Hangin'

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

It's Time To Write The Christmas Letter

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

Spotlight On Cladonia Bellidiflora

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

Farmall Series M

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

Goin' Hell-Bent-For-Leather

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

High Water

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

Killdeer In The Dew

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

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