An Earthly Paradise

Maggie truly is an earthy paradise. The soil seems to grow plants better and quicker than most other soil even when fertilized.

A garden strawberry, which I ate!

A garden raspberry. Which I will eat when ripe.

Lettuce

Corn. Already knee high!

Some small spiders.

A cool looking bug. He was nearly two inches long.

Umpqua

For the last couple of weekends Dad and I have been going down to the Umpqua River (one of the best fishing rivers in the west), which flows next to Maggie, and fishing. And we have also seen some neat animals there.

Pacific tree frog

A dragonfly who recently emerged from his nymph form and was still unfurling his new wings.

The Lowest Tide in Ten Years

Thursday, June 5th was the lowest ocean tide in ten years. Technically we went to the ocean on Friday the 6th, but the tide was almost as low. With such a low tide places that have rarely been above water were and creatures who had never seen direct sunlight were visable to the naked eye. We tide pooled at Neptune State Park.
After we went to the beach we visited Sea Lion Caves (a tourist attraction). It is the largest natural sea cave in the world. Stellar Sea lions rest in it.

Purple shore crab.

Hermit crab

This cave was on the beach and is not sea lion cave, but it is a few miles away.

Ochre Sea Star

tide pool fish

mussels & barnackles

Cool Critters

Juvinile opossum

An opossum
some think it's disgusting
I think it's adorable

Western forest scorpion

Garter Snake

Western fence lizard

This is an adult male western fence lizard. He was very tame and much bigger than the last one we saw. He was missing an eye.

These guys are also known as blue-bellies. Can you guess why?