!

Now.

Now.

Dateline Winthrop: Apples

Dateline Winthrop: Snowshoe

Animal tracks we saw on our snowshoe tour through the woods: snowshoe hare, squirrel, mouse, bobcat and weasel.

= = = = = = = = = = =

Dateline Winthrop: Incongruity

All night and all day a soft snow falls on this shabby out building while someone is playing a tropical marimba, charming at first but soon perhaps a little much.

It Must Be Winter

Lynne, warm in Pennsylvania

Julia, warm in Winthrop