Wayward Salmon and Other Milestones

What with holiday projects, scuzzy weather, and overall laziness, I haven't managed to make myself go for a walk for a few weeks now.  Today, I saw a window of sunshine amid the gray clouds as I ate lunch, and I figured I'd better seize the opportunity.  Besides, my workbench projects needed more drying time before I could move on to the next step in their completion.

By the time I'd eaten, dressed, and gotten my tail out the door, the window of blue had moved further into the distance.  A light sprinkle fell from increasingly gray skies.  But I'd put it off too long.  I'd do at least an abbreviated walk; not to both stop signs that I usually go to, but to one stop sign and a little creek I cross.  It's a small thing, too small to run full time, but it was recently restored by one of the local groups that restores streams, on the theory that it would help the salmon; you know, one of those "every little bit might help, but probably won't" civic things.  In any event, it's a pretty little stream, and it made a decent landmark.  Every bit as good as a stop sign for turning around at.

By the time I'd come to the stream, the skies were more than a little threatening.  But I was too far from home to turn back and stay dry anyway, so I made it to the banks.  As I turned around, I saw a splash.

No way, I thought, but I stopped to look closer.

Another splash.

A wriggle.

Yes, a late season salmon had made its way up the little creek, and as I watched it was making its way even further up.

Back before this area was a growing, light polluting, and overcrowded city, there used to be salmon in this stream.  I heard stories of a neighbor whose sons liked to take home salmon in their wagons; one year they got a female who laid eggs in the bathtub before Mom got the thing out of the house.  But I'd never seen one there myself.  Until this year.

Maybe that restoration project worked, after all.

I only saw the one lone salmon making the run, so I don't know if my little finny friend was simply a loner or searching in vain for a mate with whom to repopulate the restored stream's salmon run. But if I saw one salmon swimming there, this late in the run, then others might very well have done the same.

So swim on, wayward salmon.  Best of luck to you and yours.

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In the Other Milestones department, I'm disturbingly close to hitting my self-imposed deadline for my first round of holiday projects.  As in, the major sculpting phase is done, which is the part that takes so long.  Of course, I have more stuff chomping at the bit to be started as soon as I clear these from the workbench, but that looks to be happening round about the time I had hoped it would happen.

Helps that I started in early October...

And, if you care to glance at the NaNoWriMo 2009 widget, you'll see the next milestone I crossed tonight.  If the widget isn't displaying, I'll just say that I crossed the 40,000 word mark of the 50,000-word goal.  I'd say I have at least another 10,000 words, likely a fair whack more, worth of story to tell.  I want to finish it by the end of the month, though, no matter how many words it ends up being.  The characters just hit their next little snag ("little" as in "potentially lethal"), so tomorrow I find out how they get through it.