Lex – pretty good puddle isn’t it! I think my puddle scale might be skewed… BC is fabulous. I really want to explore Vancouver Island. Yes the gray and overcast gets a bit much come February, but summer is glorious and worth waiting for – as you know.

At least the spotted owl’s new predation problem is a more natural one…now all we need are some human predators.

And if there’s ever a place where you can imagine their being beasts who’ll come out of the forest primeval and gobble you up, it’s the PNW. I got the chance to live in B.C. for a little while and i did truly love it…except the 40 days and 40 nights of rain at a time thing.

I haven’t been following the barred owl thing, however. I can’t say I’m surprised, though. The law of unintended consequences rearing its ugly head.

Brian – I’m so pleased for you to have had time in the rain forest. It is a remarkable place. I saw clear cut for the first time in 1991. It made me sick at heart. I have gotten used to the managed forest land out here, but a fresh clear cut still hurts to see.

Have you been following the new predator for the Spotted Owl? Turns out our human efforts to save habitat have also opened habitat for the Barred Owl. The Barred Owl is bigger and stronger than the Spotted Owl. The twists and turns of conservation…

We lived here five year before I saw a banana slug!

Thank you for your coverage of the TVA sludge. What a story – you were way out ahead on it too. Well done.

I’ll never forget my first experience with Seattle and the Olympic Peninsula (heck, the Pacific Northwest in general) – I nearly stepped on a banana slug as long as my teenaged foot on the UW campus and didn’t see Rainier at all, and I was hit hard by clear-cut swaths of Olympic forest.

It’s almost like a home away from home for me, and writing this makes me pine for the area again…