CITO The Mountain

Day 231: I rarely geocache these days, but there is one annual event I don't think I've missed in sixteen years: CITO the Mountain. "CITO" stands for "cache in, trash out." Trash pickup is always minimal in Longmire Campground, with the real purpose of the event being the set-up of canvas tents which are available for use by summer volunteers. I serve as one of the supervisors for the work teams, and since so many of the participants are returnees, I generally just leave the crews to do what they know to do. There are always a few hitches which require intervention, but for the most part, experienced hands do the job quickly and efficiently while teaching newcomers the process. Today was no exception. We had one of the best turnouts ever, and the weather was perfect right up to the last moment when it began turning colder and a few sprinkles fell. This may well have been my last such event as a Volunteer Coordinator. Kevin and I both plan to retire from the Volunteer Program at the end of September.

Halfway Heddled

Day 230: I've reached a milestone. I have half of 1024 heddled threaded. But back up a bit. I had to MAKE almost all of those 1024 heddles as well, tying them out of crochet thread, seven knots per heddle (two each to make three square knots, and one for extra security at the top). This is just the prep work, folks. The actual weaving is going to be a piece of cake because it's a traditional 2/2 twill. That means it's easier to thread than a lot of drafts, just 1-2-3-4 over and over. I still verify at the end of each colour repeat because it's easy to pick up a heddle from shaft 2 instead of shaft 3 when you're dealing with a forest of heddles. I've caught two errors where I did just that, but it was quick to unthread and re-do the sequence. Better to find out now than when all 1024 are threaded! I've always maintained that threading is where a weaver's true talent is demonstrated . Any dingbat can treadle properly if they don't let their attention wander, and errors are usually relatively easy to fix, but a thread in the wrong heddle can mean hours of work lost and needing to be redone. Verify! Verify! Verify! In this case, it's easy. For example, for every big yellow block I should have six heddles threaded on each of four shafts. When I'm done threading the block, I check. If one shaft has five and another has three, I goofed somewhere. The same principle applies equally to colour sequences or pattern repeats. At the end of each "unit," verify to be sure the right number of heddles are on each shaft. It'll save you major headaches in the end.

Weaver's Worst Nightmare

Day 229: For the last several days, I have been living one of a weaver's worst nightmares. When I went to mount a new warp of expensive, fine (16/2) Scottish wool on the loom, I dropped half the cross.

For those of you who don't know, the cross is what keeps the threads in order. It is established when measuring a warp onto a warping board, and before the warp can be removed, the cross must be secured with ties or separators of some kind. I generally use little pieces of cardboard, inserting one on each side of the cross, then tying the ends together. In this particular case, I had wound the warp in two pieces (one on each of two warping boards). During the transfer process, one of the ties came loose, and one piece of cardboard slid out. Luckily, the second one remained in place. Even so, the cross had been free to "travel" down into the remaining warp, but fortunately, the wool was fairly "grabby," keeping it more or less in order. The operative words in that last sentence are "more or less." I still had to re-establish the cross without further tangling the threads. For obvious reasons, Merry was banished from the Loom Room for the duration. It took many hours to complete the job to my satisfaction.

The "grabbiness" of the wool worked both for and against me. It had kept the cross from becoming too tangled, but at the same time, it had a tendency to snarl at the lease sticks as I tried to wind on, especially in the section where I had manipulated it. An inch at a time, I coaxed the warp through the lease and onto the roller. The last photo in the series shows a perfect cross. It wasn't easy getting to that point, but patience prevailed. I'm still threading heddles (1024 of them!), but when I'm finished weaving it, this piece will be a shawl in my family tartan, McLeod of Lewis...a "bucket list" project which would make my mother proud.

Loaf Pan

Day 228: All too often, I have found that my computer has been put in airplane mode, or that the sound has been turned off, or that someone has been trying to send encrypted messages with my email or relaying secret instructions to my Facebook friends, so I had taken to covering it with the clear plastic lid to a seed-starting tray. When planting time arrived, the lid was required for the job it was meant to do, and I had to find some other way to protect the keyboard from mischievous pussy-paws. My 12" x 9" cake pan was a perfect fit. When not employed as a security device, the pan is put on top of the printer, but when I need to use the printer in conjunction with the computer, I put it on the floor for the interim. That was when I discovered that its true designation was not "cake pan" or "brownie pan." There is no mistaking it for anything else. It is definitely a Loaf Pan.

Rhododendron Splendor

Day 227: During the first few years of its life, my poor rhododendron had a ruminant problem. The elk and deer would nip off the flower buds during the winter when other browse was scarce. Strangely, they never seemed to bother the ancient rhody in my neighbour's yard, and now, for the last four or five years, they've left mine alone. In any event, it's still not very tall, but it's my personal opinion that you're not a true Washingtonian if you don't have at least one rhododendron in your yard. It's our state flower (the pink/white Pacific Rhododendron, anyway). In fact, there are several species of rhododendron here, although unless you are familiar with them, you would probably think they belonged in a different genus because they look very little like the garden plant. Some never get above knee-height, and one has bell-shaped flowers and small leaves which gave rise to its common name of False Huckleberry. Still, it is the vigorous and showy shrub which can attain heights up to 20 feet which Washingtonians know best, and whether native or cultivated, spring finds our yards and lowland forests massed with rhododendron splendor.

Garden Colour

Day 226: Around Memorial Day, my flower beds are almost at their best. While other plants are yet to come, the blood-red peonies my father loved are in abundant bloom, as yet unspoiled by rain. The fence line sports a bold showing of Siberian iris, and the Barren Wasteland hosts a broad orange splash of Oriental poppies with a dot of blue cornflowers off to one side. The alliums are new this year, and so far, only the dark purple ones have opened, but their wands stand two to three feet high in the front bed, each capped with a three-inch diameter knob of flowers like chives on steroids. Bright colours, the brighter the better, have always appealed to me. Pastels have their place, but I prefer flamboyancy in my garden.

Towel Day

Day 225: Douglas Adams cagily imparted a lot of good advice to those who read HHGTTG carefully, but I find these words from Slartibartfast particularly and personally apt in these current times: "Perhaps I'm old and tired, but I always think that the chances of finding out what really is going on are so absurdly remote that the only thing to do is to say hang the sense of it and just keep yourself occupied." Know where your towel is. Don't panic. And from another quarter entirely, wear the lilac. (Oddly and without any plan for it to happen that way, I just finished reading "Night Watch"). (background image courtesy of NASA via Hubble)

Two-Month Quilt

Day 224: It's two months to the day since I began this project, and I just finished sewing in the last half-hexagon. Forever to be known as the "Two-Month Quilt," this is the fastest I have ever completed one, and it's entirely hand-sewn. I have enjoyed stitching it so much that I plan to start another one immediately, although I will also be working on finishing up the Kittygons. What's the structural difference between the two? Each hexagon is made separately in this one: backed, batted and quilted individually, the backing forming the frame around each center. The Kittygons are stitched together until the entire top is complete, and then the piece is backed, batted, quilted and bound with bias tape. Each style has its advantages and disadvantages, but I enjoyed making the Two-Month Quilt much more. It felt like I was actually making progress as it grew in my lap. That's another selling point: no machine sewing, and for me, that's a huge plus. I don't like labouring at the machine. Now, I'm not likely to finish the next one in two months given that sitting under a quilt in the summertime would be quite too warm, but I'll be pecking away at little hexagons in my idle moments.

Columbine Chorus

Day 223: A chorus of columbines is blooming in my garden now, and this old-fashioned flower always makes me think of my grandmother for some reason. I don't recall that she had them in her yard, but I do remember being scolded when I picked them somewhere, and bit the tips off the spurs to suck the sweet nectar out. I do recall doing the same thing with my mother's nasturtiums, and I remember where they grew in the brick-framed boxes at the front of our porch, but the columbines? The only connection I make regarding them is with my grandmother. In any event, I enjoy them now for their colour, and although I love the frilly skirts of the hybrids, my favourites will always be the singles I recall from childhood. Oddly, I do not have our native red and yellow type in my collection.

Corallorhiza Trifida, Northern Coralroot

Day 222: An unexpected call took me out in the field with my botany partner Joe yesterday. He'd found three more stems of Corallorhiza trifida, the plant I had failed to find last week. Trifida is a member of the Orchid family, and is one of our favourites. While it is not scarce enough to be considered rare, it is definitely uncommon. We know it from only three locations in Mount Rainier National Park, all with the same soil regime, and likely associated with the same mycorrhizal component. The plant is a partial mycoheterotroph. It does contain chlorophyll, and therefore is capable of independent photosynthesis. The role of the fungus in its life cycle is not clearly understood, but given the soil type and its associate plants, it seems likely that the fungus is acting to release some nutrient vital to C. trifida's survival. We have noted that in years when mycorrhizal activity is low due to drought or other factors, fewer of these orchids appear. Others with a wider range of mycoheterotrophic partners are less affected. Oh, for another twenty years to live, and a team of researchers at hand!

Picking Up

Day 221: "VARMINT!" I heard the sound of binder clip jaws snapping together, followed by a jarring thunk. I knew exactly what had happened, and worse, I knew it was going to happen as soon as I stepped out of the room, and I did it anyway.

I was within a month of finishing the Kitty Hexagon Quilt when Tippy left me, and I wisely put it away before inviting a tiny two-pound kitten into my home. I knew the temptation would be irresistible, and I didn't want our relationship to begin with harsh words. Picking up where I had left off, I finished sewing on the binding in the morning yesterday, and was ready to start quilting the last of the motifs. I brought out the Q-frame and mounted the quilt in it, one edge held by binder clips so that I could quilt close to the binding. I'd sewn two hexagons and several of the partial ones along the edge by dinnertime. I had not been in the kitchen five minutes when I heard, "Snap! Snap! Snap! Snap! THUD!!!" The little "tea-cup" cat now weighs almost 16 pounds, way more avoirdupois than any binder clip could be expected to support, and he'd decided to use the quilt as a trampoline.

Now I am resigned to unmounting the quilt at the end of each sewing session, leaving the Q-frame bare to its bones. Loaded, it's too wide to pass through the doorway into either bedroom where I could lock it safely away. Life With Cat is never, ever dull. Noisy, but never dull.

Salal In Flower

Day 220: Salal (Gaultheria shallon) is common in the lowland forests of the Pacific Northwest from British Columbia through northern California where it frequently creates impenetrable thickets to the exclusion of other plants. However, it is a native species, and its black berries provided a dietary staple for the indigenous peoples of the coast. The fruit is also much favoured by wildlife such as chipmunks, squirrels, deer and elk, as well as by fruit-eating birds such as robins and grouse. The berries are tasty if you can get past the flannel-like surface texture which also is apparent on the flowers as fine red hairs. The leaves, stems, flowers and fruit are all tacky-sticky, resembling (as I once remarked) resinous velcro. I suspect that the fuzziness was mitigated by the indigenous practice of pounding the fruit together with fat to make pemmican, but I do not speak from experience. My mother cautioned me (incorrectly) that the fruit was poisonous. That's good enough for me.

Squill

Day 219: English Wood Hyacinth carries its flowers along one side of the stem, as opposed to Spanish Wood Hyacinth which has flowers arranged all around the stem. Both are easily confused with good old Scilla, shown here. I use the word "good" with a great deal of reservation. Despite its beautiful blue hue and dainty flowers, this bulb (also known as Squill) can be a nuisance in the garden. It is almost impossible to eradicate once established, and I speak as the Voice of Experience. I've been working on getting them out of my north-side flower bed for 35 years, and this year's showing proves that I'm not even close to winning the war. They don't want to grow where I want to put them under Big Doug, preferring instead to try to crowd out my now sparse lily-of-the-valley, and even threatening the daffodils. They come up between two pieces of concrete in the Barren Wasteland. They volunteer along the edge of my narrow woods. But would they grow beneath Big Doug? Not a chance. It's not the acidic soil. Where they border the wooded strip is equally acidic. They just don't want to cooperate. I think the time has come to simply enjoy the blues.

An Unforgettable Day

Day 218: For weeks, we'd been listening to the daily reports of activity at Mt. St. Helens, convinced that an eruption was imminent. Every time my mother rang our phone, I expected her to tell me she'd just heard the news on her radio. I'd answer, "Did she blow?" and then we'd discuss the frequency and intensity of the swarms of seismic activity going on below the mountain. I'd stood on her summit only a few months previously, a winter climb which was always one of my favourites for the magnificent and varied ice formations we'd encounter en route. A year or so later, I found out that I'd been the last woman to stand on the peak, but that's another story. I'd close our conversation with our by-word: "The pumice is coming!" but in fact, the eventual eruption exceeded any expectations any of us might have had.

On this particular morning of May 18, 1980, the phone rang, and as I picked it up, I looked out the kitchen window toward the east where it seemed a massive rainstorm was building as black mammatus clouds were rolling up from the south. Certain that it was my mother on the other end of the line at that hour of the day, I answered the call with, "Did she do it?" My mother's utter glee was infectious as she announced, "Yes! She did!" The rest of that day is history...big history...but before it was over, my husband was insistent on having a piece of it, in the most literal sense. At great risk to our car's engine, we set out for Morton via Centralia, but only made it as far as Cinebar where we collected fresh volcanic ash before deciding to turn back. The cloud of pulverized rock blew east, engulfing Yakima and eastern Washington, but missed our home entirely (a circumstance we failed to avoid in later eruptions). Even more remarkable was that we were in what the Oregon Museum of Science termed the "Cone of Silence." Even though we were only about 35 miles from the mountain, we didn't hear a thing, although friends hundreds of miles away heard a roar similar to a sonic boom but longer and stronger. May 18, 1980 was a day I'll never forget.

Merry's SX70 Portrait

Day 217: This isn't the very first picture I took with my new SX70 camera, but it was in the first batch, and I thought it made for a better celebratory post. Merry is never quite sure about cameras, although he's more tolerant of the Big Black Eye than a lot of cats. Even so, I was disturbing his nap and he wasn't exactly pleased with me slapping my thigh, whistling, calling his name to try to get him to open his eyes. In any event, I am back in full operation at this point. The adapter for my macro filters mounts on this camera (one reason I chose to stay with the same camera in the new model), but changes in port style and software mean I have to read images from the SD card instead of via a transfer cable. It's not a big change for me, just something new I need to accustom myself to doing. The menus are a bit different as well, but I'm getting that sorted fairly quickly. I did a few test shots last night, and at the higher ISOs, the image quality is much better (repeat: much!) than it was with the SX30. Ah, but it feels good to be taking pictures with a "real" camera again after a week or so of using a chintzy point-and-shoot!

Friend Evelyn Goes To The Fair

Day 216: "Friend Evelyn" is going to the Washington State Fair in September. This overshot is from "A Handweaver's Pattern Book" (green version), and I think it may be my all-time favourite despite the fact that the reverse side is rather plain. The draft creates four distinctly different square motifs in a 2 x 2 grid, making the piece look far more complicated to weave than it actually is. I chose to use lime green 8/2 cotton for the tabby and warp, sett at 18 ends per inch. The overshot passes are dark green 5/2 cotton. This combination gave me almost perfect squares. When I took Evelyn off the loom, the cloth measured 248" x 21". Shrinkage in washing and drying resulted in a final measurement of 216" (six yards) x 18.75" after ironing. I haven't decided how I'll use this piece. Options include new curtains for my bedroom, or a tablecloth. The pattern broke easily in the center of the motifs, so joining it as panels should be a breeze.

Coming Together Nicely

Day 215: By request, front and back! I have five more rows to add to the hexagon quilt to make it large enough to top a full-sized bed without any "drape" over the edges. The end rows will both be long rows (i.e., 14 hexagons, as opposed to the short rows of 13), which makes graceful corners. Half-hexagons fill in spaces along the sides, but top and bottom will be left as points. This quilt is entirely hand-sewn, and I've enjoyed making it so much that I've already begun making a few hexagons for a second one. Once again, I want to extend my profound thanks to all the friends who contributed fabrics to this project. Your donations should keep me stitching for at least two more quilts!

Figger On A Good Crop

Day 214: I figger I'm going to have more figs than I can eat even if only half of the ones currently on the tree come to full maturity! Almost every branch has three or four. The tree is only about five feet tall, and I plan to keep it under eight feet for ease of picking. Since figs fruit on new wood, it's best to keep them pruned back to a manageable size. It's taken about seven years to reach this point. If memory serves, last year's yield was six, but the friend who gave me this start told me that once it started producing, I'd have figs coming out my ears. Boy, if these all ripen, it'll sure prove her right!

Baby Ranger

Day 213: Here's a story from when I was just a "baby ranger." I don't think I've ever shared it on my blog, but it merits being preserved for posterity. In my opinion, anyway.

I'm a volunteer. I've always been a volunteer. Never wore the green and grey for a variety of reasons, but I still consider myself a ranger, and most of my uniformed colleagues have no problem with that. It was back in the days when dinosaurs roamed the earth (or close), and I was working in the forgotten corner of the Park, green as any little gourd which ever grew on the vine. I'd been left in charge of things while our tech (we called them "techs" in those days) took two weeks' leave. I was alone, and had no particular sense of unease until one day when I was in the shed with the open safe where we kept the radios and the money, and our solitary weapon was locked firmly in a separate compartment therein. Suddenly, the interior of the shed darkened, and I looked around to see a tall man in the doorway, leaning against the jamb and effectively blocking my exit. I wouldn't have weighed 100 pounds in those days even if you'd hosed me down in full uniform. I rested only marginally easier when he said in a drawling voice, "Hi! Is this where I can take my snowmobile to the summit?"

I put on my best smile and said, "Oh, you can't take a snowmobile to the summit, not here, not anywhere in the Park."

The man felt compelled to dispute my authority. "They told me I could take it up there from someplace over here."

I replied, "Whoever told you that was wrong, sir. Snowmobiles aren't allowed in the Park."

That still failed to satisfy him. "I got this letter from the superintendent, Briggly." (William Briggle was our superintendent in those days.) "He says I can take my snowmobile to the summit." He began patting his pockets, as if in search of the letter. I waited politely, my smile still firmly in place. "I'll show you. Briggly" (again with the y ending) "says in the letter I could do that." More patting of the pockets, and I was really hoping he'd shift his stance just long enough for me to dart under his raised arm into the outdoors where I could run for my life. "It says so in the letter I got from Briggly."

"Sir," I said, still trapped inside the shed with the money and the radios clearly visible at my back, "someone has misled you badly. Snowmobiles are not allowed in the Park. Someone is pulling your leg."

At that point, a voice I recognized came from in back of the shed, "Nope, we're pulling yours! Meet Scott. He's from East District." It was our trail crew boss who had known me for years. That was not the only prank they pulled on me during that season, and I never did figure out how to pay them back for it, although some years later, I sent a hapless intern out for paperwork stored in the basement of the warehouse. After moving any number of boxes to reach the non-existent access door I'd directed him to find, he realized the warehouse didn't have a basement.

Bridal Wreath Spiraea

Day 212: Many of the plants in my yard were chosen because of childhood associations like lilac, peonies, columbine and lily-of-the-valley. Most of them have a connection with my grandmother, although it was my grandfather who grew them. He passed away when I was quite young, so it was my grandmother who maintained the yard thereafter. I believe my love of Bridal Wreath Spiraea was born there, but I cannot remember where the bush was placed, only that when it was in bloom, it brought to my young mind the thought of a cloud descended to earth. When it shed its petals, it became no more than background noise, its small leaves and wiry branches nondescript, unremarkable. The flowering period is relatively short: one burst of glory and then decline, but in my grandmother's yard, that brief time was enough for this shrub to establish a lifetime niche in my gardening soul.

Big Day Bust

Day 211: That, my friends, was the absolutely worst Big Day I have experienced in my long years as a birder. Let me enumerate the species, and trust me, this won't take long to read: Evening Grosbeak, Steller's Jay, Band-tailed goddamn Pigeon, American Robin, Tree Swallow (exactly one), Purple Finch, Mourning Dove, Dark-eyed Junco, Black-headed Grosbeak and finally, right before dinnertime, a solitary Crow, bringing my Big Day total to 10. No Rufous hummer (one showed up this morning, doesn't count), no sparrows of any sort, no blackbirds or starlings. Terrible, horrible, no good very bad Big Day. But why? The weather has been good this week, so they weren't put off by that. There was food out, although admittedly not in the quantity I have laid on board in previous years. The only factors I can consider as possibly leading to the paucity of birds are avian influenza and/or climate change and the associated devastation of vast forested areas by fire. Ten species, when I should have had two dozen or more. Ten. That's all. And damned few of each.

Supervisory Approval

Day 210: This is not the photo I envisioned for celebrating the halfway point on the hexagon quilt, but keeping Merry off it long enough to focus the camera was proving to be an impossible task. It's nice to know my supervisor approves of my handwork. Yes, the quilt is half-assembled, and even better, the rest of the hexagons are already made. I've been producing them in twos: one to stitch in, and a matching one (or occasional singleton) to randomize in the second half. Some are not quite identical, but pairs of centers will have been cut from the same cloth for the most part, but it wouldn't be a Crow quilt without those few oddments which occur only once. That's what makes the Quilt Game fun: searching for the ones which don't have a counterpart, or seeking out where a matching piece occurs. Some centers have been used for backs as well, adding another challenge. Sewing the remainder together will go quickly. I have a Grand Plan for another similar quilt, using some pairs, some "reflections" (i.e., fabric A center and backing B paired with fabric B center paired with backing A), and then of course the singletons which are the highlight of the Quilt Game. I'm looking forward to starting it when this one is complete.

Spring Colour

Day 209: My yard is beginning to colour even though the flower beds immediately below my windows are only beginning to bud for the most part. Lilac scents the air, the pink dogwood wears a rosy crown although its lower branches are rather thin, the Sitka mountain-ash promises a bounty of fruit for the cedar waxwings and robins this fall. A few straggly Lily-of-the-valley survived my remake of the front bed, and will soon be overtopped by alliums, now still in the "knobby-wand" stage of development. The peonies have walnut-sized buds with rich blood-red peeking through the initial cracks, and a few columbines have spread their skirts. Still, it feels like we're off to a slow start here. Nights remain chilly even when daytime temps hit the 70s. I have to keep reminding myself that it isn't even mid-May yet.

Vivid Rainbow

Day 208: As rainbows go, this was a pretty good one: a full arc from pasture to river with a secondary and faint tertiary, but it was nothing compared to one I saw in the early 1970s in Enumclaw, WA. My husband and I were bicycling from Seattle and decided to head home after getting caught in a powerful squall. Enumclaw is known for its meteorological events, especially freakishly gusty winds which rip down from Snoqualmie Pass. On that day, the wind wasn't particularly strong, but the squall brought pea-sized hail which is not something you want to be bicycling through, so we had taken shelter at a gas station to wait for it to pass. When the barrage was over, the rainbow appeared, first one band which brightened dramatically, then the secondary developed outside it with its colours reversed. Then the tertiary appeared, a little apart and inside the main arc. A fourth (quaternary) became visible on the opposite side of the arc, and then...yes! We could see the full range of colours in a FIFTH arc (that would be "quinary" in sequence, but is usually referred to as "fifth order"). A five-banger! And did anybody have a camera? Digital photography was not yet a thing, so the only record I have of it is mental, but I count it among the best spectacles of my life, right up there with Comet West which swung by a few years later. Since the Enumclaw event, I've seen "threes" and a few faint "fours," but I think the five-banger was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Empty Nest

Day 207: This is a sadness. For the first time in all the years I've lived here, the House of Chirp has not been occupied. The swallows have not returned. By this time of year, I should be seeing dozens swooping and diving, perching on wires, raising families. I have seen only seven or eight, and never more than four at a time, and those only on three or four days. What has happened? Have they succumbed to avian influenza ("bird flu")? Were they caught in the fires which occurred during their late-summer migration south? Has global warming altered their range? Whatever the reason, they are not here, and if I needed proof that the world is coming to an end, this would do it. The nest is empty, and so is my heart.

Archway

Day 206: "Arch!" No, I'm not in the holodeck on the Enterprise NCC-1701D. I'm in Pack Forest, and I'm ducking under an arch of Vine Maple (Acer circinatum), one of many which curve over the trails. This small-leaved species is common in Pacific Northwest lowland forests, and is more of a shrub than a tree, although a very leggy one. Its branches are very bendy when fresh, and were used by native peoples to make baskets similar to those made with willow withies. When it arches like the example in the photo, it may self-layer where the tip touches the ground to form a new cluster of trunks still connected to the parent tree. Like other maples, it produces samaras, winged "helicopter" seeds which animals and birds both enjoy. Its hardwood trunks seldom attain a diameter of more than a few inches, although roots may be larger. In fact, I have a lathe-turned vase of Vine Maple made by a former neighbour which is 8" tall and 4" in diameter.

Out And About

Day 205: For the first time in at least a year, I got out and about this morning with my botany partners. It wasn't much of an outing as outings go: just a quick trip up to Longmire to look at the Calypso Orchids and a brief stop to remove illegally-planted materials installed by a repeat offender at a "memorial" site. It was a bit on the nippy side, nighttime temps still hovering close to the freezing mark, but my winter-weary lungs appreciated the bracing mountain air. The Calypsos were less numerous than in years past, although there were some lovely clusters, even some including the white variation. The view of the Mountain from Kautz Creek showed how thin the snowpack has become as glaciers recede and lose mass due to global warming. Snow depth at Paradise is at 129", 81 percent of normal.

Lathyrus Polyphyllus

Day 204: Well, pea! "One of Those Days" seems to be continuing, so why don't we just have a pea before my head explodes? Of the seventeen Lathyrus species found in Washington, six are introduced and problematic, but dainty Lathyrus polyphyllus (Leafy Peavine) is native. It occurs largely in the western lowlands, and is characterized by a subopposite or alternate leaf structure with 10-16 leaflets. Certainly, its invasive cousins overshadow it, cropping up in mounds along roadsides and, although it's not particularly uncommon, it is often passed over as a vetch (Vicia) because of the shape of the flowers and leaf arrangement. Finding a few examples in bloom along the lower Hugo Peak trail was a treat for me because it was a species I had not yet photographed for the WTU Herbarium. This addition brings my total contribution to 239 photos covering 132 taxa. Science, people! To quote a Life Is Good t-shirt, "Science is like magic, but real."

Macro Walk

Day 203: Yesterday was One of Those Days. I spent 45 minutes on the phone with a "virtual assistant" trying to install a new key fob for my alarm system, and we never managed to get through the first step. I finally told her I simply wanted to return it for a refund, so she transferred me to another department. The process there took half an hour or more, and by the time we were done, I was at my wits' end. The mail came, bringing with it a squashed and mangled box of Merry's broths, and since my order had gone through a third-party seller, another half hour in a chat session never successfully resolved the issue. Next pictures and story, I poured my slipper full of chicken blood when I took the thawed meat out of the refrigerator to make dinner. After supper, I sat down to put some photos on the computer and couldn't get the data cable to acknowledge the camera's existence. It's been failing for some time, and finally just gave up. As did I. I said, "Screw this!" and went to bed cross at the entire world. This morning, I decided to follow a friend's advice and went into the woods, despite it being Saturday. I turned a mile-and-a-half ramble into a Macro Walk to bring you this selection of wildflowers and weeds blooming along the lower reach of Pack Forest's Hugo Peak trail. I'm not going to identify them for you. They're all fairly common except the Calypso Orchids which were really the highlight of my walk.

An Inkling Of Metal

Day 202: This inkle band measures 9mm in width, and to add to the difficulties in creating it, I've used a metallic thread for the pickup pattern. The metallic has no stretch, is wiry and harsh on my hands, and further complicating the weave, I'm doing it on my micro-inkle which is so small that I can only work one full motif before having to advance the band, and even at that, I can barely get a finger in the shed. The ground thread is #40 tatting cotton. A tiny bity of foresight kept me from warping it with sewing thread! I'm always up for a challenge. When I made my very first piece of bobbin lace...what, fifty years ago?...I used a metallic thread. I swore I'd never touch the stuff again, but here I am. The "up" side of this project is that the micro-inkle only holds a little more than a yard of warp, and I have about half of that done. How will I use the band? Who knows? I'm just treading water, waiting for the end of the world.

May Day

Day 201: Of all the events I attended as a Morris dancer, May Day was possibly my favourite even though it meant getting up at 2 AM to be in Seattle to meet up with the other most stalwart members of Sound & Fury and other Morris sides from the general area. We'd gather at Gasworks Park on Lake Union, there to dance the sun into the sky, although it must be admitted that sometimes it was obscured by cloud. We never failed to achieve our goal. Then covid hit, and by the time I was willing to expose myself to other human beings, I had grown too old to make the weekly drive to practices so far away, and had to hang up my bells. Today, the team danced as usual at Gasworks, and I...well, I didn't dress for the occasion, but I did dance a wee jig with Merry indoors. This is my tribute to Morris dancers everywhere, all of you together, for your mutual contribution to ensure the Earth another circuit around the sun.