Julia
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jesrcerulean.bsky.social
Julia
@jesrcerulean.bsky.social
2.9K followers 1.9K following 5.1K posts
Cranky old farm-lady surrounded by apartments. Gardener, Birder, Don't Blame Me I voted for McGovern. Also: I assume other people's lives are at least as complicated as mine.
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jesrcerulean.bsky.social
Great Egret, Lacey Community Park, where the weather was kind and the playground was full of small humans.
Water's edge, with stripes of dead grass and green rushes divided from their reflections in the water by a band of dark soil and light pebbles. A tall, long-necked white bird stands up to its black ankles joining the real to the reflection, bright yellow sabre beak fastening the view.
November 10, 2025 at 5:20 AM
jesrcerulean.bsky.social
It's autumn all right; we're on our third Atmospheric River and the fields are finally green after ten inches of rain. It hasn't frozen yet, but the Golden Crowned Sparrows have come down the river and 40 of them have shown up in our yard as they do every year, the winter #birds
Red witchhazel leaves frame a grey-brown sparrow with a crown of black and gold and brown, black, and white streaked back looks straight at the camera. A strange yellow-green and brown rectangular bokeh in the background. The squiggly wire in front of sparrow and shrub is the guywire for the suet box.tie-down for the
November 9, 2025 at 4:25 AM
jesrcerulean.bsky.social
Austin Rose"Patt Austin" last bud of the year. It's given me hundreds of #flowers this year but this one is best.
October 10, 2025 at 3:19 AM
jesrcerulean.bsky.social
Post you from a different era
September 30, 2025 at 4:04 AM
jesrcerulean.bsky.social
I guess we should be glad to get this much information, since the chopper went down in private forest land and started a fire.

U.S. Army Special Operations Command · Follow
8h...
our young white Army noncoms killed last week when their Blackhawk went down NE of Olympia, WA. Very blond US Army Chief Warrant Officer 3 Andrew Cully, 35, Sparta, MO; US Army Chief Warrant officer 3 Andrew Kraus, 39 Sanibel, FL, brunet, wearing a red beret, US Army Sgt. Donavon Scott 24, Tacoma WA, sandy, wearing a beret- those three wearing dress uniforms. US Army Sgt Jadelyn Good, 23, a dark haired woman in cammies and her beret, the only one with a smile.
September 22, 2025 at 10:27 PM
jesrcerulean.bsky.social
I first saw the picture you posted and the one below in a portfolio of Civil War photos which my grandmother was given when she taught in a one-room school on Hanford Reach in 1911. Her family thought the truth of slavery was essential to develop civic understanding.
The photo of formerly enslaved man Peter Gordon is known as “The Scourged Back" and shows his back heavily scarred from whippings. Gordon is known to have escaped from Mississippi and reached a Union Army camp in Louisiana in 1863. The photograph is attributed to two photographers, McPherson and Oliver, who were in the camp at the time. It became one of the best-known photographs of the Civil War and a powerful weapon for abolitionists. KEN WELSH/DESIGN PICS/UNIVERSAL IMAGES GROUP VIA GETTY IMAGES
September 17, 2025 at 2:00 AM
jesrcerulean.bsky.social
Timeline Cleanse: a very immature Great Blue Heron rock-hopping down to hunt Pier Perch fingerlings. I got this picture; it's probably too much to expect to capture the excitement of fish catching. #Birds
A barely fledged Great Blue Heron lands on a rock close to the Budd Inlet/Deschutes River confluence after coasting down from the top of the boulder retaining wall. The primary wing feathers are fully grown but the secondary feathers are just barely coming in and not sufficient for powered flight. All of the new feathers are very blue. The boulders are covered with barnacles and mussles, and the birds legs are shiny black, unlike the yellow of the adult.
September 11, 2025 at 1:34 AM
jesrcerulean.bsky.social
From Friday at the 5th Avenue Bridge in Olympia; find the Harbor Seal who exhaled and sank after I releases my shutter.
A picture of light chop on the mixing water of the outflowing Deschutes River and the turning tide of Bud Inlet. At the surface in the middle is a large bubble of exhaled air. Below the bubble and to the right is the "V" of the Seals sealed nostrils.
September 7, 2025 at 4:06 PM
jesrcerulean.bsky.social
I took a dozen pictures of the only flowers in bloom in my south yard; these are best. I have a Mazama Pocket Gopher which makes my perennial beds look as if it had been hit with a brush cutter, and all of the containers are munched down to the dirt. I miss my dog, but the vermin don't.
Blue poppies; like blue roses they are purple, with a nearly black base to the petals contresting strongly with white stamens. The closest thing to blue are the waxy cyan leaves
August 26, 2025 at 3:49 AM
jesrcerulean.bsky.social
Juvenile Great Blue Heron feeding on the rising tide at Beachcrest on Nisqually Reach, shallow end of the Salish Sea. I needed a break from the joyful sounds of my classmates celebrating our 55th reunion.
Long-necked blue-grey wading bird thigh-deep in water streaked blue-green and pinkish-blue but smooth enough to reflect its silhouette with little distortion. There are mats of dull green algae floating near the bird.
August 25, 2025 at 3:50 AM
jesrcerulean.bsky.social
Boomers in their larval stage, with one of the weirdest teachers I ever had. Yelm class of 1970 in sixth grade, or at least part of it, since there were two home rooms. Today a sample of us are getting together at a rustic beach shelter possible and talk . I'm the one in the babushka
Picture Day! Four rows of eleven and twelve year olds! All the girls are taller than all the boys! I know the stories behind all the faces, and which darling girl died two weeks ago, and who of us are carrying on with steel in our back.
August 23, 2025 at 3:26 PM
jesrcerulean.bsky.social
This is the most satisfying annual planting this year; why it's blooming so freely when something is eating pretty much all of my petunias, calabrachoa, and pansies this month. #Flowers

Planting area off the bottom steps of the front porch; details in ALT.
Counter-clockwise from 11 to 12: (11)A glimpse of white petunias with black finely-lined centers mostly hidden behind a (10, 9)deep crimson Coleus with slightly darker edges. (8)A big clump of bright white and quite fragrant glacier pansies,(7,6)edged by maroon and white double pansies. Abundantly blooming very double deep violet-blue calabrachoa, (5) pale violet blue glacier pansies, (4,3,2) Chartreuse Coleus, (2,1,12) leaves of Primula auricula with, I groan as I see, another sword fern baby.
July 30, 2025 at 1:47 AM
jesrcerulean.bsky.social
More #Flowers from the entry yard. Details in ALT
Large pale lily with seven open blooms and two unopened buds, one raise ing above the upper edge of the photo. The backs of the petals are marked by a rusty stripe from base to tip. Something has been eating all the blossoms from my container mountain; this photo is of the most dependable color in my yard right now: Coleus, The setting sun lights a coleus with a tidy chartreuse edge and crimson center and a splash pattern one in greenish gold and scarlet. There's a single magenta petunia at the lower left, and a few small orange and red calabrachoa lower right. The blue-green of culinart sage orivides some contrast. The top of the Big Brother Lily, a very pale yellow, with three open blooms and at least 16 closed buds
July 24, 2025 at 3:26 AM
jesrcerulean.bsky.social
Lilies and the passage of time.
Two kinds of lily, and a change in the weather' there is a curling and wilting gold lily in the background, which bloomed right before we had several days of 90F weather. Standing in front of it are two much taller lilies with cream color blossoms and greenish-yellow throats, opening clean, stiff, and regal. The rest of the picture is green leaves of a spring-blooming shrub and the plums my great-grandmother planted.
July 21, 2025 at 4:39 AM
jesrcerulean.bsky.social
(This is Yelm, WA; the white building is the old Masonic Lodge)

The Seattle To Portland bike event is this weekend; the challenge is to make traffic worse. I love the event but three years ago it crossed paths with my kids's wedding rehearsal dinner in Napavine:
The main drag in Yelm, Washington, two old mill kit bungalow-style buildings, a yellow house and a two story white lodge hall are visible, dwarfed by a closer orange sign saying STP BIKES ON ROADWAY JULY 12- 13 with the numbers on white removable patches.
July 12, 2025 at 4:44 PM
jesrcerulean.bsky.social
I've learned how to take advantage of the light and viewpoints for the Northwest side of the Container Mountain, #Flowers in reds and yellows and oranges to reflect the sunset and all annuals because it catches winter storm winds and the physical damage opens them to rot. Details in ALT
Left to right, or rather rounter-clockwise from 7 to 4: Coleus "City Lights" leaves with maroon centers neatly edged with Chartreuse, wine red petunia, Tigers-eye glacier pansy, brilliant red with dark centers calabrachoa "Pomegranite," plain yellow viola, orange-red petunia (should be Cabaret but I couldn't find it this year), splash-marked red and yellow coleus "Lava", double orange and yellow calabrachoa called double yellow and orange, duh.
July 9, 2025 at 5:40 PM
jesrcerulean.bsky.social
So I went outside with my camera and saw all sorts of things, especially #Flowers but what I hadn't been noticing very well is that Lily season has begun. Information about individual lilies is in the alt text.
Orienpet (OrientalXTrumpet Hybrid Cocorvado blooming after being somewhat squashed by a Dessert King Fig. The fig has big palmate leaves- only one small branch is shown, most of the burden whas been staked up against the porch. The big, single, bell-shaped flowers are a warm gold with deep red stamens. There are 7 open blooms and about 16 unopened buds. on the multiple blooming stems; the lower part of the stems are obscured by aluminum window screen to keep the blasted voles out. This is the "-pet" part of the hybrd, a classic Trumpet Lily but grown with insufficient light; the table I used to keep the trumpet lilies on collapsed and life has not given me time to get things fixed. This is Anaconda, named for the copper company, and should be a deep coppery orange with purple backs to the petals, but... not enough light. The wide soft green leaves are lacking in substance from the darkness. Another thing that effects Lily bloom time is heat; the first picture of Cocorvado is at the Southwest corner of the house, in the hottest part of the yard' this one is at the Northeast corner, surrounded by cool shade although in full sun most of the day. The buds are just barely opening but should be fully open after the next 80F day. The ripest buds are torpedo shaped and apricot color., the leaves dark green and shiny. There's another lily behind this one, with hard green buds which will probably take two more weeks to open; that one is a white lily about which I remember nothing; it showed up in what I thought was an empty pot, might be an Oriental but not the nauseous over-perfumed Casa Blanca. This is the developing buds of another white lily, a Orienpet Hybrid called Big Brother, and it is well named: it soars above the mountain of containers and has to be anchored to keep from blowing over. It is backed by the shade-givers, a small plum tree, a variety of pines, and, in the background and above the north edge of the Garry Oak grove. The original bulb is three years old, and has added a new blooming offspring every year: three tall leaf-covered canes topped with multiple heavy buds.
July 7, 2025 at 4:22 AM
jesrcerulean.bsky.social
I knew that entity was lost on this planet.
A cartoon by Pat Byrne labeled "Roswell, NM-1947 showing a crashed UFO, a Jeeo, two soldiers in helmets holding the Roswell Grey alien with a despairing look on its face captioned "You Fools! It's getting away" as a baby Trump, bare-assed naked, runs away from the scene.
June 27, 2025 at 7:27 PM
jesrcerulean.bsky.social
#Flowers# #Gardening#Bloomscrolling

This is from the same photographer footprints, the same plant (Ghislaine de Feligonde, an 18th century Noisette climber) and a reminder that gardening leads to flowers.At
A tight shot of a rambling rose in corsage clusters of peach pink fading to white. amid kelly green leaves, the older ones pummled by sleet storms. A broader shot of the north side of the same rambling roseoverwhelming a wooden pergola structure (unseen) with a few dozen clusters of peach-pink flowers and some bright peach buds.
June 24, 2025 at 6:10 PM
jesrcerulean.bsky.social
This is a still from the documentary "Fortunate Sons" about my husband's class at Harvard School. He's the hunched looking guy in the center of the front row, a weird place for a PK from Texas in the midst of the LA elite's children. It's a good film, although I haven't seen the final cut.
Two rows of seventh-grade boys in military uniform, some of whom are ahead of the others in their pubertal growth spurt All white except one at the right end of the front row, whose father was the most popular radio DJ in LA not that it saved him from harassment. Bullying and academic competition are part of the film, but how these young men changed through encountering life is the best part.
June 23, 2025 at 4:11 AM
jesrcerulean.bsky.social
This Sunday was the first time I decorated anyone's grave since 2017 when climate change made late May too late for Lilacs and too early for Roses. I've been thinking about Dad a lot; next month I will, with luck, outlive him.
Shadow of a figure in a big hat falling on a gravestone of the standard US Veteran design: WESLEY M SMITH S Sgt US Army World War II April 16, 1917- June 21 1990. There is a quart spaghetti sauce jar with two sporulating sword ferns, pale roses, and Minnesota Snowflake mock orange flowers, pure white pompoms with a heady scent.
June 19, 2025 at 3:00 AM
jesrcerulean.bsky.social
June is a terrifying month, where every minute of the past three years when I was too stove up to maintain my monster roses is written in #flowers. In all fairness, I planted everything but the Clematis "Betty Corning" around thirty years ago, so they had plenty of time to develop rebellious energy.
The eastern end of the north side of the doule-cube pergola, with white single and pale pink very double roses and a waterfall of green next to the pass-through which will be covered with lavender blue bells of Clematis X viticella "Betty Corning." There is a 6'6" opening in the structure which needs pruned weekly Close-up of the lavender-blue four-petaled bells of C.v. "Betty Corning" which will bloom all summer. It's other advantage is it's perfumed with vanilla and lemon. The west end of the pergola, against a cloudy sky with a patch of blue. Top down: the new soaring canes of Rosa filipes "Brenda Colvin" and the head-sized cones of that rose's pale blush pink, fragrant and Bee-friendly blooms. Just below and to the right of the center of the photo are several of the red and yellow blooms of large-flowered climber "Reveille Dijonaise." At the bottom of the photo, the fluffy, ruffled, very double clusters of Felicite et Perpetue.
June 17, 2025 at 7:26 PM
jesrcerulean.bsky.social
#Birds

Another Quail- probably the same one, given that it is perching overlooking the same briar patch being supervised earlier- about 75 feet closer than the earlier photo.
California Quail, its grey-blue chest, black face outlined in white stripes, and belly with black-and-white scale markings and chestnut spot looks askance at us from the lichen-covered branches and twigs of a dead Hazelnut bush.
June 15, 2025 at 3:01 AM
jesrcerulean.bsky.social
The chickens were having fits, as if the 6 Ravens who have been resting in the oaks were raiding. I was outside anyway photographing of the latest peony to bloom so I walked into the west yard and found a Hummingbird and two Western Flickers were the source of their panic. Also, roses in masses.
Brenda Colvin, a giant rose of the species filipes. It blooms in big cones of single pink flowers and sets deep red hips that the birds love. I will take a better picture when the light is better; this one doesn't show the pale pink flowers or their gold centers to best advantage. A close-up of Felicite et Perpetue, multitudinous pale pink flowers in bunches that look like very very expensive towels feel. The round unopened blooms are bright pink in contrast. "Felicite et Perpetue" French climber of the first Empire. Huge bunches of very double pale-pink roses whit bright green leaves; well to the right of the monsterous shrub is a struggling Orange-and-yellow flowered clinber, Reveille Dijonais, struggling to survive the struggle between the rose and an old chicken pen overgrown with Himalaya blackberries, Motherwort, and the rapaceous fall bearing raspberry "Autumn Bliss". Bleue Magenta, a rambler of 1820-ish. It is spiralling up into the Hawthorn tree with, as advertised, magenta flowers with blue shadows. The blooms are loosely double and the yellow centers contrast nicely with their petals The bedamned Hawthorn is unpruned and full of ripening berries.
June 14, 2025 at 4:07 AM
jesrcerulean.bsky.social
Some break in the politics. Sort of. I've been thinking about buying seeds and growing a very goth selection of petunias for my container mountain next year. Like these two:
Very Double deep purple petunias with light gold edges: two fully open, one tight bud, one half-open bud, and soft round green leaves at the edge of a stoneware pot. Cream-white single petunias with fine inky stripes radiating from the throat, in a pot with bright-green German Thyme and a Magenta and black Coleus, Two very non-goth white double petunias with magenta ruffled centers peek out of the upper right-hand corner.
June 13, 2025 at 7:42 PM