Upon Discovering A Maze...

Day 2: Jefferson County's HJ Carroll Park is not a place one would expect to find a faerie-land. The core area is devoted to athletic fields of one sort or another and a picnic area with pavilions (and by "core," I mean probably 25 of those 40 acres). It is ringed by a wide walking trail which is subsequently bordered by woods. Roughly a third of this woodland serves as a course for disc-golfers. The southern section is bounded by Chimacum Creek, accessible via several short forest paths. I had only just started down one of these in a hunt for invasive plants when I stumbled across the maze hidden in the freckled shadows of fragrant cedars. I could not recall it from previous explorations of the park; it's not something I would have missed. I walked its twists and turns with the delight of a child, discovering as I did so that it was not a true maze, but was laid out in such a way that to reach the center three stones, you were required to travel around every bend and corner. It was a meditative experience, both complex and simple. I wish I had known how to address the faeries who must surely dance there in the autumn fogs, but they did not reveal themselves.

Hypogymnia Hultenii

Day 1: It seems fitting my newest lichen discovery should take the honour of opening this tenth year of daily natural history posts. I don't often travel outside my own environmental niche, but when I have occasion to do so as I did yesterday, I make a point of exploring the regional ecosystem. I'm a scientist. You can't expect me to enjoy hitting the shops or tourist attractions. No, you should look for me in the woods somewhere. Look down, because I'll probably be on my hands and knees. That's exactly what happened when I found this Hypogymnia. There was only one piece of it, dropped from some branch well over my head, but it shouted at me visually because it just Didn't Look Right according to my mental field guide. As I examined it more closely, I made note of the distinguising features: flatter lobes than most other Hypogymnias, knobby collections of soredia at the lobe tips (what had caught my eye in the first place), rough lower surface. It took me a while to sort it out when I got home because it had undergone a taxonomic change and was in Brodo under the old genus Cavernularia, but eventually I came to Hypogymnia hultenii, a coastal species. Made sense, because after all, I was on the Olympic Peninsula. My day had been made, as they say, and there was Morris dancing yet to come. Happy New Year!

Finn River FarmAll

Day 26: It was a blustery, chill day, so even if I hadn't been up to my eyeballs in meetings and paperwork, I wouldn't have gone out in the snow to search for a fresh science lesson for my readers. As a matter of fact, I wasn't much inclined to do anything today, and told Kevin that I'd seriously considered "calling in worthless" as a more honest statement than "calling in sick." Consequently, here I am, home at last, without a blog shot for the day and feeling much like just going to bed and pulling the blankies up over my head. Some days are just like that, but the day I took this photo wasn't one of them. We were dancing the Morris at Finn River Cidery, and during the break between sets, I discovered a FarmAll, a real tractor, the kind my daddy used to drive. Right there, Finn River won me over. I've been looking for an excuse to post the image. Vile weather tipped the scales.

Finn River Raven

Day 3: Sound & Fury Morris danced yesterday at Finn River Cidery in Chimacum. After the first set, I happened to notice an old friend in the audience: Raven, carrying his customary bit of the sun's fire, perched on a branch above the plaza. There could have been no better omen for the day.

Chimacum is a long way from home, so I had planned an Expedition to include a little geocaching and botanizing on the way up the Olympic Peninsula. The two go hand-in-hand. Caching often takes me into the woods, and I assumed that the more marine environment along Hood Canal would provide a wealth of lichens. It didn't take me long to figure out that I had entered a lichenological dead zone instead. Even the maples were bare of colonies. Botanically, the only thing worth noting was the presence of a few cascara trees in an area I would have thought was too heavily shaded to support them. At the cidery, I found minor lichenization of maples which included a Xanthoria and a Parmelia. Still, I had managed to get out into nature to experience a different ecological niche even if I hadn't made any amazing discoveries.

Thrifty Scot that I am, I decided that to avoid a $6 toll-bridge crossing at the expense of $3 in gas and 45 minutes of my time, I'd drive home the long way, i.e., down Highway 101 through Shelton and Olympia. It was a good choice. A canopy of green and gold filtered the slanting light of sunset as I drove through the National Forest, a far more pleasant way to end the day than barrelling along a freeway.