a weblog of whereabouts & interests, since 2010
The wildfires on the outskirts of Spokane burnt down several hundred structures and forced tens of thousands of people to evacuate.
Surface smoke from all the fires reached the Seattle area today and will hang around through Thursday.
My Ebay purchase of stamps from Germany arrived today, sent by the seller from Backnang in the Bundesland of Baden-Württemberg, Germany.
Let’s take a closer look at the stamps that he put on the envelope.
Issued Dec. 2, 2021
Perf. 12 Die Cut | Self-adhesive | Design: Bettina Walter | Engraving: Bundesdruckerei| Photolithography | 2D barcode panel | No watermark
3266 DQN €0.05 | Multicolored | Letter-and-pencil water lily
3267 DQO €0.85 | Multicolored | Letter-folded-into-swan origami
[Sources: stampworld.com]
Issued Jan. 11, 2001
Perf. 14 | Design: Aretz | Photolithography | No watermark
2037 BVK 110 Pfg/ €0.56 | Cream, brown-olive, gray & black | Coat of arms of Kingdom of Prussia (1701-1871)
The Kingdom of Prussia was a powerful European state that existed from 1701 to 1918, ruled by the House of Hohenzollern. It was centered in Berlin and Brandenburg, and it led the 1871 unification of Germany.
[Sources: stampworld.com, Wikipedia.com]
Issued Apr. 7, 2005
Perf. 14 | Design: Blume-Zander & Zander | Engraving: Stampatore: Bundesdruckerei | Photolithography | No watermark
2311 CFZ €1.44 | Brown orange & black | Plaque and characters from the fairy tales of Hans Christian Anderson
Hans Christian Andersen (1805–1875) was a celebrated Danish author, renowned for his literary fairy tales. He is also the author of plays, novels, poems, travel books, and several autobiographies.
2005 Definitive Series of Flowers (one stamp from a series of 28 stamps)
Issued Jan. 2, 2010
Perf. 14 | Design: Stefan Klein et Olaf Neumann | Engraving: Stampatore: Bundesdruckerei | Photolithography | No watermark
2584 CQI €4.10 | Multicolored | Lady’s-slipper orchid (Cypripedium calceolus)
The lady’s slipper (Cypripedium) is a fascinating terrestrial orchid distinguished by its striking, shoe-shaped flower lip. In the wild—such as the strictly protected yellow lady’s slipper (Cypripedium calceolus) in Central Europe—it grows in open deciduous and pine forests on calcareous soils.
[Sources: stampworld.com, Brittanica.com, Bund Naturschutz]
These two pictures are from my after-dinner walk tonight.
Happy World Nature Conservation Day.
This elephant seal found itself stranded on a farm near Mossel Bay in South Africa two weeks ago, on July 15. (There were heavy rains and flooding in the area. The seal had lounged around in the shallow waters near the coastline for too long.)
It is estimated to be about 8 years old and to weigh about 900 kg (2,000 pounds).
The beast is somewhat emaciated and should have more blubber on its bones, but it was given shots against rabies and a bacterial infection by a veterinarian from he Stranded Marine Animal Rescue Team. It seems to be doing better now.
Happy Friday.
I walked down to the Capitol Hill branch of the Seattle Public Library today to take back my two books that were badly overdue. I walked by the little car with the AFK BYE* plates again, and it made me smile.
*Away From Keyboard, Bye. AFK originated in 1990s chatrooms and gaming communities, and is now commonly used in mobile messaging to let someone know you will be temporarily unavailable to respond.
(Just make sure the other person knows what AFK stands for, or they might think you cussed at them and no longer want to respond! 😆)
Pål Hermansen from Oslo, Norway, won first place (gold) in the Wildlife category of the 2026 reFocus Color Photography Contest with this photo of a grizzly bear in Alaska.
These spectacular lilies, dahlias, peonies, daisies and wildflowers are from the P-patch at 20th Avenue East and Republican Street in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood.
The low tide bottomed out at minus 3.9 feet around 11.20 am this morning at the shorelines around Seattle. (That is close to the level of minus 4.3 feet recorded in June, the lowest in four years.)
Coastline explorers reported sightings of sea stars and nudibranchs (sea slugs) in the shallow waters.
![A Dirona albolineata, commonly known as frosted nudibranch, swims in a tide pool at Brackett’s Landing Park on Monday in Edmonds.[Caption from The Seattle Times, photo by Nick Wagner / The Seattle Times]](https://www.willemsplanet.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/low_162211.jpg)
In the summertime, sounds from outside seep in through the crevices in the window, by the outlet of the portable airconditioner that I had deployed.
Tap-tap-tap, I heard as I sat in my study. Tap-tap-tap.
Oh! Is that someone working on the roof tiles next door? I wondered.
Summer solstice is here (the exact time was early Sunday morning at 1:24 am)— as is another wave of warm temperatures.
The high today in Seattle was 85 °F (29.5 °C).
These gorgeous flowers are from the P-Patch at East Republican St and 20th Avenue E here on Seattle’s Capitol Hill.
They are of the genus Ranunculus— commonly known as Persian buttercups (Ranunculus asiaticus).
Check out the air mail envelope that contained my purchases of Japanese stamps from a seller in Asaka, Japan (in the Tokyo metro area).
He wrote my name and address in perfect print— something I absolutely cannot do with Japanese characters!
Issued Feb. 2, 2015
Perf. 13 x 13¼ | Stamp 22 mm x 26 mm | Printing: Photogravure | No watermark
3791 A3351 10 ¥ | Multicolored | Japanese crested ibis (Nipponia nippon)
[Sources: colnect.com, 2021 Scott Standard Postage Stamp Catalogue Vol. 4A]
Issued Mar. 11, 2026
Perf. 16½ | Design: Maho Shimada | Stamp 50 mm x 35 mm | Printing: Offset Lithography | Printer: Toppan Edge Co., Ltd. (Toppan Printing Co., Ltd.) | No watermark
JP 2026.03.11-01c 500 ¥ | Multicolored | Woodblock print by Utagawa Hiroshige “Arashiyama in Full Blossoms: Famous Places of Kyoto”
[Sources: colnect.com, Google Gemini Flash]
Here is an hour before sunset (now 8.47 pm), with the sun behind the clouds at the top right.
I am looking out towards the Olympic mountains from 13th Avenue E and East Mercer St.
From today’s Seattle Times.
I did not know that this was a thing: racing up to the mountain’s summit, and back.
It was mostly sunny today here in the city, with a high of 63°F (17°C).
The flower du jour here from Seattle’s Capitol Hill is a rock rose (the shrub’s genus is Cistus), with its crinkled ’tissue paper’ petals and bright yellow stamens in the center.
Rock rose flowers are short-lived, and once out of the bud, most last only a day or two!
Mr. Woodpecker (Northern flicker, Colaptes auratus) pecked on the tree trunk for a few minutes, then gave up and rested on the branches of my fir tree.
After preening his chest feathers for a bit, he took off.
A belated happy Mother’s Day to all the moms.
The rhododendrons are blooming here on Seattle’s Capitol Hill.
Here’s a sea lion ‘action picture’ from photographer Ken Lambert, taken for the Seattle Times.
I found these beautiful bearded irises on Martin Luther King Way in Seattle’s Central District.
