Hangin'

Day 48: Yesterday afternoon, the temperature dropped so quickly that icicles even formed at the tips of the Japanese maple's few remaining leaves, and today, it has not risen above freezing. The good news is that it should be warmer tonight, if only by a few degrees, and will mark the start of a slow warming trend until we're back to rain by the end of the week. You can't win in the Pacific Northwest. If it's dry, it's cold. If it's warm, it's wet.

It's Time To Write The Christmas Letter

Day 47: Nothing gets me in the mood to write my Christmas letter like a fall of snow, and I can't count the number of years that event has coincided with the weekend following Thanksgiving. Once again, Ma Nature has sent this reminder in a timely fashion. If all secretaries were as good, no one would ever have an excuse to miss a meeting!

Spotlight On Cladonia Bellidiflora

Day 46: C. bellidiflora is a fairly common Cladonia here in the Pacific Northwest, and perhaps its success is due to the abundant squamules which typically cover its podetia. Okay, I threw a couple of unfamiliar words out there and to save my readers from having to scramble to their dictionaries, I'll explain. A lichen's stems are called "podetia" (singular "podetium") and the squamules are the little leaf-like structures growing along them. These "leaves" allow the lichen to trap nutrient-laden moisture and conserve it in the dry season. "Apothecia" are the fruiting bodies of the lichen (in this species, bright red knobs). Cladonia bellidiflora is particularly showy, although generally, most people walk right by colonies unless the apothecia are readily evident and happen to catch a hiker's eye. It is one of several "lipstick" lichens you'll find in our forests, and in my experience, seems to have a preference for decaying cedar stumps and logs.

Farmall Series M

Day 45: Arguably the best tractor ever made (~cough~ admitting to some bias here!), the 36-horse Farmall M was produced between 1939 and 1954, and at the peak of its popularity in 1952, sold for $2400. I think my dad paid substantially less for the one he drove (I believe he bought it used), and like most tractors of its time, its greatest fault was that it was hard to start. Once up and running, it was a workhorse whether pulling a hay rake or a disk harrow, but starting...well, that was another story. Even today when I am describing how I surmounted a particularly problematic issue, I may refer to having "used all my father's tractor-startin' words," and like any Marine, he had a very broad vocabulary of them. Still, if you want to talk tractors with me, don't bring up those green lawnmowers. Real tractors are red, and don't you forget it!

Goin' Hell-Bent-For-Leather

Day 44: Mark this as the one-and-only Woolly Bear I've seen this year, and the poor little guy was goin' hell-bent-for-leather, trying to reach the grass at the side of a bike path. Has it been that until very recently, we didn't have the requisite cold to kick these caterpillars into winter mode? Usually, I see them all along the road when I'm walking, a circumstance which slows me down considerably as I move each one to safety. It doesn't seem likely that I could have missed them, not when they are normally abundant.

High Water

Day 43: I have certainly seen the Nisqually running higher and faster than it was today, but it is still flooding low-lying areas and bringing a lot of debris downstream. November and February are typically our wettest months, and what brings the rivers up most dramatically is rain on top of an early snow-pack, as is the case in this event. Earlier this week, Paradise saw its first major accumulation of the year, enough that the Park brought out the plows and visitors were beginning looking forward to the snow-play season. A change to rain sent much of it coursing down the Nisqually while other areas (notably the Carbon River and Puyallup drainages) are also experiencing flood conditions. The Park was closed today when debris backed up behind a culvert, sending Kautz Creek over the road. While major flooding  is not expected, even minor events like this one can be inconvenient to Park personnel as well as to the visitors who come out in all sorts of weather.

Killdeer In The Dew

Day 42: I was out and about today, and as always, had the Albatross around my neck (i.e., the camera). true to the motto of the Scouts: "Be Prepared." I didn't really expect to find anything photo-worthy on this rather grey and gloomy day, but you never know when something may turn up. Today, it was half a dozen Killdeers skittering along in the grass of a sports facility. The focus is not as crisp as I'd have liked, but these nervous birds wouldn't allow me to get closer. I was fortunate to be able to get this shot at 74x digital zoom.

The Killdeer (a plover) goes by the Latin name Charadrius vociferus, and lives up to the latter part quite famously. These six birds were calling almost constantly, "Kill-deeeeeeeer! Kill-deeeeeeer!", another example of a bird whose common name has been derived from its call. The Killdeer is also known for performing the well-known broken-wing display to lure predators away from its nest or young.

Nature's Not-So-Straight Lines

Day 41: They say there is no such thing as a straight line in nature, and of course that's strictly true. For example, pine needles look straight to the eye, but in fact they curve gently to a point on each end. Nature's beauty lies in its fluidity of line, perceptible or imperceptible, a subtle flow which leads the eye from one point to another. However, there are times when Nature plays games with us, offering up the illusion of straight lines without compromising her artistic principles. When I first spotted this blanket of moss and lichen, the scratch tracks Tip leaves in the carpet when he sharpens his claws came to mind. Straight lines they are not, but they certainly give an impression of alignment.

Shower With A Friend

Day 40: Several times in the past, I have attempted to keep various Tillandsias alive with only very short-term success. I would either forget to soak them or would put them down to soak and leave them too long, practices which respectively caused them to dry out or rot. I've had this one a year now, and I've learned something: they don't like to bathe. They like to shower instead. My little friend sits in the bathroom window where I am reminded of the care requirements daily, and when I take my shower, I give it a thirty-second rinse in the spray. It is worth mentioning that I take a rather hot shower and surprisingly, the plant has not objected to the temperature of the water and appears to be doing quite well.

Blush

Day 39: I tend to ignore the stock Zygocacti (Christmas red, cerise, vermilion) in preference for the more exotic varieties. And I can't quite tell you which one is my favourite, unless it happens to be what's in bloom at the time. The picotee with its vividly edged white petals is certainly a show-stopper, but the yellow is so unusual that it would be difficult to choose between the two. Then there is "white," in truth a pale shell pink which may deepen depending on the amount of heat and/or light the plant has received during its non-blooming time. Its striking flowers put me in mind of little birds, cockatoos, pink crests and all. Although it lacks the flamboyance of the picotee and the rarity of the yellow, it makes up for it with a delicateness the others cannot claim. Yes, I'd be hard put to decide a favourite among those three.

Freeze-Dried Amanitas

Day 38: My photo software continues to be problematic, so I have taken the liberty of getting a few items ready for posting during a moment when it chose to be cooperative. I hope my regular readers will forgive any geographic redundancies which may occur (e.g., this image was also shot at Longmire, as was yesterday's).

Last week, a cold snap took the Plant Kingdom by surprise. My dogwood and mountain ash had just begun to shed their leaves, and neither my Japanese maple nor the contorted filbert had dropped a single one until the temperature plummeted abruptly into the low 20s. The chilly temps were accompanied by strong winds...drying winds, as I was soon to discover when I looked out on a scene of withered, pendant foliage still clinging to the twigs. A few more days of wind carried the maple's leaves into the neighbor's yard, but the filbert is still hanging on to its little flags. In the course of a discussion yesterday, I learned that the lack of cold prior to this weather event had not permitted the formation of the ablation layer of cells required for normal leaf-drop.

This photo shows a phenomenon I've never seen before in the Pacific Northwest: mushrooms freeze-dried in situ. These Amanitas, formerly thick and plump, shrivelled until they were thinner than a pancake (and resembled one at first glance). Now papery and brittle, the drying winds and accompanying cold dessicated them where they stood, just as the weather had sucked the moisture out of the deciduous foliage. I will be interested to see how this affects next year's growth.

Longmire's Lonesome Boulder

Day 37: I don't think it takes too much imagination to see the glum face this boulder presents, but I have never yet seen anyone stop to give him a kindly word (other than me, of course). They walk or drive past, intent on getting to a meeting or luncheon at the Community Building or to set off on a hike to Eagle Peak, but never spare so much as a nod in his direction. Perhaps years of being ignored have soured his disposition; sitting there all lorn and lonesome, watching the river gallop along to exciting places and seeing humans come and go. I am an animist. I cannot ignore his plight, although my best efforts have not cheered him up one whit. Perpetual bad mood or not, he has one friend who enjoys seeing him.

Well, Whadda Ya Know!

Day 36 UPDATED: If you just keep beating your head against walls, sooner or later, you're going to find one that will crumble. I went at my photo-processing software from a different angle and got it working again!

Mystery Grain

Day 36: Brace yourself, because this post is going to have very little to do with the above photograph.

I seem to be in one of those pockets of mishap which occur in all our lives, and three days of it is quite enough, thank you. I want out! It started with a flat tire which wound up with the purchase of four new ones due to wear, and has been accompanied by nosebleeds (a function of dry weather), errors in simple knitting, and now as the final straw, the demise of my photo-processing software where, as you know, I just learned to add curved text. Oh, I have an older version on a half-dead computer in my back bedroom, but it's not nearly as powerful as the one I've become used to using over the last several years.

And there's the rub. Apparently an update overwrote something in the software, figuring that if it was no longer supported (and it's that old, yes), the space could be better used for something else. I've tried every trick I know to bring it back to life, but it seems to be well and truly dead. And I am ... well, "peeved" would be a polite word. My readers should therefore not expect my usual standard in these posts because it will be a while before I can replace it.

I don't want to tempt fate by asking what else can go wrong because I can imagine a wealth of answers. I just hope a few of them miss me because I feel like I'm the prime target at this point.

So what's the mystery grain? The birds planted it in my flowerbed, something they scattered out of the feeder. I pulled most of it but let a few sprays go to maturity. The stalk resembles corn, but stands less than three feet high. I could not find any seeds in the head which might have given me a clue as to its identity.

Footnote: the Mystery Grain is proso millet, and I suspect the birds figured that out before I did, which accounts for the lack of seeds in the heads. Gee, they grew their own food this year!

Eatonville's New Trail

Day 35: From working with the Nisqually Land Trust, I knew that plans were in the works for Eatonville to extend its trail system up into Boxcar Canyon and eventually further on to meet up with the trails in Pack Forest, but I was not expecting a new section to crop up almost overnight. As I drove into town a few days ago, I noticed a sign reading, "Bud Blancher Trail," and a parking area at the head of a sloping, gravelled path about eight feet wide. Rather late in the day today, I stopped and followed it until it crossed the Mashel, bringing me out at my favourite lichen stump in Smallwood Park. It continued on along the old road which I've walked many times, so in the interest of keeping my nose out of Jack Frost's reach, I turned around and went back to the car. Only then did I notice the map which showed this newly completed section following the boundary of Pack Forest on the north for another half-mile or so beyond Smallwood. I'll have to go back in warmer weather to explore that section!

Local Color

Day 34: You know what really worries me? That I share the same streets and shopping district as the owner of this truck. It is one thing to have radical opinions and keep them to yourself (or share them with like-minded people), but a different circumstance entirely to vocalize them publicly and even more outlandish, to advertise them in this manner where they not only offend the eye but the sensibilities as well. Of course we do not all agree; we are individuals after all, but let's maintain decorum when espousing our views, whatever they may be. And for pity's sake, if you must rant, learn how to spell!

Nigella In Contrast

Day 33: As a species, humans tend to think of their visual capabilities as being pretty sophisticated. After all, we can differentiate something in the neighborhood of ten million colors. However, that very function often obscures the finer details of an object by overwhelming the eye and brain. Perhaps that explains why black-and-white photography has maintained its appeal despite the camera's ability to capture "true to life" hues. In a black-and-white image, features which would otherwise have been lost under a barrage of color stand out in greater relief. The maroon markings on the dried, brownish pods of Nigella are barely worth a passing glance in color, but in black-and-white, they become a primary point of interest. Don't ignore your camera's black-and-white mode!

Christmas In November

Day 32: I would boycott the stores where I saw Christmas merchandise on the shelves prior to Hallowe'en, but I'd go naked and starve if I did. Here at home, however, I don't mind Christmas coming in November when my Zygocacti respond to the transition of seasons. After all, they bloom when they're supposed to bloom once they've resumed their natural rhythms after having been forced into a one-time December display. It might be that they're giving us some sage advice: give from the heart when the time is right, not by the calendar (and certainly not because you feel forced).

Tea-Time

Day 31: Seriously, I had other things to do with my time today, but I got started on this idea and didn't want to quit until I was done. The motivation was an on-line photo group assignment, the last of twenty given to participants at the first of the month. Although I am primarily a coffee drinker, I do enjoy a cup of tea at least once a day. Many of my favourites are difficult to tell apart when laid out on a backing, so I included a number of herbals in this composite as well.

The operative word in that last sentence is "composite." Fourteen images went into the making of this sampler; the background,  twelve close-ups of various teas, and one shot to capture both spoons which were then "lifted" and reinstalled here. I don't have a lot of fancy software, so this meant hours of trimming, erasing and blending, particularly with respect to the spoons.

Starting at 1 o'clock, the teas are
1. Jasmine
2. Sassafras bark
3. Earl Grey
4. Chamomile
5. Goldenseal (home-grown)
6. Chai Spice blend
7. English Breakfast
8. Licorice Spice (licorice root and spices)
9. Pinhead Gunpowder
10. "Floor sweepings" (bag tea, liberated)
11. Peppermint
12. Rose mint (home-grown)

It's time for tea!

We Are Not Amused

Day 30: No, we are not amused at all. The power went out about 8:45 last night and stayed out until 2:30 while the wind howled outdoors. The house got cold enough that the Sandbags sandbagged me on either side in the bed, which of course doesn't make for the most restful sleep. Lights are back on now, but I'm writing from the library. Internet is down. Land line is down. Cell service is down! Land line and internet are the same company, and their message would indicate that it may be a while before service is restored, but the loss of cell baffles me. Did the tower blow over?

Winter. I used to love it, but the older I get, the harder it is to get through the season, both physically and emotionally. I don't enjoy camping out in my living room as much as I used to, dammit.

Update: A broken fiber-optic cable was apparently at fault, although I'm not sure how that managed to affect cell service. It has been repaired, and I'm back among the connected.

Memories

Day 29: I had but a few years to enjoy my father's stories, to watch him in his woodshop or to help him in the garden as he sowed corn or turned the compost; a few short years before the effects of war wrested him away. My memories of him are few and perhaps colored by the fact that he was viewed through adoring eyes. I am certain that he must have been a man with faults, but my recollections find none. I never heard him raise his voice in anger except to swear at the tractor or a raiding neighborhood dog, never heard him argue with my mother, except in the sport of philosophical debate. Nor do I recall his illness, because he masked it well. What comes to mind most readily when I think of my father is sunny, warm days and corn sheaves, the scents of sawdust and Old Spice, and the rich browns he always wore and how they accented his dark eyes. I think of my father in sepiatones and blue (his other favourite color), and the handkerchief he always carried which was woven in those hues. I only know his war stories from hearsay, because he spared me the horrors he confided to my mother in private. I did not know how he had suffered until I became an adult.

On this Veterans Day, I choose to remember the man who taught me to connect to the Earth, a man who felt the seasons in his bones and set his course by their dictates. It was circumstance which made him a soldier, but a hero he was born.

Learn Something New

Day 28: I cannot recall when I heard this piece of advice, but it was a very long time ago and I have sought to live by it ever since. Perhaps it's because my maternal grandmother was a schoolteacher, and instilled in me a desire to inquire into the whys and wherefores of many subjects. "Knowledge," she would say, "is the most valuable thing you can have."

The last ten days have brought me to greater manipulative skills as far as post-processing of photos is concerned. Not only did I learn how to create a "tiny planet" with my PaintShop Pro photo editing suite, I also had a breakthrough with regard to adding curved text to an image. The manual which came with the program was sorely lacking in instructive material for the process, so I resorted to an on-line source which explained how to effect curved text using a much later version of the program. Substantial trial and error and many notes-to-self on a scratch pad finally brought me to a repeatable set of directions for text which followed a circular path. However, I was not content. I wanted to be able to add upright text to the lower portion of the image, as opposed to letters which went upside-down as they marched around the rim of the circle. I was less successful in finding details on line, but having accomplished the first part gave me some clues for achieving my goal.

As you might guess from the photo above, all other projects have been in suspension as I sought to master this skill. Now, if you'll excuse me, I really need to tend to my knitting!

Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge

Day 27: I didn't plan to go to the Refuge today, but after failing to find what I'd gone shopping for in Yelm and Lacey, I figured it was a good Plan B. The last section of boardwalk was closed for the season as I knew, but the first portion of it was enchanting in an autumnal sort of way. Plus, the tide was in, always better for scenic photos. The weather was pleasant for a November day as long as I was protected by the trees, but as soon as I got out in the open, I was wishing I had a couple of sandbags in my pockets. In fact, while I was fiddling with changing the battery in the camera, the tripod took wing. It didn't simply fall over. It lifted off, and I caught it by one leg before it could go over the side of the dike. After that, I kept it pinched between my knees. But here in this protected marsh, the water was barely disturbed by the wind.

Quilling

Day 26: Quilling, a craft which enjoyed the peak of its popularity during the mid-1800s, is still practiced by a proportionally small number of artists today. Named for the feather quills which were originally the tool of choice, today's quilling utilizes a needle or bodkin on which to form rolls from narrow strips of paper. Rolls may be made larger or smaller as the artist requires for a specific pattern, and may be relaxed and/or pinched depending on the shape desired. Once a number of rolls have been made, they are lightly glued together, and then may be attached to a paper backing if meant for a framed display.

Quilling often takes form as snowflakes or flowers. Creating a piece of quilled art may take anything from just a few to hundreds of tiny rolls. Count the curls in either of the two snowflake patterns shown here and you'll see what I mean.

A New Character

Day 25: My regular readers will have seen me in any number of disguises, some of which (Morgan Corbye, for example) have distinct personas. Most are recurring roles, but even so, not all are named. Lest anyone think I have a multiple-personality issue, be assured that almost every character is simply a closer focus on some particular trait of the "whole me"; a macro view, if you will, which only shows one portion of the greater subject. That said, the Beatnik is new, and was born out of desperation when I needed a costume I could wear while planting trees in the soggy soil of a wetland area. Long skirts were obviously out of the question, and I didn't want to spoil any of the items in the Captain's copious wardrobe. I'd gone zombie for last year's event because that was its specific theme. This year, it was open to the imagination.

After an uninspiring visit to Goodwill, I turned back to my own closet for ideas. When the black turtleneck surfaced in my t-shirt drawer, Maynard G. Krebs made a dash across my mind. I had the trousers and beret...what else did I need? Since I couldn't very easily work in non-prescription sunglasses, I dragged out an old pair of specs with a dark frame. A second trip to Goodwill brought the costume almost to perfection with the addition of a black velvet jacket, but during a dress rehearsal, I still felt that something was missing for the stereotype. And then I realized what that one item was.

It just so happened that several years ago, I mooched a handful of bearskin trimmings from a taxidermist to incorporate into a crafts project. I still had quite a bit left, so it was just a matter of selecting a piece which would work as a goatee and trimming it to shape. A combination of mousse and spirit gum worked to conceal the thick hide's edges, and once it was tacked to my chin, it looked like it had grown there. Of all the costuming I've done, this was the first time I'd ever cross-dressed for a part!

Watch For Rolling Rock

Day 24: "So how was your day, dear?" Rain or not, I couldn't resist having a little fun with one of the rocks which came tumbling down the side of Mt. Wow last spring. Of course, I could have picked a drier day for the shoot and if I'd had spare clothes, I would have changed out of my fresh uniform, but sometimes you simply have to seize the moment of inspiration when it comes to you. Photographers are often required to make sacrifices for their art, and thus it was that I drove home with a wet behind and a muddy back for having laid in the puddle of runoff which had accumulated under my weighty subject. "Under" was the easy part; "out" was a bit of a challenge, and I might have been ahead if I'd followed my hat and gone straight through.

White Wine With Fish

Day 23: Should you not always serve white wine with fish?

Just a little humour, folks. It's really water and my poor fish was none too happy with the requirements of the modelling assignment he'd engaged. One sitting was sufficient to convince him he'd be better off in a different career, one with broader horizons and the option of travel.

Sculptor's Studio

Day 22: Dan Klennert's studio is easy to spot if you're driving up to Mount Rainier National Park's Nisqually entrance. Two miles out of Elbe, you'll see a lifesize metal giraffe standing by the side of the road. It's not the kind of thing you could drive past without noticing, and that's just your introduction to "Recycled Spirits of Iron." Dan is a man of considerable talent. He has the ability to visualize the shapes of things out of their normal context, and to assemble them into very recognizable forms. He works primarily in recycled metal and "found" driftwood (of which there is no shortage in Alder Lake).

Dan and I have known each other for something like twenty-five years. I stopped by his studio today, stuck my head in the door and yelled, "You home?" A faint voice answered me from somewhere deep among shelves of nails, bolts, rake heads, gears, pipes, chain, wrenches, fittings and whatnots (strangely including a tiered crystal candelabrum). I ventured further in, peering into nooks and crannies in the hopes of catching the sculptor in a creative pose. When I finally found him, I was somewhat disappointed. He was working on an ATV, engaged in the purely mundane mechanics of repair. When I asked if he'd mind if I took a few shots inside the studio, he apologized for the chaos. He'd been bringing the more delicate pieces indoors for the winter.

He went back to his work and left me to prowl around at my leisure. I had taken quite a few photos and was getting ready to leave when I noticed the light on this driftwood horse where it stood in a darkened corner. For once, I had my tripod with me, so I was able to capture the moment in HDR.

Go Binary

Day 21: It is 8:13:47 by the clock, and as easily read as a standard 12-hour dial once you get the hang of it. The numbers are represented in binary, and the columns are read left to right, bottom to top. The bottom row is 1. The second row is 2. The third row is 4. The top row is 8. The lights indicate the classic yes/no of binary; thus if a light in the bottom row is lit, it equals 1. If another light is lit in the column above it, the value of that light is added; thus if lights in the first and third row are lit, but not the second, 1 + 4 = 5.

To read the time here, we have
0 lights in column 1 = 0
The 8 light in column 2 = 8
The 1 light in column 3 = 1
The 1 and 2 lights in column 4 = 3
The 4 light in column 5 = 4
The 1, 2 and 4 lights in column 6 = 7

See how easy that was?

I've had this little clock for years and prefer it to the regular dials. It's much easier to set if the power goes off.

Novelty Shots

Day 20: You've seen them...photos made with the "Tiny Planet" app. You may have even made a few with your phone if it has the capability. Mine doesn't. It makes phone calls and it takes pictures, but it stops short of allowing me to download them onto my computer. I don't care. I have a camera for that. But occasionally, some novelty processing gimmick comes along and piques my interest, and "Tiny Planet" fell into that category. I had an idea how I could effect the same thing using PaintShopPro, but could never quite get it right and gave up trying.

Recently, an internet friend posted detailed instructions for how to make your own "Tiny Planet," and I discovered that I'd been missing one crucial step: resizing the image to a square without cropping it, i.e., changing the aspect ratio and squeezing its dimensions so that trees and mountains were very tall and skinny. I tested it out on a few single frames and then decided I was ready for the Big Time.

Although it's not a requirement, this process is most effective if you can have sky in every shot of a panorama. That's not an easy thing to achieve when you live in a mountainous area because you're nearly always facing a hill in at least one direction when you live among valleys. I decided my best chance at getting a border of sky was to go over to the east end of Riffe Lake in the hopes that Dog Mountain wouldn't be too tall. I mounted the camera on a tripod, and after checking to be sure the horizon was level in all directions, I took a panorama of 19 images in order to get the full scene. At home, these images were stitched together and cropped slightly at the top (I got too much sky!), and then I was ready to create my "Riffe World."

Taking the long, skinny panorama, I resized it to a perfect square, then flipped it top to bottom. The next step was to apply a Polar Coordinates filter, "rectangle to polar" (not "polar to rectangle"). Bingo! Riffe World sprang into existence, mountains all around and one tall cottonwood standing like a spire. Because my panorama was a full 360 degrees, no additional trimming up of the seam was required. I finished the image off by framing it with four repeats of the panorama laid out like a log-cabin quilt.

Now ask me what earthly good this is, and I'll answer, "Probably none." It's just a novelty shot...fun to do, but not worth buying a fancy phone to accomplish.

Planting Crew

Day 19: If each of us planted as few as twenty trees today (and I know I planted at least two dozen), Ohop Valley is richer by no less than 600 young saplings representing 8-10 different species of wetland-loving plants destined to provide future habitat for critters of all sorts. This was one of several planting events which will be held on the former Burwash property, and is just a single facet of a multi-tiered restoration program which also includes reestablishment of the creek's natural meander. Portions of the creek have already been reditched, adding a mile or more of shoreline, improving drainage and controlling erosion with engineered log jams.

Thirty volunteers turned out for the Nisqually Land Trust's annual Hallowe'en event, some in costume and others not, but all willing to get down and dirty in the mud for the occasion. Many were returnees back for a second, third or fourth year on this long-term project. They came prepared for any weather, with smiles on their faces and shovels in their gloved hands. For three hours, they dug holes and filled them with plants, lovingly packing the soil around the roots and often giving a final word of encouragement to their charges as they moved on to the next in line: "Grow up tall, little snowberry!" and conversations flew all around as they laughed and shared their experiences.

As always, it was a delight to work with such a dedicated crew. Thank you all for your work today.