playing hooky

I played hooky from more than one commitment today. I never played hooky as a kid – it never even occurred to me. Perhaps I am making up for lost time? At any rate. I did not go to the hospital today to give Reiki to patients. I.Just.Didn’t.Have.It.In.Me. It was a virtually cloudless day, so I dragged myself outside, figuring that if having my feet on the earth with a camera or two on my person didn’t fix it, nothing would.

Good instinct, girl. I rambled for three hours in nearby woods, meadows, and streambeds. All within a walk from our front door. I am a lucky, lucky girl.

Introductory runes. I wonder what species carve which tunnels – these are pretty straight, but we’ve seen plenty of medieval manuscript squiggles on others in this here blog…

I found a whole hillside of mosses and lichens.

Reindeer lichen - Cladonia rangiferina.

Someday I’ll learn my mosses and lichens – I don’t know what these are.

O Lumix, how I love thy macro zoom.

These look like desiccated versions of the fairy convocation mosses in the woods on our property…

 

I wonder about the relationship between the mosses and the lichens. Symbiosis, or mutual indifference? I like to think they feel neighborly about it all.

…because this puffball of moss looked for all the world as though lichens had come to set up shop.

Points if you recognized the ash seedling coming in from the left.

 

Down in the streambed, I came across what looked like a glacially-striated rock.

 

I crossed this stream a couple of times. Few things are as much fun as balancing on a boulder in the middle of a stream hoping you neither fall nor drop the lens cap in the water.

Back to the ice formations of the other day.

On the way home: fern spore stalk of unknown species.

Cedar waxwings. The handsome bandits.

“Feed me, already!”

Our culvert’s ice edge has grown another foot wider.

The day has been quite restorative…which is good. I have an intense week coming up.