Good Mourning!

Day 18: What's the appropriate salutation for Hallowe'en? Why, "Good mourning," of course! You might find this odd, but as much as I enjoy costuming, Hallowe'en is one of my least favourite holidays. I don't understand it. Perhaps I was oblivious to the way adults celebrated it when I was a kid, but I don't recall as much emphasis on ghoulishness, gore and horror as there is in current times. The costumes of my youth were deliciously scary, not gruesome: cute witches, ghosts haunting in sheets, the occasional vampire. Most were cleverly cobbled together from items around the home rather than store-bought, mass-produced garb you see today. I remember attending one junior-high dance as Huckleberry Finn in tattered jeans and painted freckles, straw hat on my head, fishing pole over my shoulder, and a dead fish (real, bound in plastic wrap) in my hip pocket. I accidentally sat on the fish and although I hadn't expected any of the boys to ask me to dance, social pariah that I was, my math teacher spun me through a ballroom waltz despite the fishy scent which must have surrounded me.

These days, I don't open my door to strangers. In rural Pierce County, you don't open your door for someone you don't know even in broad daylight, let alone at night. When I used to go to my fishing buddy's home for Hallowe'en, I was surprised to find that most of the trick-or-treaters were between 12 and 16, and only a few had bothered to dress up. Eleven was considered too old for trick-or-treating fifty years ago.

When the Nisqually Land Trust hosted their annual Hallowe'en tree-planting, the flyer said, "Costumes optional." In the past, this event has been billed as the "zombie planting," presumably because as a zombie, you can get absolutely filthy and it just improves the effect. That said, I now have a greater sympathy for zombies, especially those in the Pacific Northwest where the blackberry vines are in league to pull them back into their graves as they search for brains.

Grow A Depression Plant

Day  17: Here's a simple and fun science project for you to do! I think I was about five when my mother guided me through growing my first Depression Plant (so named because the recipe was printed on Mrs. Stewart's Laundry Bluing during that era). Young kids should have adult supervision when using these household chemicals.

Mix together in a glass cup
2 Tbsp. non-iodized salt
2 Tbsp. liquid bluing (Mrs. Stewart's is available through Amazon and some retail stores)
2 Tbsp. water
1 1/2 tsp. household ammonia (non-sudsy works best)

Set a piece of brick or lump of coal in a glass dish at least one inch deep. Pour the solution over the brick, and over the next 24 hours, you will be able to watch the crystals forming into puffy mounds. If your dish is too shallow, the crystals may crawl over the edge, so check it hourly to be sure they're not escaping. They're very fragile, so be careful when moving the dish, and if you want to look at them under your microscope, transfer them carefully to your slide with the point of a pocket knife. If you want to grow red ones, you can add a few drops of mercurochrome to the solution.

Yelm Shoreline Planting

Day 16: After roughly eight months of being on the injured list with a hip issue, I finally felt sufficiently recovered to join one of the Nisqually Land Trust's work parties. Oh, it felt good to be back on the end of a shovel again! We couldn't have asked for better soil in which to plant: friable, rockless, eminently easy to dig once you got through the sod of canary grass. Therein lies the problem. Canary grass is an invasive which takes hold in open areas and quickly proliferates. The best way to eliminate it is to shade it out. Admittedly, this solution takes years, but it is the most effective for the long term.

Forty-three volunteers (about half of them Cub Scouts) put 150 Douglas firs and shore pines in the ground in three hours. A few of us (the diehard core membership) stayed behind to install protective sleeves around each seedling. The white plastic tubes will prevent rodent damage, one of the major reasons for die-off among newly planted trees. They will be removed two or three years from now after the trees are fully established.

Darkfield Universe

Day 15: Anticipating the arrival of Christmas-present-to-self, I stopped at a murky local pond to collect water samples for examination. At home, I covered them with cloth to allow air circulation, and the following morning, I prepared concave slides from each jar and settled in at the microscope to look for protozoans and anything else of interest. I was hoping for hydrae or planaria among the vegetative matter, but found nothing but a pair of insect larvae and a few fast-swimming ciliates. Later in the day, I tried again with even poorer results, although one critter was a type I'd never seen. The only protozoans I know are those we covered in high-school biology! This feller was cute, shaped somewhat like a kiwi (the bird), busily using a long proboscis to feed itself algae. If it had had ears, it could have heard me muttering, "I bet I can't find another one like you when the darkfield gets here."

When the darkfield 'scope arrived on Friday, I assembled it and again prepared a couple of slides from each jar of pond water. In roughly two hours at the eyepiece, I may have observed as many as four individual ciliates during a diligent search, but not another "kiwi." I finally just gave up and took a photo of a galaxy of pond scum to celebrate the acquisition of a darkfield microscope. Darkfield microscopy allows for better viewing of detail by using diffracted (as opposed to incident) light. It is especially useful when looking at subjects such as fungus spores and lichen asci.

Strategy

Day 14: Sometimes the opportunity to say "I told you so" isn't as gratifying as it should be. When my husband purchased his first internet-capable computer, I said, "Um...this is Not A Good Idea. Humanity isn't sociologically evolved to the point where they can handle this. This is going to cause a lot more problems than it's going to solve." Bruce has been gone for many years now, so I don't get to say "I told you so," but I was right. As many ways as the compass of our troubles could possibly point, the needle stays steadily on North: internet.

The internet has made possible a new form of warfare, one which undermines the fabric of society and throws it into chaos. There is no need for a nuclear device to destroy thousands of lives, no need for bloodshed to effect conquest of a nation. We have become a weapon in the enemy's hands, a weapon which is being employed against ourselves. We have been engaged by masters in a game which we barely know how to play, and while we falter and fumble and try to make the immediate best of a bad situation, our opponent has each possible move and counter-move strategized decades beyond our power to see, given our limited skills. We have three choices: resign, continue playing in the hopes that our expert opponent will make a mistake leading at best to stalemate or, failing all else, we could just kick over the board.

Buttered Lichens

Day 13: Another wonderful present from far away arrived in my mail yesterday. A Parkie friend was visiting Michigan and had asked if I'd like some specimens of local lichen. I said yes, and asked her to look for species she had not observed in the Pacific Northwest. She replied, "I'm trying to get you some orange ones." Visions of Xanthorias and Candellarias danced in my head like so many sugarplums (Teloschistes being beyond my wildest dreams), and then she sent a photo. I burst out laughing. "Anne," I wrote back, "don't try to mail those. They'll go to goo in the post. Those are jelli fungi." "Too late," she replied. "I already mailed them."

Fortunately, she sent the parcel via priority mail. The fungi (Tremella mesenterica, commonly called "Witches' Butter") had only just begun to biodegrade, and were restored to health after spending the night outdoors. I spent yesterday evening examining samples of the lichen under the dissecting 'scope and determined from the sparsity of rhizines, absence of apothecia and granular soredia arising "from pustules" (per Brodo) that the specimen was one of Michigan's commoner species, Flavoparmelia caperata. Also known generically as "Greenshield," Flavoparmelia will grow on almost any bark substrate and may even attach to rock. Anne's specimens were taken from pine and maple. They are unlikely to survive in the Pacific Northwest, but I've given them the option to colonize on Acer.

Mysterious Island

Day 12: Lake Kapowsin is shallow. Its maximum depth is roughly 30', and it is a veritable minefield of subsurface stumps due to the geologic process which formed it. When the Electron Mudflow surged down the Puyallup Valley approximately 500 years ago, it blocked the outlet to Ohop Creek and caused the water to back up in the basin we now know as the lake. The stumps are the remains of the drowned forest, and are a significant hazard for boaters, even one moving slower than usual in her kayak. One high spot of terrain remains as a 30-acre island on the northeast side. Most of the island is very brushy with salal and other shrubs, but a few open areas are considered "party spots" and are used occasionally as illegal campsites. A few pockets are so densely canopied that little light reaches the forest floor, a factor which led me to explore there for lichens and fungi. I found no unusual species, although there was a notable abundance of Evernia on the few Doug firs growing among the cedars.

Port Of Call

Day 11: It would have been criminal to waste a day of glorious, golden October weather, so as soon as the nip was out of the morning air, I headed for Lake Kapowsin with no purpose in mind other than to paddle until my arms got tired. Of course, I'm ever vigilant for invasive plants, but other than the occasional blackberry vine, I found none. However, an encounter with a Nutria at the neck of the "inside passage" behind the island left us both feeling quite surprised. This was the first time I have ever seen one in the wild, and unfortunately, I was unable to get a photo before it slipped off the log where it had been resting. I got a good view of the hindquarters and rat-like tail. Nutria were farmed for their fur in Washington many years ago, and when the practice proved cost-prohibitive (the guard hairs are difficult to remove from the desirable portion of the pelt), many of the farms simply turned their animals loose. Now I know to watch for them when I'm on Kapowsin.

Sunny Side Up

Day 10: Two bottoms in one chair is a snug fit in any event, but when Tippy goes all squirmy and wriggles over on his back so I can rub his tummy, there's even less space for me. He's not a small boy by any means, and on his back, he spreads out like a melted pat of butter. Unlike many cats, he loves to have his sunny side tickled and petted, and also enjoys holding hands. Hard to believe he's been with me for almost nine years now. He was a shelter kitten, handed from foster home to foster home until he reached adoption age. His first medical exam revealed a heart murmur, but it has not been problematic. He's rowdy, bouncy, funny, and the sweetest little puss'n you could ever hope to meet.

Some Days...

Day 9: Ever have one of Those Days when you don't even feel like you should bother shaving? I was awakened some time between 4 and 5 AM by what sounded like a gunshot. It took me a second to realize that the dim light of my digital clock wasn't brightening the bedroom. Yeah, I should have known that was coming. We had a wind-and-rain storm last night, and the power had gone out. It wasn't particularly cold, so I just pulled the covers up over my head and went back to sleep. Our PUD (Public Utility District) is large geographically but serves a significantly smaller number of people proportionately than, say, Tacoma City Light. When the lights go out, they're usually only out for an hour or two. I figured I'd have power again by breakfast time.

I was wrong. When I got up, the house had cooled down substantially. I was going to have to argue with the propane fireplace whether I wanted to or not. It's invariably cranky the first time I light it up each year, and today was no exception. Once I got it to stay lit, I settled into my chair to crochet by headlamp. Ten minutes into a row, the fire sputtered and went out, a new variation on its normal recalcitrance. I struggled with it for twenty minutes but when I couldn't get it to re-light, I decided to let it rest for a bit before trying again. I figured there might have been some water condensation in the line. Eventually, I got it to light and stay on, but at 11 o'clock, I still didn't have power.

I don't usually like to bother PUD Dispatch, but since this was an unusually long outage for us, I thought I'd better call. The dispatcher was surprised by the news. He'd already sent his crews home after a rough night because they'd reported that all repair tickets were completed. He told me he'd have to try to round up "somebody who's home" (remember, this is Sunday), but assured me that I would have my lights back by evening.

At 4, I called again to see if he'd made any progress on finding a repairman. He had, and they'd tried to reach me, but the road between Morton and Elbe was washed out. He was sending a crew the long way around, i.e., through Chehalis, Tenino and Yelm. "They'll be there in a few hours," he said. When the crew finally arrived, it took them all of five minutes to remove the branches from the line and replace the fuse which had blown. The outage had only affected me and my two neighbours, and neither of them had called in. If I had only called Dispatch immediately, I wouldn't have had to spend my day in the gloom.

Quercus Garryana

Day 8: Although I dearly love living among the evergreens, there are a few things I miss from the days when my home was on one of Southwest Washington's prairies, notably Camas and Garry Oak (Quercus, garryana, aka Oregon White Oak). Unlike some of its cousins, Garry does not colour up red in autumn; however, it turns a lovely shade of warm brown which is very pleasing to the eye. The acorn of this species is about twice as long as it is wide and contains a smallish nut which can be ground into flour or eaten after soaking in plain water to remove the tannins. That said, they are a favourite with the squirrels, so you don't often find them on the ground.

Maine Amusement

Day 7: Patty's thoughtful contribution to my Maine amusement kept me occupied for the better part of one evening and a sizeable chunk of morning. Once they had rehydrated sufficiently for me to be able to separate the layers for a look at the medullary ceiling, I confirmed that the Hypogymnia was H. physodes, a species which also grows in the Pacific Northwest. The Bryoria was a bit more challenging because it was quite dry and wiry even after soaking. Of course stiffness is characteristic of Bryorias. That's why they're known as "horsehair lichens," but this one was exceptionally crisp and only a small bit was present, tangled in the sample of Platismatia tuckermanii. The specimen was somewhat darker than our local version, a factor I attribute to a more abundant algal component. Indeed, more blue-green algae was present in two of the Platismatia colonies than in the third, and the sample of Bryoria had been extracted from one of the darker Platismatias. Lichen colour can be quite variable depending on the amount of algae in the tissue. Even so, my identification of Bryoria capillaris is somewhat hesitant; the taxonomy is currently in a state of flux with various sources disagreeing on whether or not east-coast populations should be considered separate from those on the west coast. I've gone with the lumpers in this case.

Best Present Ever!

Day 6: I knew I had a surprise coming in the mail from my sister-of-the-heart Patty, and saw by its tracking progress that it was due for Wednesday delivery. Patty had warned me that it was perishable and fragile, so I was in a hurry to get home from work to liberate it, whatever it might be. I slit the tape and opened the box to find another box made of clear plastic, and in it a mass of...LICHENS!

Y'know, I'm a cheap date. It doesn't take much effort or expense to entertain me. I was going to leave the project for morning and better light, but I was just too curious about the foliose species which had caused me to blurt "Rag-bag!" before I'd even felt the specimen. Okay, it resembled our local limp-washrag Platismatia, but there were some distinct differences which told me it wasn't the same thing. I spent the next 45 minutes with Skunk squashed under the 40-pound field guide on my lap and a lighted magnifier pressed tightly to my eye as I analyzed the black pycnidia along the lobe margins and searched for pseudocyphellae. At last I was content with an identification: Platismatia tuckermanii, named for lichenologist Edward Tuckerman who likewise lent his surname to Mount Washington's famous Tuckerman Ravine. He also has a whole genus of lichens named for him: Tuckermanopsis. There are still a couple of other species to sort out in this best-prezzie-ever, but I think they need to hydrate a little longer.

Adopt A Rock

Day 5: I've adopted a rock...which is to say that I was hiking in an area where taking something home with you was not prohibited (i.e., allowable from an old logging road) and came across a more or less loose 7 x 10" rock covered with my favourite lichen, Pilophorus acicularis, and...well...I mean, how could I resist? Pilophorus is native to the immediate area...no sins committed against the environment by introducing a non-native species. I can give it exactly the conditions it likes best, and I can even be sure that it doesn't get too dry in the summertime. Okay, I had to carry it about half a mile to get it back to the car, a process which inspired me to think about leaving it behind several times, but it was Pilophorus! It just seemed to have "Take me home!" written all over it. I bedded it comfortably at the base of the dogwood where I can admire it daily even if I don't go outside. Much better than a chia pet, I think!

Fruit Of The Future

Day 4: Ah, there is a new fruit in my future! While in Chimacum, I visited the farmers' market and picked up a small basket of kiwi berries. This fuzzless version of the kiwi you find in grocery stores produces a grape-to-walnut sized fruit which I could argue is even more flavourful than its larger cousin, and the berries have no little gritty seeds as far as I can tell. I was pleased to discover that not all varieties require both male and female plants (I had visions of hand-pollinating again on a much larger scale), but hardy kiwi "Issai" is self-fertile! A larger yield can be achieved by planting two vines, so that's the plan for spring 2018. Cold-tolerant even in Zone 4 (I'm in Zone 7), they'll need a trellis or an arbour, and I know exactly where I want to put it: straight toward the crow board from the kitchen door.

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.

World Apple Day

Day 2: Happy World Apple Day! What? You've never heard of it? That's understandable. It's primarily celebrated in the UK, although it's catching on here in the apple country of the Pacific Northwest. It recognizes both the ubiquitous apple and the orchards in which they are grown, celebrating the fruit in all its rich diversity of colours, flavours and textures. I will be doing my part, dancing with Sound & Fury Morris at Finnriver Cidery, and of course partaking of the excellent product for which they are known. Waitaminit here...GET OFF MY APPLE!

Dichotomously Branched Rhizines

Day 1 of YEAR EIGHT! I'm going to start you off with a couple of those big "science words" I throw around so freely because it's crucial to know what to look for if you're trying to identify this particular common lichen. Parmelia hygrophila grows on tree bark and is grouped with others as "shield lichens," meaning that they form a mass which adheres closely to the substrate (i.e., the bark, in this case). We refer to this as being "tightly appressed," but that's a feature shared with a lot of other lichens. The words I'd like to introduce are "rhizine" and "dichotomous." "Rhizine" refers to the root-like structures on the back side of the thallus (body). Sometimes these structures are so fine that you need a microscope to see them. At the very least, you need a hand lens to tell how those of the Parmelias branch. Enter "dichotomously," i.e., they form two-pronged forks ("di-" means "two").

Looking at these under a 20x stereo microscope, it's easier to identify individual rhizines if you view a piece of the thallus from the top and observe where they stick out along the sides. Viewed from the bottom, they just look like a mass of tangled threads. Note the inset in the upper left. See how some of the threads have split ends? That's "dichotomous branching." Parmelia hygrophila exhibits dichotomous branching, as opposed to its look-alikes P. saxatilis (unbranched) and P. sulcata, which has squarrulose ("bottlebrush") rhizines. We'll save "squarrulose" for another day.

Priorities

Day 365: As 365 Caws is poised to enter its eighth year of daily publication tomorrow, I am struggling to keep my priorities straight. It is difficult when the leader of the country is set upon destroying each and every value and institution I hold dear. As I see human rights being taken away, humanitarianism being tossed aside, science and intelligence being disdained, nature being destroyed in the name of predatory greed, I wonder if Man is worth saving, or if it would be a mercy if nuclear holocaust wiped us all from the face of the globe. Dark thoughts plague my mind when I am idle, so I strive to stay busy to keep myself afloat. My dreams are troubled and disturbing. Lack of rest makes it harder to cope. My most effective route of escape is into Nature, but I am presently caged by bad weather. I need light. I need lichens. I need to hike until my bones and muscles are so weary that the weight of my body dropping to the mattress at the end of day takes my mind with it into the oblivion of exhausted sleep.

Priorities: make bread, clean the kitty box, pay bills. Taking one day at a time is liking climbing a world-class mountain: put one foot in front of the other, breathe, bring the back foot forward, breathe. Kick in a step, test it. Bed down and wait out the storm. Stay out of crevasses. Keep going. Be sure your belay is secure. Belay? Dammit, I don't even have a rope!

It occurs to me that at my age, I will not live long enough to see undone the damage one man has done to the United States of America both internally and in the eyes of the world. That is not a thought which encourages one to get out of bed in the morning nor to put on the face of the cheerful scientist who brings you these daily posts. Yet Year 8 opens tomorrow, and if I can just get over that next roll, maybe I'll be able to see the summit.

Cladonia Bellidiflora

Day 364: I call them the "wildflowers of winter." A week of rain has given new life to the Pacific Northwest's abundant lichen population, and nothing says "Hurray!" quite like the bright red apothecia of Cladonia bellidiflora. This is our left-coast version of a related eastern species known colloquially as British Soldiers (C. cristatella). Lichen common names are not standardized like those for wildflowers, but the most generally accepted term for C. bellidiflora is Toy Soldiers.

We Do Noses

Day 363: Family picture time! This last week, Tippy has decided he wants to sit in the chair beside me. At 14 pounds, he's as broad in the beam as I am, so it's a snug fit. He loves to cuddle. We play on the floor together, or I throw my arms around him when he's sitting on the back of the couch and bury my face in his fur, but wherever we are, the routine always includes rubbing noses. I'm not sure which one of us initiated it originally, but "doing noses" is as much a part of our daily ritual as the chase games in which we trade roles as pursuers. When it's his turn to be "It," he runs behind me and tags me softly on the ankle with a paw. The chase then reverses. He leads me into the bedroom and dives into his tunnel, leaving his bottom sticking out. I grab his hips or feet, give them a wiggle, and then he rolls over, inviting me to tickle his tummy. He never bites or claws seriously, just rabbit-kicks my hand or gnaws on it in gentle play.

At The Needle

Day 362: I have always been an early riser. Even when I was very young, I would be up before the sun, reading or playing as I waited for first light. Conversely, I go to bed earlier than most people. I am seldom awake after 10 PM. These days, I am impatient to start quilting. My vision is such that I cannot work under exclusively artificial light, so as soon the sky lightens, I throw back the curtains and take my position in the north window. A few hours into the morning, the point arrives when the sun rises above my neighbour's woods to the east, glares at me as if it resents my customary morning cheer, and slants across my work until I swear at it and push the frame aside. Half an hour later, old Sol gives up tormenting me and I resume my work.

Quilting is something of a winter occupation, like making an afghan or knitting a sweater. It's too warm to be under a blanket during the summer, however loosely draped. Yet in summer when the hours of light are long, I would like to spend more time at the needle, but wildflowers and waterways speak with louder, more insistent voices, pulling me away. "So much to do, and so little time," I think, and try to divide myself among my many pastimes. I cannot imagine why anyone would want to watch TV.

Unwelcome Gift

Day 361: Last spring, a friend sent me a packet of mixed wildflower seeds which she had gotten in a box of cereal as part of a nationwide distribution from General Mills. I read the list of species with growing apprehension. Many of the plants listed were considered invasive in some states. I sowed them in the Barren Wasteland (the poor-soil space between my house and garage), figuring to pull out anything I didn't want. The germination rate was very low in any event with California Poppies comprising the bulk of the undesirables. About the only thing I salvaged were a couple of Coreopsis, but tucked in among them was another sneaky-nasty which I missed until recently. I could tell it was a member of the Boraginaceae (borage family) from the leaves and therefore would need to be pulled, but I was also curious about just what evil plants General Mills was wantonly spreading throughout the country. Certainly their plan to help pollinators was ill-formed because many of these plants draw bees and butterflies at the expense of leaving native species unpollinated. Sure enough, when the buds opened a few days ago, I discovered that they had sent out Cynoglossum amabile, aka Chinese Forget-me-nots. If ever there was an unwelcome gift for a gardener, this bright blue bugger is it! Its seed capsules are tiny burrs which attach themselves to socks and pantlegs as part of their goal of world domination. Not on my watch! I've seen your true colours and now you die!

Hoopingcrow

Day 360: Meet Hoopingcrow, my stitchery assistant. Geocaching friends know me as Hoppingcrow, so when this bird-like creature moved into my house and was assigned the task of holding a variety of needlework hoops, "Hoopingcrow" was a logical extension. He has seen many quilts in his day as well as assorted cross-stitch, needlepoint, bargello and crewel projects. His jointed body and neck make it possible to adjust his height to a comfortable level regardless of where I'm sitting, and of course he makes it possible to have one hand on top of my work and the other underneath. I've never had floor space to dedicate to a full-sized quilting frame, and although I have to change "screens" much more frequently, working with a hoop when quilting only requires a little more care than having the fabric fully stretched. Secure pinning and/or basting does the trick. At this point, Hoopingcrow and I have completed seven of the 63 Patience Corner blocks, a ninth of the way done!

National Park Rustic

Day 359: They call the architectural style "National Park Rustic," although this was the first time I'd seen it applied to a bicycle rack. The last time I'd hiked up to Round Pass, a standard bent-pipe frame had been standing in this spot, provided for those wheeling stalwarts who wanted to take on the challenge of the rocky road. I'm not a strong cyclist, so I'd never taken my bike, figuring that I'd have to push it almost all the way just so I could ride slowly down. No, it's boot leather for me, not tires, not even with the improvements they've made to the closed portion of Westside Road. That said, a lot of work went into the creation of this National Park Rustic rack, achieving the style's goal of keeping Park architecture as visually non-intrusive as possible.

October Wow

Day 358: Wow! "Mount Wow," that is. The name was derived from a native-language word meaning "mountain goat," and applies to a massif on the western boundary of the Park which is prime goat habitat. Foreshortened here by my proximity to the trees, Mount Wow rises abruptly to 5921' from the Westside Road and has been the source of many damaging rockfalls. The constant scouring of its slopes by rock and avalanche keeps vegetation at a minimum with the exception of dense groves of pioneering vine maple (Acer circinatum). If Mount Wow's towering face wasn't enough to make you say "Wow!" then the maples in a "red year" such as this certainly would.

"Red years" only occur when certain climatological criteria are met, and what those criteria are remains a mystery to me. Prolonged dryness is one factor, but by itself, it is not enough to trigger a red year. Sometimes after a summer drought, I have seen these trees go from sickly yellow directly to dead brown. On other occasions, they transition through a feeble pink without ever achieving their full red potential. Nor is it cyclic, although glorious, full-blown red years occur roughly one in five. This year, the slopes of Mount Wow are aflame with maple fire, a delight for the eyes even in the absence of goats.

Gobbler's Knob

Day 357: The "shoulder season" of autumn is my favourite time of year, and good weather is not to be wasted! I lost sleep last night trying to figure out if I wanted to take another kayak trip or go for a hike in Pack Forest, and got up this morning with the issue still undecided. A light frost gave me a little more time to think because I usually wait until the thermometer hits 40° before heading out, and by the time I was ready to leave, Pack Forest had won the argument. Or so I thought. As I put my hand on the doorknob, I said, "Y'know, I could go up Westside Road. That would give me a lot more options. I could go up to Indian Henrys via the old Tahoma Creek trail, or I could go up to Round Pass and then decide if I wanted to go to Lake George or go up to South Puyallup Camp and the Colonnades." Before my alarm system could tell me I'd held the door open too long, I grabbed the Park map from its niche in my hutch desk, one decision made and others pending.

At the parking area at Dry Creek, I was still undecided. Nothing for it but to put the pack on the shoulders and let my feet take me where they would! I was surprised to see a brand-new bridge over Fish Creek hefty enough to support trail crew's trucks, even more surprised to find the rocks, ruts and potholes beyond it nicely smoothed out. At the Tahoma Creek trailhead, I said, "Nah, I don't feel like climbing over root balls today...maybe some day when I can get an earlier start." At Round Pass, Lake George beckoned, but I had forgotten that it was only a mile up. "Too early to turn around," I mused, "but do I have time to make it another 1.6 miles to Gob Knob?" Even with the trail getting steeper, I figured I'd just make it in time to be back at the car by 5.

The fire lookout at Gobbler's Knob (lovingly referred to as "Gob Knob" by all Parkies) is no longer manned, but houses a repeater station for our radios. We sometimes have issues with break-ins, so I was happy to see that everything was secure. I spent about fifteen minutes on top, taking the obligatory photos, and then beat-feeted it back to the car. Total distance: roughly 12 miles. Elevation gain: 2700'.

Mr. Hypogymnia

Day 356: I think anything I might say about this Hypogymnia specimen would be superfluous. Just be sure you notice the cute little painted "toenails."

Fall Colour

Day 355: I half-expected to see little pockets of frost in the yard when I stepped out onto the back porch and felt the chill in the morning, but if it was there, it eluded my eye. That said, a few things are starting to colour up and seed pods are bursting, ready to be harvested for next year's planting. Autumn is not the end, but rather the beginning of a new gardening season, the time when potential is paramount in the gardener's mind. It is a time of evaluation and planning, identifying what needs lifting, what needs moving, what might go here or there to give shade or to eliminate it. Autumn's advice must be heeded. What worked well? What did not? In pulling out the nasturtiums, I discovered that they had saved my other plants from attack by black aphids. A boon, perhaps? Or in a garden where they had only ever been a problem on marigolds, were they drawn to the nasturtiums, there to breed and lay eggs? Whatever the case, a lesson was learned under Autumn's tutelage. There will be no more nasturtiums for me!

Self-Heal, Prunella Vulgaris

Day 354: Self-Heal's unfortunate similarity to the invasive Ajuga reptans invariably causes me to accuse it falsely of being an interloper until I bend over for a closer look. When not in flower, it is much harder to distinguish Prunella (the native pictured above) from Ajuga. The secret is in the leaf shape, and it's not always easy to make a judgment call. Those of Prunella are typically shorter and rounder, but young Ajuga leaves may appear identical, so when possible, you should examine a leaf emerging from halfway up the stalk. These leaves are likely to be more fully developed, and the width/length ratio can be more easily ascertained. When plants are very young, i.e., at the point of growth when the first true leaves appear, a trained eye may notice a reddish tint to the stems of Ajuga which is not present in young Prunellas. I suspect that in my "de-ajuga-fication" of a certain patch of Longmire meadow, a few innocent Prunellas may have been rooted out as well, but Arnie and I agree: better to err on the side of caution. One little Ajuga in the Prunella patch can create problems for years to come.

Doing The Splits

Day 353: The first of the Akebia pods has done the splits, revealing a fat cylindrical object which to my mind resembles some kind of sea slug. This is the edible portion of the fruit. Now I am going to ask you to use your imagination. Set the following pictures in your mind:

Imagine watermelon seeds which instead of being flat are egg-shaped, i.e., picture seeds which are roughly the size of watermelon seeds, but they're shaped like teardrops and they're hard. If you're familiar with pomegranate seeds, the seeds in your imagination would be similar, but pomegranate seeds are a little pointier on the small end.

Now mentally put yourself in the kitchen. You're cooking something which requires the addition of either confectioner's sugar or powdered stevia. As you pull open the plastic inner wrapper, you drop the box. A ~poof!~ of sweet dust flies into the air just as you're taking a breath. Some of the dust...not much, just a little...goes up your nostrils. It's not quite enough to make you sneeze, but close.

Ready? Do you have those two images clearly in your minds? Okay, if you were to wrap those teardrop-shaped seeds in a very thin coating of your sweetened, viscid nasal mucus and then were to stick a gob of them in your mouth, you'd get the idea of what the pulp of the Akebia fruit feels and tastes like.

Although the Akebia cross-pollination experiment has come to a successful conclusion, I do not think we'll go down this road again.