Monday, February 20, 2012

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.

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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…

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I found a whole hillside of mosses and lichens.

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Reindeer lichen - Cladonia rangiferina.

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

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O Lumix, how I love thy macro zoom.

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

 

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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.

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

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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.

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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.

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Back to the ice formations of the other day.

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

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Cedar waxwings. The handsome bandits.

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“Feed me, already!”

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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.

2 comments:

  1. Love it! I am trying to resist the urge to use a pun involving the word "lichen" to express just how much I love it.

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  2. Your red-tipped lichens msy be British Soldiers (Cladonia cristatella), although there are several look-alikes.

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