Clean and Pretty

 

Most of the time, these shots would be considered pretty ordinary.

Yesterday, however, virtually every scene I saw--- whether it was walking the driveway, driving the tractor or sitting in the passenger side of the pickup---was worthy of a photo.

The earth was clean. 

Thick, blah dust had gone. 

Brilliant color had returned. 

And, so after brush hogging the field along the lane and finishing up other morning projects, I happily said yes when Bill asked if I wanted to do something in the afternoon. 

My suggestion:  let's go see the wind damage at Sam Owen campground.

Bill's suggestion:  let's stop at Trestle Creek and see the Kokanee.

Seemed like a good idea because earlier in the day I had seen those bright, red, spawning fish in some pictures on Facebook. 

Our trip eventually took us to the drift yard east of Hope and to the Johnson Creek launch near Clark Fork. 

Everything was sparkling clean and alive with color, especially those fish.  Of course, living in the water, they never get dirty. 

I did not take pictures of one segment of the trip:  the Sam Owen campground and surrounding area.

It was too sad, seeing hundreds and hundreds of huge, majestic trees uprooted, thrown every which way but loose or sawed into sections.

The clean-up on the Hope peninsula seems beyond major, following a Labor Day windstorm which pretty much decimated the area. 

The scene is becoming far too frequent, as we have seen several violent wind storms over the past few years.  

We've had two so far this year---one in March which hit the south side of the lake, causing an equally disturbing amount of damage. 

Taking pictures of nature-caused destruction seems like adding more salt to the many wounds we've endured this year.  

So, I chose to leave the Sam Owen scenes in my memory bank and to others' imaginations. 

The clean earth emerging from weeks and weeks worth of dust----that was another story, an uplifting one at that. 

So, I hope you enjoy the ordinary North Idaho scenes where a little bathing from Mother Nature's welcome rain turned them extraordinary. 

Happy Friday.