Bud Blancher Snowdrops

Day 110: Not long after the Bud Blancher trail was completed, I decided to explore some of the side trails and overgrown logging roads which fork off from it to head into Pack Forest. Overgrown paths are fun. You never know what you may find (good or bad). That said, I was not expecting to strike upon half a dozen small patches of snowdrops, a "garden plant" which had apparently been thinned and tossed into the woods. Eventually, I got around to lifting a few bulbs for my own garden (I mean, these are non-natives...it's not like I was guilty of nicking wildflowers!), and even though they've established in my flower bed, I still like to visit the source when I hike the trail. It felt a little early to find them blooming, and in fact most were in the phase you see here. I only found one nodding, still unopen, so I'll be heading back that way soon if the rain allows.

Nesting Season

Day 109: I've found a lot of interesting things by deviating from well-used trails to follow what Kevin calls "bunny tracks," and despite the fact that occasionally my finds have been things I'd rather not have found (notably human ashes, and not just once), the "road less travelled" often brings me botanical discoveries. Yesterday was a good example of hitting paydirt. I had gone up an overgrown side path, ducking under arching blackberry vines, shielding myself from encroaching salmonberry branches and poky-sticks as I went in search of the cast-out snowdrops I'd seen previously. After finding them (they were not quite open yet), I turned to go back, and in the differently angled light, a twig bearing a dozen or so bird's-nest fungi caught my eye. It's "nesting season" for these, the time when the egg-like, spore-bearing peridioles are exposed and have not yet been washed from the cups by rain. The goblet-shaped cups of this species (Crucibulum laeve) are less than 9 mm in height, with each "egg" measuring less than 2 mm. As in the case here, the exterior of the cups can appear smooth; in the inset, a young, unopened cup still bears a slight fuzz on its upper portion. Closer examination of the peridioles will show that each is attached to the cup by a short cord. This cord serves to keep the egg from straying too far from the parent cup when it is washed out (the peridioles of other species of bird's-nest are not attached).

Walking It Out

Day 108: That should do it! Nothing like fresh air and exercise to get the last of a nasty bug out of your system. Okay, it's the first time in almost a month that I've felt like moving farther than from my chair to the kitchen, and it was only a little over three miles (I took a short detour up a side trail to look for snowdrops), but it really felt good to be out breathing woodsy air again. I found a few interesting things which I'll be featuring here over the next few days and revisited a lot of others which for a while I seriously wondered if I'd ever see again. This has been a nasty critter, this bug. It's been a long time since anything knocked me off my feet. And my timing for the hike was perfect. It started raining only a few minutes after I finished up.

Knittive Species

Day 107: My "Bee-Wear" hat design brought lots of favourable comments from friends, along with a number of requests for a ladybug version. I was somewhat reluctant. After all, the little red critter with black spots we call "ladybug" is an introduced species, brought here from Europe to control aphids. Our native species do not have the red and black colouration. My immediate reaction was that it would be inappropriate for a nature center, but who doesn't love ladybugs? I decided to give the idea a whirl. However, I was faced with the problem of being able to produce the hats quickly and easily as knitwear, and dismissed the options of using felt patches or big black buttons for the spots.

Although it's been many moons since I took up bobbins/butterflies to do multiple colours, I decided that the best way to attack ladybugs was with intarsia coupled with Fair Isle. Here, I carried the red yarn around the row, performing a wrap-and-turn at the end of the round so that I could work on circular needles in a back-and-forth manner, knitting one row and purling back, a technique which allowed me to pick up the black butterflies where I had dropped them at the left edge of each spot. This worked very well, although my execution of the carryovers was a little too snug on this prototype. Developing the head and antennae required a bit more thought. I finally decided to knit the piece in the round on only seven stitches. Cute? Yes, and although this "knittive species" of ladybug may require a bit more time to produce, I suspect they'll be popular in Joppa Flats' gift shop.

Tatters And Rust

Day 106: A little visual metaphor for you here, icons of America tattered, torn and rusted out. I can just hear the owner of the truck or his salesman/representative saying, "It runs great!" (gods forbid that I should ever let that word slip from my lips again). Whatever direction I go when I leave home, I see similar testaments to greatness. Some stand in the midst of clearcut, their campaign signs faded by what few glimmers of light pierce the Pacific Northwestern gloom. Others lean against ramshackle outbuildings and piles of trash, proudly proclaiming the lifestyles of the rightist occupants. Greatness shall be delivered unto them! Or so they foolishly believe.

Now that I am on the road to recovery, it occurs to me that I should document the glory of Great America in photographs of heaps of litter, big-ass trucks with plastic testicles hanging from their bumpers, gun-toting Walmart shoppers, vagrants and homeless folk. Who needs wildflowers and clean air when the earth is ours to frack and strip-mine? Who cares what we trample, who we hurt as long as we get more, get it all? I am the singer Crow in Sandburg's poem, crying "Caw, caw" to the rats and lizards. We are the greatest nation that ever ... WAS.

Four Preludes on Playthings of the Wind
    ~Carl Sandburg

"The past is a bucket of ashes"

1

THE WOMAN named Tomorrow
sits with a hairpin in her teeth
and takes her time
and does her hair the way she wants it
and fastens at last the last braid and coil
and puts the hairpin where it belongs
and turns and drawls: "Well, what of it?
My grandmother, Yesterday, is gone.
What of it? Let the dead be dead.

2

The doors were cedar
and the panels strips of gold
and the girls were golden girls
and the panels read and the girls chanted:
We are the greatest city,
The greatest nation:
nothing like us ever was.

The doors are twisted on broken hinges.
Sheets of rain swish through on the wind
where the golden girls ran and the panels read:
We are the greatest city,
the greatest nation,
nothing like us ever was.

3

It has happened before.
Strong men put up a city and got
a nation together,
And paid singers to sing and women
to warble: We are the greatest city,
the greatest nation,
nothing like us ever was.

And while the singers sang
and the strong men listened
and paid the singers well
and felt good about it all,
there were rats and lizards who listened
...and the only listeners left now
...are...the rats...and the lizards.

And there are black crows
crying, "Caw, caw,"
bringing mud and sticks
building a nest
over the words carved
on the doors where the panels were cedar
and the strips on the panels were gold
and the golden girls came singing:
We are the greatest city,
the greatest nation:
nothing like us ever was.

The only singers now are crows crying, "Caw, caw,"
And the sheets of rain whine in the wind and doorways
And the only listeners now are...the rats...and the lizards.

4

The feet of the rats
scribble on the door sills:
the hieroglyphs of the rat footprints
chatter the pedigrees of the rats
and babble of the blood
and gabble of the breed
of the grandfathers and the great-grandfathers
of the rats.

And the wind shifts
and the dust on a door sill shifts
and even the writing of the rat footprints
tells us nothing, nothing at all
about the greatest city, the greatest nation
where the strong men listened
and the women warbled: Nothing like us ever was.

A Dime An Ear

Day 105: Do you remember when you could buy ten ears of corn for a buck? I do, and sometimes you'd even find it cheaper at roadside stands, the kind where the farmer would leave a jar on the table for the money because he trusted people to be honest. My, how times have changed! And which came first, the chicken (higher prices) or the egg (dishonesty)? It's an impossible question, one fostering the other in a vicious cycle. And where is it taking us, this decline into cheating and distrust? Can we stop it? I'd like to believe we can, but we can't wait for the "other guy" to act first. It has to start with us, each individual. To that end, I'm going to get up on my soapbox again and ask you to DO SOMETHING. Don't just sit there. You have it in your power to make a difference, even if it's only a small one. If you've had something gathering dust in your garage for five years and know someone needs it or could use it, give it to them rather than putting a price tag on it. You'll be surprised at how good it makes you feel when you make a gesture of kindness. A world based in greed cannot survive. Let the change start with you.

Lozenges Lap-robe

Day 104: As you might expect for someone who knits and crochets as much as I do, I wind up with a lot of tag ends of yarn in a very wide array of colours. Thrifty Scot that I am, these can't just be assigned to the bin. They have to be used down to the last few inches. One of the ways I use up the longer pieces is in "scrap-ghans" where each horizontal row is a different colour, but usually with a unifying colour repeating at regular intervals. Here, seven rows of lozenges are separated by an eighth row in black. The edge of the afghan will also be worked in black. This one is destined to be sold at Mount Rainier National Park's Christmas party silent auction. Proceeds benefit the employee fund which in turn pays for the Christmas party. It's a self-renewing loop!