Turkey Dinner

Day 48: Even without COVID, it's difficult for me to find material for my daily posts at this time of year, so when I stepped out to feed the birdies this morning and spotted a couple of Grey Jays, I said aloud, "Oh, I think my blog shot for the day just flew in." I am almost certain that this is the same family grouping which comes for a brief visit each winter. It began with two birds and after a few years, a third arrived. Now there are four. They seldom stick around for more than a few days, but may return several times over the course of the winter. Now officially known as the Canada Jay, Perisoreus canadensis is a gregarious fellow, and in their normal habitat which here is usually considered to include the subalpine and forested zones, they can be quite brazen when it comes to stealing food from backpackers. I've had them land on my head, my hands, my shoulders, and even had one fly through a very narrow space between my hand and my lips, taking with it the graham cracker I had intended to put in my mouth. They are not quite as comfortable around humans when in populated areas, so I am not expecting this group to eat from my hand even though they did enjoy a post-Thanksgiving turkey dinner on the crow board.

Langer Spranger, Longer Spronger

Day 47: In between bouts of working on the Hexagon Quilt, I've been playing with sprang...to be correct, "språng," and pronounced "sprong"...and wanted to figure out a way to construct a frame on which to make larger pieces. A brainstorm struck in the middle of the night as my brainstorms are usually wont to do, and this self-tensioning contraption was the result. It allows me to make sprang of any length as long as it fits between floor and ceiling, and could be any width depending on my (currently quite limited) supply of dowels. The bonus is that I am able to keep the warp under uniform tension, and although the water bottles are empty here, they could be filled as required to suit the fiber. Garden velcro coils hold the shed sticks in place until it's time to beat in the next row. That said, I will apologize to my readers for the garish yarn. It was something I purchased during a brief dance with knit/crochet colour-pooling (a technique I've determined is a complete waste of effort) and it needed to be used up in some manner. What better way to get rid of ugly yarn than in a fiber experiment? I will have no qualms about throwing it away after it has served its purpose as a "classroom material, and who knows? I might even come up with something worth keeping. Doubtful, because the long-dead days of hippies and psychedelic displays are best forgotten, but since history tends to repeat itself every few generations, it's possible they will resurface.

Analysis

Day 46: A more detailed analysis of its spores under the microscope has caused me to revise my original identification of this mushroom as Cortinarius salor to C. iodeoides, a species known to occur in the area just south of me by a few miles. That it was a Cortinarius was never in doubt. Observe the spiderwebby cortina (veil) which in this young specimen is still attached to both cap and stipe. This characteristic is what gives Cortinarius its genus epithet. That said, the genus is one of the largest in Fungi with well over a thousand species. Some can be identified by sight, but others require microscopic examination or chemical testing (I also did a chem test to separate two possible candidates, C. iodes and C. iodeoides).

My first attempt to obtain a spore print flopped miserably. I am always hesitant to murder a mushroom, so picked up a previously detached cap from the ground where it was lying upside down. I didn't take into account the rain which had occurred only a few hours earlier until I thought about it retrospectively. Oh, yeah, okay...all the spores washed out. Nobody home. Since I had a fairly good colony of cute little lilac Cortinarius, I figured I could sacrifice one in the name of science. After a day, a nice collection of brown spores had accumulated in the paper-lined petri dish. Then it was time to transfer them to the microscope. If my kitchen sprouts Cortinarius at some point in the future, no one should be surprised. Under magnification, the spores revealed themselves to be oval to almond-shaped, which immediately ruled out C. salor. Its spores are round. Spores 7μ in length distinguished it from C. iodes at 10μ.

You may have noticed that the spores in the above photo appear on a black background. This is because I use a darkfield microscope to make them more visible. In fact, other than the stereoscope I use to more closely observe macro characteristics of lichens, the darkfield is my most commonly used 'scope. It lives on my dining table, hence the comment about culturing Cortinarius in the kitchen. Generations of naturalists before me had to do with much less optimal working conditions, and most of them survived.

He's On...In The Can

 

 

Day 45: "I'm sorry, Mr. Dee can't speak with you at the moment. He's in the can." The phrase takes on a whole new meaning in my yard (indeed, perhaps a better one than the original vernacular). Not only do they take food from my hand, but if my open palm is already occupied, the braver souls have no compunctions about landing on the rim of the can or even getting down inside to select their lunch. I have to admit I'm spoiling them rotten. I usually only put a cup of seed in the feeder at any given time to prevent the blackbirds from hogging it all, so as soon as I notice that the 'dee-dees are scrabbling for the last bites, I go out to refill it. This also gives me the opportunity to continue hand-training...or can-training, as the case may be...but the Nuthatch still has reservations. He will land on the feeder inches from my elbow but has yet to dare the hand. He's hovered above it a couple of times as if testing the waters, but has yet to actually touch down. The 'dees have no such compunctions; in face, they compete for first rights, one bird pushing another off in order to land. Sometimes I offer "lazy seeds," i.e., hulled sunflower seed sold for human consumption. Nothing is too good for my little 'dee-dee friends!

Happy Thanksgiving

Day 44: Happy Thanksgiving from Crow, Tippy and all the well-stuffed "turkeys" who keep me entertained daily. The Porch Parrots (Coccothraustes vespertinus, aka Evening Grosbeaks) happen to be passing through currently, and there are at least two dozen of them vying for space in the feeders. They tend to be rather cranky toward their associates and while many beak-battles ensue, everybody eventually gets a share of the seed. It's kinda like Thanksgiving with the relatives: everybody shouting to try to make themselves heard over all the loud conversation, Aunt Maude engaged in a heated debate with her daughter-in-law over the choice of bowl for the potatoes, the television blaring even though no one is watching it...Grosbeaks can be a noisy lot and everyone has an opinion to air. When all is said and done, though, and the dishes/seed hulls are cleared away and tempers settle, the family acknowledges that its flock-bond is stronger than the arguments. Grosbeaks figured that out long ago.

Cortinarius Iodeoides

Day 43: It shames me to admit it, but there are many things growing on my property which I have never bothered to identify; indeed, many of them might be unidentifiable by the means available to me, although there must be an equal number which should be fairly easy to sort out. Specifically, my yard sprouts mushrooms, most of which I've walked away from feeling assured of sinking in failure before putting a metaphorical toe in the water, but after thirty-plus years of observing them, these little purple guys convinced me that they might not pose as much of a challenge as I expected. I popped the cap off one and found brownish gills and a faint veil where the cap was separating from the stipe. The "spiderweb" veil was sufficient to place my specimen in Cortinarius, and the narrow stipe and lilac colouration suggested C. salor. Just for the heck of it, even though no significant enlargement was present at the base of the stipe, I decided to do a quick chem test to assure myself that it wasn't C. olympianus. Nope, the flesh did not turn red when I dripped ammonia on it. I will still beg my readers to allow me the right to be wrong. Cortinarius is a huge genus and I do not have descriptions for all the species it contains, but given that C. salor is common in our woods, that will be what I call this little lilac 'shroom until someone corrects me.

Update: examination of the spores has caused me to re-evaluate my original identification. I now believe this to be C. iodeoides. See post for 28 November 2020 for further details.

Sprang

Day 42: I have to thank a friend for reminding me of this particular fiber art a few days ago. I had not done any of it for...well, for at least sixty years. As soon as Ruth mentioned sprang, synapses snapped closed one after another, lighting up memories of twisting warp with my fingers, making it slant one way and then the other, working both ends toward a center of ever-increasing narrowness and weaving together the gap to form a solid bottom. I remembered the name: sprang (pronounced correctly, it is said "sprong," but Americans and some Brits insist on saying "sprang" as if no other language is as official as English). Could I have told you its origins or its history? No. I don't think we ever discussed those subjects when I was in grade school, but it is known from many cultures and dates back as far as the Bronze Age. What is unique about sprang is that it is made almost entirely of warp threads, the exception occurring where the two halves of the weaving meet in the middle. Here, the fiber artist has to choose a means to close and secure the stitches, and one of those options is to weave them together with three passes of a weft thread. This creates an inelastic turning point, i.e., a good bottom for a little soap bag like this one. Elasticity is one of sprang's chief characteristics. While on the frame, the weaving is packed tightly, and when taken off and opened out, its width may easily double. Vertical stretch is minimal. When warping for sprang, the threads must be kept fairly loose to allow for take-up as the piece progresses. It was this point I had forgotten from the weaving of my childhood days, and I had to cut several pieces off my makeshift frame before I struck a happy medium between too tight and too loose. My frame is not ideal (a needlepoint stretcher) nor are the shish-kebab skewers I'm using to hold the sheds, but I was anxious to "sprang forth" into rediscovery of a needlework technique I'd forgotten I'd ever learned.

Batt, Back, Sew!

Day 41: When I pulled Patience Corner off the quilting frame, I couldn't immediately mount the Hexagons in its place. I still had to apply the outer row of white hexagons to two sides, and then add a straight-edged border fabric, tasks which I've completed over the last three days. The next step is to batt and back it, i.e., lay a piece of muslin out on my living room floor, cover it with a layer of quilt batting and then safety-pin the quilt top (above) to the lower layers. I've left a wide border for ease of mounting on the frame, but that will be trimmed down to three inches once the border is hand-quilted. Each hexagon will be shadow-quilted, with six-petalled flowers in the center of each gold hexagon. It should go fairly quickly, which is to say that I will be able to finish it in something under a year. Ready, set, go? No, that's "Batt, Back Sew!" and she's off and running!

Exhibiting Patience

Day 40: "Patience Corner" is done except for attaching a "made by" label (on order), and my quilt frame is empty. The original plan was to have the Hexagons ready to go on the frame, but I got distracted by a cute "floppy-eared cat" design which, after making a test block, I decided to turn into a wall hanging despite my initial cat being pink. That piece will be the subject of a future post when I get it out of the hoop (it's well on the way to completion). As for Patience Corner, each block is made up of four rectangular pieces and eight squares. I "flipped" the colours so that the fabrics I used for squares in one block appear as rectangles in the next row, giving the whole piece a kaleidoscopic effect. Each rectangle and each square are shadow-quilted just inside the seam lines; each rectangle is then crossed by an elongated X and each square has a five-pointed star in its center. "Patience," did you say? I can hardly wait to get started on the Hexagons!

Update: by special request, a photo of the detail, front and back. The front view shows a single block. The back (solid green) is zoomed in to show one rectangle and two stars.

Windfall

Day 39: As I've mentioned before, I repurpose the leaves of my deciduous trees as weed-barrier material, soil additives in the form of compost, and as mulch/insulation for frost-sensitive plants. My Desert King fig probably could withstand temperatures into the teens, but as my mother used to say, "Better safe than sorry." After spreading a thick layer of Japanese maple and dogwood windfall over a nasty patch of buttercups at the end of my carport, I had plenty left over to mound up around the fig. This morning, they were touched with frost and struck my eye as beautiful even in their deteriorated state. It is here where black-and-white photography comes into its full rights. When colour would be a distraction in the broad view, monochrome allows us to focus on details: grain, texture, light and shadow. A pile of brown, wet leaves is not a particularly pretty sight, but when reduced to shades of grey, leaf margins and veins pop to the forefront and demand that we recognize them as a major component of the work. Do not dismiss black-and-white photography as a relic of bygone days, but embrace it for what it is: an art unto itself.

Petrified Paper

Day 38: Quite honestly, people, I am so terrified of what is occurring in this country right now that I can't focus on anything for more than a few minutes at a time. I keep asking myself, "Why am I even DOING projects?" and then my thoughts wander off into dark, spider-filled corners where no one should ever feel the urge to go. Consequently, I've dragged out a lot of crafts I can visit with the attention span of a butterfly, sipping here at the sweet nectar of weaving, flitting there to gather a pollen of tiny beads, resting for a moment to spread my weary wings over paper and glue as if begging to be mounted as a specimen of a free world now on the brink of extinction. But nothing holds me to it; not crochet, not reading, not even sharing quiet time with Tip. I do not have the leisure to pursue science, not with COVID raging outside my door and Proud Boys on three sides of my refuge. I am frightened, and flight is not an option.

So how does this relate to the photo? My paper beads are also "petrified." A single application of a product new to me called "PC-Petrifier," made expressly to preserve rotten wood, has left them firm enough to withstand a substantial squeeze between my fingers without altering the colour of the origami paper I used to create them. Paper, after all, is just wood in another form. A second two-minute dip in the petrifier will give them a slightly glossy appearance and firm them up even more.

Another Tail Project

Day 37: The technical term is "thrums," lengths of loom waste which, by virtue of weaving mechanics, occur at both the start and the end of a piece of fabric. They can be minimized using any of a number of techniques, but I prefer to "half-life" them, moving gradually downward from the floor loom where they are longest through the table loom and thence to a rigid heddle where very little waste occurs at all. In this case, I have taken the thrums from the rainbow tablecloth (still to be hemmed, much to my shame!), each a little under six feet in length, and will be using them as weft for two small perhaps-bags. The fabric will be turned sideways so that the six-throw stripes are vertical, and the bags will be lined with a lightweight cotton. No particular order will be observed in the placement of the stripes other than to keep each pair of colours separated by a cream band of equal width. The warp uses thrums as well, leftovers from either side of the black slub still mounted on the floor loom. I cut them so that I could weave a narrower table runner without having to re-warp the big loom. Unless my chosen fibers are in short supply, I almost always warp extra so that the thrums can be "stepped down" until I've pushed them to their maximum yield. If you think you hear bagpipes, yep, that's my Scots thriftiness showing through.

Patience, Grasshopper

Day 36: For the first time since August 2017, I find myself without a full-sized quilt occupying a large hoop or frame before one of my two living-room chairs. "Patience Corner" is done, ready to go in the washing machine to remove the chalk and graphite marks which kept my hand-stitching aligned. Its destiny was determined long ago, and waits only for the personal "made by" labels to arrive because yes, I will be signing and dating all my quilts from here on. This is not to say that I do not have quilting projects in progress. Twenty "Dresden Plates" and a pile of "Scrappy Stars" both await a COVID-free time when I can visit a fabric store to find fabric for the "streets and alleys" which will separate their blocks, and a wall hanging is in the works on a smaller hoop. The Hexagon Quilt is nearly ready to be backed and batted for hand-stitching. While not as large as "Patience Corner," the hexagons will be a full-sized work, also to be gifted to a friend who has played a major role in my life. This is how I was raised: to give gifts of time and care in acknowledgement of friendship, crafts made special not by their monetary value, but by the love evident in their creation. The saying "Patience is a gift" reads two ways.

Out On Display

Day 35: They...those...them things... (hold that thought...we'll come back to it in a moment) have been brought out from the weaving room where temperatures tend to be a little cooler in spring and autumn than in the rest of the house, conditions ideal for setting their annual blooms and remaining true to varietal colour. If given too much light or warm nights, the yellow and white types tend to blush pink, and the crimson and scarlet ones lean more closely to one another in hue. I refer to my collection as "the Dragons," with abundant manes and long tongues so like those ornamenting the head of the mythological Chinese beast one sees in parades. Whether they are "Christmas" cacti or "Thanksgiving" cacti is partially a function of photoperodism, i.e., the duration of daylight. Nursery plants are usually forced to bloom in time windows relative to either holiday and are released in batches accordingly.

And now we come to it: are they Zygocacti or Schlumbergeras? Here I must admit to a certain stubborn retrogressive attitude because they were one of the first plants whose scientific name I learned. I must have been all of seven or eight years old at the time, and thought that "Zygocactus" was a wonderful word even though it failed to impress any of my peers (a situation quite common to my childhood). I had not yet discovered the fluidity of taxonomy or I might have been on the alert for the change which came some time in the mid-50s when "Zygocactus" became obsolete and the genus was re-merged with the Schlumbergeras, from which it had been separated in the late 1800s. I went merrily through most of my adult life calling them "Zygocacti," and even now, slip back into the old habit although I know better. "Zygocactus" is still used by many growers as a common name (NB: "common") for these low-maintenance holiday favourites.

Pacific Northwe't

Day 34: There's a good reason you don't see a lot of solar panels on western Washington homes, and you can bet dollars to donuts that the houses with impressive roof arrays were either constructed by contractors from sunnier climes or are owned by inveterate optimists. Admittedly, climate change has extended our nice weather by a few weeks over the last two decades, but by and large, three-quarters of the year could be termed "gloomy" for want of a better word. It's no wonder that so many of us claim to be subject to Seasonal Affective Disorder. We only have two seasons: Tourist, and Miserable. The last week has been one wet push after another, sometimes blustering and blowing for variety, sometimes tempting us out of our dens with "sucker holes," those brief and small windows in the cloud cover where we may get a glimpse of near-mythologic sunlight. No one really believes there's a glowing yellow orb up there. That's as crazy as flat-eartherism. The trade-off is that we're abundantly and profusely green in hue. Our forests glow with every imaginable shade of verdure, never mind that the moss beneath our fingernails and lichens behind our ears may go a little brown during August. While our friends in other states are revelling in sunshine, when it appears here, we natives complain that it is too bright, too hot, and begin counting the days since our last significant rainfall. This, my dear readers, is the Pacific Northwe't, and we wouldn't trade it for all the beaches in California.

Repurposing

Day 33: The "fall" has finally arrived, nearly six weeks past the customary point when the dogwood and Japanese maple drop their leaves, and that despite several nights in the low and mid-twenties. The contorted filbert's foliage has barely changed colour, and that silly fool begonia on my front step is hanging onto its leaves in an inexplicable act of defiance. I want to know why this year is different, why the abscission layer hasn't formed, why the leaves haven't dropped when they should have done so in mid-September. "Curiouser and curiouser," said Alice, and I would gladly follow her down any rabbit hole which might lead to an answer. But all this aside, you really didn't want to rake, did you? I'm here to give you reasons to justify your position.

It goes without saying that leaves were not meant to be raked. If they are to be moved at all, the process should come about at the whim of an autumn gale; a redistribution of resource, if you will. Decaying leaves contribute to a healthy soil base. Okay, they mat your grass, but lawns are an affectation, to say nothing of being a pain in the neck to mow. Leaf litter adds nutritional elements to the soil both directly and indirectly as frass excreted by insects which consume decaying vegetation. Fallen leaves also provide protection for small critters such as overwintering butterflies and moths. Other wildlife may insulate their nests and dens with shed foliage. If you simply must maintain a lawn because you're legally bound by a homeowner's association contract or other human ridiculousness, then repurpose the "fall" by using it as mulch. I spread mine over a particularly nasty patch of buttercups I'm trying to kill, and also bed a loose layer around my fig tree to prevent frost damage to its roots. If this is still not to your liking, compost leaves and till the result into your garden in the spring. You'll have happier vegs for the effort. The moral of this story is clear. In the words of Zeno of Citium, "The goal of life is living in agreement with Nature."

The Hoodoo

Day 32: Let's call it "garden art," okay? Don't assume that because it faces two neighbours who continue to display banners for the defeated presidential candidate, one of whom also flies a Confederate flag and spends his days sitting outside his clapped-out, tarp-covered Winnebago with a .45 on his lap that I harbour any ill will toward said neighbours. It's an art installation, just as surely as the faded plastic figures on their plots of land. We will ignore for the moment the fact that I have any connections with the Aborigines of Australia, and that I am a scientist who disdains any sort of mumbo-jumbo, but as I mentioned when I lit incense before my mother's figure of Ganesh, it never hurts to hedge your bets. The fox skull was a roadside find, determined not to be a small coyote by the shape of the sagittal crest. It had not been on the ground long enough to be lichenized, but nevertheless, I bleached it thoroughly before handling it to create the ornament. Crow and Raven feathers are of course found frequently in my yard, although these came to me in a more timely manner than usual; I might say, almost upon request. Crows being the opportunists that they are, I could not have refused these gifts when they were laid at my feet.

Kumihimo At The Next Level

Day 31: I find kumihimo to be a very relaxing craft, so I decided to change it up a bit to add beads to the customary braided cords. This makes the third technique I have used to create the flower pattern shown here: regular beadwork, crochet and now kumihimo. Each method has its own drawbacks and advantages. Beadwork tends to be more rigid, and while that is fine for short sections, it doesn't work well as a full-length necklace. The advantage is that each bead is picked up individually, and doesn't require meticulously accurate stringing of a pattern. Crocheting with a slip-stitch is a lengthy and somewhat tedious process, plus the beads need to be strung in order on the thread prior to starting the work, making a rather cumbersome mass when wound back onto the ball. The advantage to crochet is that it is more flexible while still being reasonably compact. Made in kumihimo, the work is more open, leaving thread visible if the beads are irregular, but the necklace has a nice fluidity and a more obvious spiral. An additional plus is that more beads can be added to the strand as required, and errors in picking are easy to remedy. I started with 120 on each thread and have added more in batches of sixty several times. However, given the construction of kumihimo versus that of crochet, accidental breakage of a strand in the finished product would result in a major disaster in the kumihimo version as opposed to a minor (if annoyingly demanding) repair in crochet.

Dances With Hypogymnias

Day 30: Okay, I'm usually really bad about seeing figures and faces in clouds and so on, but this one kinda leapt out at me. I took the photo at this angle because I wanted to show the tips of the lobes. I thought they looked like toes, and since several friends have asked me about the "Dead-man's Fingers" fungus lately, it seemed particularly timely. I did not see the face in the upper left quadrant until I opened the photo on the computer. I'm not sure I'd want to dance with her, though...just look at the size of those feet!

Hypogymnia enteromorpha is very similar in appearance to H. apinnata, but whereas the latter grows on conifer wood, enteromorpha is more accepting of dry-wood substrates such as old cedar fenceposts. Both have constrictions in their lobes and dark medullary ceilings. Chemical testing will separate the two if no other diagnostics are available.

Siskin Dear

Day 29: When lockdown mandates were relaxed a few months ago, Washington residents were advised to restrict their contacts to a small handful of friends. Mine included a dozen or so Chickadees (mostly Chestnut-Backed), but I've expanded my list to include Siskin Dear as of yesterday. Pine Siskins and Chickadees generally avoid each other, and I begin to understand why. Siskin Dear has made it abundantly clear that he is not to be budged from the handful of seed until he's done with his meal. The 'dee-dees hover like hummingbirds an inch or two away from my palm, but Siskin Dear doesn't bat an eye. One desperate 'dee landed on the nearly empty can of seed tucked under my other arm, holding tightly to the rim in order to dip inside for a seed. During one feeding, Siskin Dear remained on my hand for a full five minutes except for a ten-second flutter as my neighbour drove out, and I would swear that tiny little bird packed away at least 100 seeds without a noticeable bulge appearing in his crop. Meanwhile, our surroundings were filled with the sound of loudly expressed Chickadee cuss-words, and several beat their wings through my hair in an effort to draw my attention to them. This is hardly the first Siskin to perch on my hand, but with each one, I feel privileged in the experience.

Usnea Filipendula

Day 28: I've often said that if you hold still more than five minutes in the Pacific Northwest, you're likely to be colonized by lichens or moss. The trees in my yard host a variety of species and I'll admit it: I haven't identified them all. The Usneas are particularly difficult, so I set myself a microscope exercise for the morning and after close study of this specimen from the pussywillow's branches, determined that it is U. filipendula. This uncommon species is characterized by round branches which are not cigar-shaped, bearing tall papillae (small bumps) and tuberculate soralia (raised openings in the cortex). Annular cracks are inconspicuous, although the microscope reveals them near the bases of the fibrils. Had you observed this lichen a month ago, you would have found that it was stiff and dry. Rain and cool temperatures have returned it to a soft and pliable state. Lichens are remarkable in their ability to survive with very little available moisture, and like this Usnea, they hold onto whatever they can get.

Winding Up Projects

Day 27: I'm winding up several projects, both in the figurative and literal senses of the phrase. The blue and white shawl is done, right down to the last twisted fringe, ready to be sent off to the Nisqually Land Trust for auction at a later date. The black slub yardage is also done, although it will remain on the loom until I've finished the multicoloured table runner which uses most of the same warp threads. I wasn't sure how far the slub would extend, so I wound on extra warp, thinking I might make a couple of twill towels using cottons as the weft. As it turned out, I might have been able to squeeze two towels out of the remaining warp, but it would have been tight. I decided it was best to make a runner instead and...oh, hey, look at this! I have just enough of that "Mexicali" perle cotton left! I'd been wondering how I was going to use it up, and bingo, question answered. This is the benefit of isolation. It is compelling me to make use of what I have in my stash (and believe me, my stash is considerable!), so I'm trying to utilize the tag ends of weaving cones and yarn skeins without making it obvious that I've done so. Towels, runners, throw pillows, scarves and shawls are a good way to do that. A stripe here, a wide band there, and Bob's your uncle. It takes a bit more creativity and planning than simply winding a plain warp, but that's the fun of weaving.

Polka-Dot 'Pecker

Day 26: This is a Polka-Dot 'Pecker. You can call it a Northern Flicker if you want to be entirely accurate or a Red-Shafted Flicker if you have an emotional attachment to the field guides you used when you were a novice birder fifty years ago, but Colaptes auratus cafer is unquestionably a Polka-Dot 'Pecker in my book. Cornell's website will tell you a lot about their life history, and mine seem determined to disprove some of their data, particularly the part where it says, "Flickers don't habitually visit bird feeders." Speaking from many years of observation of them here, I can assure you that a Flicker doesn't just visit a feeder; it occupies it, leaving no room for anybody else to squeeze in. Even the Steller's Jays, not quite as large but certainly more assertive, will not attempt to budge a Polka-Dot 'Pecker out of the box when it's gobbling down black-oil seed. They also enjoy suet blocks, and a solitary Flickeer can work its way through one in the space of two or three days. This young lady was cleaning up after the crows' breakfast of dog kibble, laying her face tightly against the board in order to get the last morsels. You might also be interested to learn that a Flicker's tongue can be extended two inches beyond the tip of the beak in order to slurp up tasty bugs, and that when their young are 17 days old, they begin clinging to the sides of the nesting cavity rather than resting on its floor. Flickers are amazingly agile, and use their tails to brace themselves against tree trunks and other vertical surfaces. Cornell will also tell you that Northern Flickers are decreasing in number and are listed as a "Common Bird in Steep Decline," so despite the occasional awakening to the sound of drilling in my carport, I love having them here.

Pie Minus 19

Day 25: We used to refer to them as "story problems" when I was in elementary school: If you have forty pounds of black-oil sunflower seed and (pie minus 19 Red-winged Blackbirds) who subtract one three-pound coffee can from it every two hours, calculate how much each Blackbird consumes every thirty minutes and then calculate how long the supply will last, given that there is no change in the rate of consumption or number of blackbirds. Now expand your view to include the whole pie, add twenty Steller's Jays, a dozen Chickadees, one Nuthatch, one Evening Grosbeak, assorted sparrows and juncos, nine Mourning Doves, the occasional Crow, and calculate how much money you'll have by the end of the month given that black-oil seed costs roughly $17/bag. The aforementioned pie would not fit in my refrigerator even though a) it is currently empty and b) I am not inclined to cook Blackbirds. Keeping with the mathematical theme of this exercise, tell me why the Blackbirds sheared off at a tangent and instead of going to Mineral where they usually dine on cattails, came here instead. Sharpen your pencils and get to work. You have fifteen minutes before the feeder needs refilling.

Victorian Paper Beads

Day 24: While digging around in my crafts cupboards a few days ago, search for something I seem to have irretrievably mislaid, I came across the box containing my paper bead-making kit. "Huh," I said, "now that's something I haven't done in a while." Out it came, and within a minute or two at most, I was happily making paper beads at the kitchen table.

Now while this project can be done using any type of rod around which to wind the beads, having a tool specifically designed for the purpose makes it easier. Mine cost less than $10 (admittedly, probably at least five years ago) and was made by a Hong Kong-based company called Green Creativity. Prior to purchasing it, I accomplished exactly the same end result with only a little more work using a quilling needle..."quilLing," not "quilTing"...i.e., a pointy thing in a handle. You could use a small dowel, a wooden barbecue skewer, a metal rod, anything with a uniform diameter. Regardless of what tool you use, fancy or simple, you will also need paper. The beads in the photo above were made from origami paper and coloured pages out of a magazine, in either case not a large expense. I use a Fiskars paper cutter to make my strips, but they can be cut with scissors as well. For these beads, the paper strips need to be 8 inches long, 5/8" on the wide end, tapering down to a blunt point. Start winding at the thick end and, keeping the winds centered over the previous ones, continue until you have roughly two inches of the narrow end left to wind on. Apply a light film of craft glue (I use Aleene's Tacky Glue) to the underside and continue to wind to the end. Carefully slide your bead off the rod/tool, pinch it slightly to round the center hole, insert an appropriately-sized object in the hole to smooth out any loose coils inside and then let it dry. You've made your first bead in less time than it took to read this, so make some more. When you have as many as you want, you can finish them in a variety of ways. The simplest is to apply a thin layer of glue to the exterior, but if you want to get fancy, you can varnish them, treat them with wood hardener, apply paints, etc. Sometimes I roll them in glass frit (finely ground glass) while the glue/varnish is wet. This will give them a little texture and sparkle, and closely imitates the beads my grandmother once wore, a few of which I still own, tucked safely away in a jewelry box. As crafts go, this is about the cheapest fun you can have, plus it recycles magazines in a way to make a giftable product.

Take A Leek

Day 23: Take a leek...no, take three small leeks, or one large one and...wait, let's start this over. I recently fell heir to three small leeks from a local organic farm and because my previous attempts at making cock-a-leekie soup were almost inedible, I wanted to use them in a different dish. Once again turning to YouTube, I discovered a Greek recipe which I thought I could tweak to suit the ingredients I had on hand. It actually necessitated quite a bit of alteration, so herewith I present to you Crow's Leek-Bacon-Cheddar Crustless Quiche which, incidentally, is quite delicious. Now, to those leeks.

Slice and chop roughly half a cup of cleaned leek. Begin sauteing it over medium heat in 4 Tbsp. of olive oil because it's going to take about 15-20 minutes to cook through. While this is going on, assemble your other ingredients. You will need:

6 large eggs
1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese
3 Tbsp. flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 cup crisped bacon, crumbled
3/4 cup milk
salt and pepper

With a whisk, whip the eggs until they are well-blended. Sift the flour with the baking powder and add it to the eggs, whisking them together thoroughly. The baking powder is optional, but it makes your quiche light and airy. Add the milk, whisking again, and adding salt and pepper as you see fit. Now stir in the cheese, bacon and sauted leeks. Spray an 8-inch baking tin with PAM or similar product, pour in the mixture and bake at 400 degrees for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. If you have leftovers, they can be refrigerated and reheated in the microwave, but trust me, you're going to want to eat the whole thing.

Mushroom Hunter

Day 22: Thinking I would be alone in the forest, I had tucked a perhaps-bag into my kit even without any significant expectations of finding dinner on ground I'd scoured only a few days earlier. In any event, I'd wanted to check the Mycena to see if it "bled" (it did not, putting my proposed identification in the bin), and I was going along, collecting spiderwebs and the occasional occupant on my face and clothing as I pushed through the brush, when the realization hit me that I was not alone. Another mushroom hunter was surveying my territory! With all due stealth, I knelt down behind a log and adjusted the camera for the dim light. I was going to catch the culprit in the act. I was surprised when my competitor ignored a perfectly good one-inch Boleta for a tiny translucent and exactly bite-sized micro-'shroom of indeterminate species. The process was fascinating to watch. Initially, Sluggo's eye-stalks were withdrawn (in fact, at a distance, I had mistaken him for a second small Boleta). Perhaps my footfalls had sent vibrations via the forest floor, alerting him to the presence of a potential predator, but as I waited motionless beside the log, his confidence grew and his eye-stalks lengthened. He began to creep slowly over the moss, and then as some slug-sense detected the tinier fungus, his head raised as if to say, "Oh, lunchtime!" Arching the forward portion of his body, he then "pounced" upon his quarry and consumed it in its entirety in a single protracted gulp. With the excitement over, we both moved on, the human to explore, the mushroom hunter to go in pursuit of an appropriate dessert.

Solver Of Problems

Day 21: Among other things, the Hindu deity Ganesh is known as a remover of obstacles and problem solver. My mother revered him highly, and when she passed away, I kept a selection of her representations of him and, in her honour, occasionally offer him flowers or incense. While I do not believe in a higher power of any sort, it never hurts to hedge your bets. I set up a temporary shrine yesterday, brought in one of the last snapdragon spikes although it was covered with a film of ice, lit a cube of pine incense and placed it in an antique burner before him. Ganesh, your intervention is greatly needed on this day.

Red As A Lobster

Day 20: Here in the Pacific Northwest, Lobster fungus tends to emerge concurrently or a little bit before Chanterelles and the people who hunt them, and this year, all three are running a little late. That's not to say I have never hunted Chanterelles into November or had to wear all my woollies to keep Jack Frost from nipping my fingers and my nose, but it is not the usual habit of the fungus. Lobsters got a slightly earlier start, showing up during the first part of October, although they weren't exactly thick on the ground. That said, Hypomyces lactifluorum is not a species I take to the table because it isn't picky about which Russula it parasitizes. Oh, didn't I mention that? Hypomyces as a genus grow on other fungi, each individual species having its own personal preferences as to host. While considered edible, some of the Russulas on which it might grow are suspect; my handy-dandy field guide says, "...we are not aware of any serious poisonings caused by them." I would like to emphasize the word "serious" in that statement. Some collectors say they have a fishy taste, again enough to put me off the idea of sitting down to a Lobster dinner. If I'm going to eat lobster, I want it to have a carapace and claws.

Pretty Pink 'Shrooms - Mycena Sp.

Day 19: I should have warned you right off the mark that this was going to be a fungus-filled week, and that some of my presentations would have greater aesthetic value than scientific. The important thing is that I got Out There, and that in so doing, I managed to retain my sanity for a little longer. As if COVID and the election weren't enough for anyone to have to bear, Murphy's Law has been dogging my every move for the last week, bouncing along on the rails of one mischance after another. I no sooner surmount one issue than another springs up in its place. Last night, my electric teapot died. Go on, laugh. I'll be laughing with you, but at the same time, I'd really like the ongoing series of unfortunate events to cease. So, back to the business at hand: mushrooms. I'm unwilling to go out on the limb to identify these as anything but a Mycena sp., although I suspect them of being M. haemotopus. Quite honestly, I didn't know what to check until after I'd got home, and I haven't been able to get back to the site yet. They will exude a reddish latex when broken or cut if they are M. haemotopus (which grows on wood, unlike M. sanguinolenta, a terrestrial species which also "bleeds"). They were very striking, even in deeply shaded forest. Scientific nomenclature aside, let's just call them Pretty Pink 'Shrooms and admire the strong sense of community they put forth.