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Flora, Fauna, & Fungi on the Carlanna Lake Trail
Because I take too many photos these days I’ve broke down the Carlanna Lake Trail into two posts, with this one focusing on the flora, fauna, and fungi we found. This was seen not far from the trailhead parking lot and honestly, I’m not sure what it is. iNaturalist suggested cotoneaster and the closest one I think that would be is Late Cotoneaster, Cotoneaster coriaceus. It is native to China and so I’m thinking this is an escapee from the neighborhood nearby. Again, not 100% certain on the ID. Large-leaved Avens, Geum macrophyllum Slugs, so ubiquitous in the temperate rainforests–I think this one is an Arion sp. Oxeye Daisy, Leucanthemum…
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Carlanna Lake Trail | Ketchikan, Alaska
When we woke up on Wednesday of our cruise we found ourselves in Ketchikan. We’d been there for a bit it seemed though I don’t think we were supposed to have been there until 7am but we had clearly been tied up at the dock for a while. Though, as we came to find out when we left port later that afternoon, the crew had everything down to a science and we were out of port within 30 minutes of the final call to board the ship. Our dock was just west of the main area in town and there were already tour buses ready for those who were preparing…
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Through the Inside Passage
The day and a half we had sailing the beginning of the Inside Passage was one of my favorite parts of our trip to Alaska. Ok, the entire trip was pretty much my favorite part of the trip (hah!) but what was pleasant about this time was that we didn’t have to be doing anything. We could lounge in the room, sit on the deck watching the water, sit inside the Garden Cafe (aka: the buffet) and watch the water while eating a dessert or sipping coffee. So, that’s just what we did. Leaving port during those early evening hours we got glimpses of Canadian islands from the Inside Passage…
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Life Lately | October 2019
Sabine National Forest, October 2010 Thinking: My friend Patrice posted her monthly “Currently” post and I remembered I hadn’t done one since August, so here I am! What am I thinking? I don’t really know. Gardening: Mustering up the energy and interest to garden once again. All of the work in the edible garden this summer really took a lot out of me and I really needed September to not do anything. I did do some minor cleanup in the flower garden and have done some light weeding in the edible beds but mostly it has been hands off. I managed to sow some fall edible seeds earlier this week…
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Horned Passalus Beetle (Odontotaenius disjunctus) | Wildlife Wednesday
Last week I was out watering the plants on the potting bench when I spotted a beetle coming out of the compost pile. I had a hunch it was a horned passalus beetle and so I took a few photos and threw it into iNaturalist just to verify—I was right! I’d come across one at Lake Livingston State Park a year or two ago so I was already familiar with the insect, which gave me my initial hunch. Horned passalus beetles feed on decaying wood so I suspect this one was actually ingesting the pieces of wood that used to form the perimeter of the compost bins. Those perimeter pieces…
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Amma Granny Square Top — Completed!
I finished up the top early Sunday morning as Forest and I were chilling in the west end Best Western in Galveston while Chris was out getting some fishing done at San Luis Pass. I’d worked on some of the finishing touches a few days before but only had to finish the sleeves and bottom edging. Yesterday I washed it out in the sink with some special yarn soap I’ve had for years and out came a lot of dirt and dingyness from being stored for eons—this was my grandmother’s yarn. I’d washed out a lot of the yarn in containers when I got them after she moved into the…
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Vancouver and Boarding the Ship
As I mentioned in the wrap-up post we made it to Vancouver, and I had started feeling better but not well enough to be traipsing about Vancouver and cramming in all of the sight-seeing as possible. We weren’t in the country long when Chris mentioned that he still wanted to try to eat at the Old Spaghetti Factory in the Gastown portion of Vancouver. There is a trolley in the middle of the building and Chris thought Forest would enjoy sitting in it, so I gave the restaurant a call to see about reserving a table for dinner, which they did. My stomach wasn’t in the mood for much else…
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Sunday Things
For the first time in two years I’m crocheting again. The last time I crocheted I was attempting to make a cardigan type thing but it ended up going south about halfway through. Someday I’ll frog all of that yarn. After that I lost interest in crochet. But with the change in seasons I’m becoming interested in one of my favorite hobbies once again. This time I dug into my grandmother’s yarn stash and dug out some crochet thread to make the Amma Granny Square Top. I’ve since finished one granny square and almost halfway through the second. After that it should be fairly easy in joining and finishing with…
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Echinacea purpurea | Flower Friday
Every time I see coneflowers I am drawn to them. They are one of the long-standing bloomers in a garden and are tough plants and yet I cannot grow them at home unless they are inside our edible garden. You see, the deer love them, too. When we moved in to the house my mom divided some of hers to give to me and now those plants are long gone. I think we may have tried once or twice more before finally giving up on our chances of growing coneflowers out in the open. I am finally growing some inside the edible garden and they delight me every time I…
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Bird Blind Happenings at Pedernales Falls State Park
Over the 4th of July weekend we headed for the Hill Country and did some swimming in the Pedernales River at Pedernales Falls State Park. After a few hours of that in the morning we opted to drive over to the bird blind and sit there while we ate our lunch. Black-chinned hummingbirds, Archilochus alexandri, zipped from feeder to feeder and then to the small tree and shrub branches to rest. Luckily the glass in the bird blind was fairly clean so it allowed for some fairly clear photos of the birds. Then a Ladder-backed Woodpecker, Dryobates scalaris, made an appearance and it took me a few tries to get…