Some Like It Cold

Day 365: Some like it hot. Some like it cold. I am in the first category, grateful that the installation of the replacement water heater went smoothly. However, my little avian friends seem to have been waiting for it to get chilly enough for a refreshing bath. This morning, the puddles were full of robins, juncoes and the occasional Song Sparrow (above), splish-splashing to their little hearts' content with the temperature hovering at 40 degrees. Yes, they've probably been waiting all summer for water sufficiently deep for their ablutions, but dang, guys! Can't you wait for a warmer day? The universal turnout always seems to come when there's a nip in the air, and with a bird's body temperature being 112 degrees, that's got to feel a lot colder to them than it does to us at 98.6. Birds! The originators of the "Polar Plunge," brave little creatures that they are.

The Pretty-Kitty Box

Day 364: I cannot explain why this is "the Pretty-Kitty Box," but there you have it. It's akin to "your little weaver's box" in the Loom Room, and yes, he knows the difference. Y'see, the thing is, Merry never wants me out of his sight unless he has something importantly cattish to do on his own. Then I'm just furniture, but let me go into the bedroom or bathroom or kitchen without explaining that "I'll be right back, baby!" and he follows me. "Follows" isn't even an adequate word. He stops whatever he's doing, even if it's being half-asleep, and TROTS after me to be sure he doesn't miss any of the action.

A friend sent me a YouTube video about Russian Blues. "Very smart," it claimed, and to that I can most assuredly attest. "Calm companion," it also said. I wrote back to Patty and remarked, "They shoulda been here last night. I was peeling him off the walls." Honestly, I think "calm" comes with maturity, and after all, Merry is still a little babycat at 18 months old and 17 very bouncy pounds. In those rare "calm" moments, snuggled in my arms under the covers or on my lap in the chair, he fits the profile of a textbook Blue, great rumbling purr rattling the rafters. When he goes after his toys in the bathtub (one of his favourite places to bat them around), you'd think there was an 8.5 earthquake going on.

Blah But Beautiful

Day 363: Blah Coral (Ramaria acrisiccescens) is no mushroom hunter's idea of a prize, not by a long shot. The common name tells you all you need to know about its desirability as a foodstuff. Nevertheless, the corals present (in my opinion) one of the most photogenic growth structures in the fungal kingdom. They are out in abundance presently, poking their spires up through moss and leaves, giving the forest a brush of sea-floor artistry and making one wonder if the dryads have "gone mermaid" for a season. So much forest life depends on fungus. In the macroscopic view, animals and insects consume them, and they aid the decomposition process. From the microscopic point, vast swaths of mycorrhizae extend beneath the soil surface, breaking down materials into forms which can be utilized by plants of all sorts. Some plants (the mycoheterotrophs) cannot exist without a fungal partner. Blah Coral may not have any gustatory appeal, but it and its fungal kin are vital to the health of the forest.

Serious Warp Chicken, Rigid Heddle Style

Day 362: I have played Warp Chicken on rigid heddle before, but never quite as narrowly as this. I did manage to get the full 280 throws on my last placemat, but it measures a full inch and then some shorter than the other five because I was overcompensating with the beat. Still, having the same number of throws as the others will go a long way in how it fulls in the wash. I've used the counted-throw method before, and after fulling, the difference in lengths was negligible even though it had been very noticeable in the raw. Now both rigid heddle looms are standing empty, as is my table loom. I'd like to start a new project, but what I want to make has to (HAS TO!) go on the floor loom, and that's currently occupied with a rather boring project. I've created a dilemma for myself!

Textbook Specimen

Day 361: During our mushroom foray yesterday, I showed Ed a few of the other species I can recognize easily, and elaborated on what field identification points I was using to make my determination. He is anxious to learn about mushrooms, so of course the first lesson I gave was this: "Never eat a mushroom if you're not 110% sure of your identification." There were a lot of unknowns along the trail, but also Russulas of different colours and good ol' Lobsters, which gave me the opportunity to explain why I don't eat them; to wit, Lobster is a fungal overgrowth which largely occurs on Russulas, and you don't know which Russula may lie beneath the Lobster's bright orange coating. Some Russulas can cause severe gastric distress, so I avoid Lobster entirely. Then as we walked along, we suddenly came into a patch some 50' in diameter which was heavily populated with huge Amanita muscarias, some with flattened caps as large as dinner plates. They were the only ones we'd seen on the entire hike, and included this textbook-perfect specimen. I took the opportunity to expand Ed's education on field points, but also to explain that some mushroom toxins (particularly amanitotoxins) linger forever in the liver, continuing to damage the organ beyond the toxins' immediate effects. That said, there is no 'shroom so photogenic as this species, so I hunt them every year...with my camera.

Ed Goes Mushrooming

Day 360: My weaving friend Ed came up for a visit, and suggested that we could go for a hike today. I had several options to suggest, and after we'd narrowed it down to three, I said, "Okay, would you rather go for a longer hike or go mushrooming?" but then it occurred to me that we could do both fairly easily. We started with the longer walk, picking up a few chanterelles on the way. I led him down a spur on the way back to the car, thinking (as I had done with Arnie in the same area) that we could connect with another trail to take us back to parking. We were talking as we walked, and went right past the short leg where we should have turned, kept going for another mile or so until agreeing that turning back might be preferable to going on. A two-mile plan morphed into a 4-5 mile actuality, but at least we had a good start on mushrooms in the "perhaps bag." It was a good thing we'd found them there, because the second spot only yielded up about half a dozen more, although what we'd gathered was plenty to make a good lunchtime soup for both of us. It was Ed's first mushrooming experience, and a delightful day all around.

Which Of These...?

Day 359: Which of these objects is unlike the others? Or more to the point, why is it different? I was not expecting to find a 1" diameter berry on my hardy kiwis when I went out to pick a snack yesterday, but now that the leaves are beginning to fall, it's easier to see the fruit. Yes, I'm still learning the Art of the Kiwi, and have discovered that the berries come readily off the vine when they're ripe, even dropping to the ground of their own accord. Last year, I figured out that they don't really start to ripen until the leaves begin changing colour. This year, I noticed that the stems of the fruit start to wither and turn brown to signal their readiness for picking. But what happened here? Where did the big berry come from? You may recall that I originally planted two "Issai" vines, purportedly self-fertile, but not very interested in doing their job. Consequently, I planted a male/female pair of "Clark" and "Anna" so that I would at least stand some small chance of getting fruit, and hoping that "Clark" might also fertilize "Issai." I think it did. I think this one larger fruit is from "Issai." Okay, time for a re-think. I will abandon my plans to remove "Issai" and will see if I can encourage a leg of "Clark" to intertwine with it. And I'm wondering if, as more leaves drop, I might find a few more "Issai" bonuses.