This puppy thing. I thought it might be easier this time after experiencing the tiny years with a couple of boys.
After all, you can put a puppy in a crate and walk away.
They eat and drink when you put the bowl down.
No diapers. Some mess. But no diapers.
These critters can learn very quickly and at a very young age.

Goldie has been a sweetheart, really. She’s in love with the boys, happy to have a yard to roam and sleeps through the night.

Today I let her out for a little romp in the yard. She did her business and came back in. So when I walked back into the room after stepping away for about five minutes, I figured all would be just fine. But there was a box of tissues scattered about the room, a small, dark pile in the corner and a pair of headphones around Goldie’s neck. She looked up at me, headphone wire in her mouth, and I believe she smiled.

all content © 2012 Tim LaBarge

May 15, 2012. Powell Butte

I’ve been watching ferns unfurl their beauty for the past several weeks. In places where the English Ivy hasn’t invaded and suffocated the understory, the ferns are now thick. Yesterday, while running on Powell Butte, I was mesmerized by the fluctuation of the dark shapes on the trail. It was as if there was a giant shadow puppet performance unfolding beneath my feet. This morning, along those same trails, I was again struck by the fern. This time, however, it was the bright side, the source of that incredible show of shadows the day before.

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May 14, 2012. Powell Butte

May 15, 2012. Powell Butte

all content © 2012 Tim LaBarge

The owlets sat shoulder to shoulder high in a maple that swung softly in the breeze. A big lens was pointing at them or we never would have noticed. They swayed in and out of the image displayed on the camera screen of the photographer who was excited to share the scene.

I’m assuming it was their mother that sat a few trees away. She was big and took her eyes off us only once during the few minutes we stood and took in the scene. The old-timer with the camera told us to watch out. “She’ll swoop down at you, she really will,” he said.

And with that in mind, we continued on our run down the trail.

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all content © 2012 Tim LaBarge

May 1, 2012. Stone House, along the Wildwood Trail

Portland’s Forest Park is more than 5,000 acres of just that: forest. There are few structures within the park. So when I came upon these two historic landmarks on this morning’s run on the Wildwood Trail, I stopped at each for a brief visit.

Pittock Mansion, built in 1909, sits just off the trail near milepost 3.5 along the 30-mile Wildwood Trail. Though I was in a great spot, on a beautiful morning, I found myself looking out across the Willamette Valley, wondering how life was on the distant dark hills of Mount Tabor, Powell Butte and Mount Talbert.

A mile-and-a-half later, an old stone building rests quietly a few feet from the trail along Balch Creek. The 1930s WPA restroom project sits roofless and covered with moss and ferns. It is very slowly being consumed by the forest that surrounds it.

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May 1, 2012. Pittock Mansion, along the Wildwood Trail

May 1, 2012. Stone House, along the Wildwood Trail

May 1, 2012. View from Pittock Mansion, along the Wildwood Trail

May 1, 2012. Stone House, along the Wildwood Trail

all content © 2012 Tim LaBarge

I assumed that by running the Marquam Trail to Council Crest, the highest point in Portland, I would be making a picture when I reached the grand view at that historic spot. I did. But it was this eggshell, from a robin I believe, that lay along my route that captured my imagination more than the view.

As a kid, when I found these tiny shells on the ground each spring, I always pictured freshly hatched chicks squeaking in a nest nearby. But today, as I listened to the noisy jays high in the trees above me, it struck me that reality was no doubt quite different than what I’d been imagining all those years.

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all content © 2012 Tim LaBarge

Running up and down these hills and buttes in and around Portland, one is often following a long, gently curving trail that wraps its way around the slope. You go up, then down. Then maybe you do it again, and again.

So while I know many of the twists in the trail by heart, I don’t hesitate to return to the route time after time. There will always be visual surprises, big and small, just around the next bend.

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April 21, 2012. Mount Tabor

all content © 2012 Tim LaBarge

People ask: How far did you run? What was your pace? What was the elevation gain? How many calories did you burn?

My answers are vague. I don’t know.
I certainly can guess at some of this data, but mostly, I’m just happy to be out on the trail exploring. The longer the better.

Stepping over these two super stars of the forest floor today, I found myself asking them similar questions. How far do you travel in a day? How much stuff do you consume doing it? And when they answered with no more than a wiggle of their antennae, I understood. It’s not important. They’re just slipping along, living, surviving.

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April 20, 2012. Tryon Creek State Park

all content © 2012 Tim LaBarge

We had a weekend of sunny and warm Spring weather. The kind where you cut the grass, work in the garden, go to your kids’ sporting events without your slicker, have people over for dinner and stand outside to simply absorb everything. Then, we got pounded with another round of rain. Exactly, precisely, the very minute I was going to jump out for a run this Monday morning. And so I sat in my car at the base of Mount Tabor and waited. I thought the rain would pass in ten minutes and there would be a brief window to go.

I was quite comfortable, making a few pictures through the window, listening to the radio. For a second I thought the variations of intense pounding, the staccato rhythm of the rain on the roof had diminished. So I stepped out of the car, locking and shutting the car door. Yet I could sense the tunes were still playing, which could only mean the key was still in the ignition. The rain started to fall harder than before. Spring!

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April 16, 2012. Mount Tabor

April 16, 2012. Mount Tabor

all content © 2012 Tim LaBarge

April 13, 2012. Mount Talbert

Just through those trees, just down that hill, there are people and there are buildings and roads many lanes wide. There’s an interstate highway. There’s an old volcano like this one that’s covered with houses. I know this because I can hear it all and I can feel it all rumbling in my core. But once I turn and run, I can no longer see it. For a few moments, these 200 or so acres of oaks and firs and maples are wilderness to me.

A fawn and its mother sprint through the brush. I halt near an oak with antlers like an elk. The skeleton of a fir jumps out of the trees. I loop around and crest the summit and shuffle back to the bottom. And then, twenty minutes later, I’m home.

We need more of these places.

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April 13, 2012. Mount Talbert

April 13, 2012. Mount Talbert

all content © 2012 Tim LaBarge

April 12, 2012. Mount Tabor

I look forward to each Spring so I can watch the woods come alive as I run the trails each day.
The little ducklings are my favorite sign that most of the rain is behind us for the year. I want to scoop them up and pet their fuzzy heads.

And the dreams and desires inside the paper cranes left by some thoughtful student will remain a mystery for me. As with the wild ducklings, I did not touch them.

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April 11, 2012. Reed Canyon

April 11, 2012. Reed Canyon

all content © 2012 Tim LaBarge