Old wood

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old wood

It’s been a hectic day—out to a house concert last evening so I was up late, up early today to teach a class (one that ran for an extra half hour because of needing to talk with students), dash for a ferry, long time travelling home, and now I’m relaxing with a beer and an old well-read and well-loved mystery and entirely turning my mind off. I’ll answer emails and do work and catch up with most of my bloggy stuff tomorrow, but I did want to take a sliver of time and make sure I uploaded a picture today (I’m trying to post something every day, eek).

So it seemed appropriate to upload a picture of a sliver, more or less.

Okay, a bit bigger than a sliver. But a little flap of wood, sitting above the rest, on an old stump. I really liked the silvery texture of the wood and the way this bit curves and floats above it. It looked… alive.

British soldiers

Tags

british soldier, lichen

Since I’m on a lichen roll….

This is somewhat related to my last post, in that there’s British Soldier lichen (Cladonia cristatella) in both of them, but it was taken at a different location. I like these little guys, so stiff and solemn in their uniforms, nodding towards each other so formally.

Fungus garden

Tags

fungus, lichen

I don’t think a professional landscaper could do better, do you?

Tiny black lichen

Tags

lichen

...on a rock.

Aren’t these cool? I’m not even sure how I spotted them, as they were pretty small. It’s some kind of little black lichen growing on a rock; I’m not anywhere near my field guides at the moment, so I haven’t a clue what it is. What I thought was interesting was the way it’s growing in concentric circles.

And it showed up on a truly gorgeous rock, just covered in a lichen-y rainbow of colours.

Looks like sea urchins have been grazing here....

Why is our floor sticky?

Tags

slug

There are things I would really prefer NOT to find on my kitchen floor.

Kitty and I blame the dog.

Evening sandstone

Tags

evening sun, sandstone

It’s been pissing rain most of the day. The pond has colonized the lawn and is sending raiding parties into the vegetable garden. I think I may have seen tiny boots on a towhee’s feet. Maybe it’s a good time to post a picture of sunshine. Or sunshine’s last glow, at any rate.

Walking on clouds

Tags

cloud reflections, dolphins, gull

Okay, beside clouds.

I spotted this gull while walking between ferries today. It was very methodically walking back and forth the length of the concrete pool edge, carefully scanning the bottom of the pool for edibles. (I’d first noticed it because it had found something and there was a bit of splashing.) First one direction…

… and then the other.

It was a good day for watching wildlife. A pod of probably six or eight Pacific White-sided Dolphins came alongside the Big Ferry during the crossing, leaping out of the water, skipping over the waves, which were still big enough after yesterday’s storm to elicit official stay-in-your-seat warnings. I’ve seen dolphins on the crossing before, but never leaping entirely out of the water—this video gives a good idea of what it was like, though without the big waves. The pod suddenly veered toward the ferry and crossed behind; I couldn’t tell whether they were actually crossing or had gone to ride the wake.

Whichever, it was a rare treat.

Sigh.

Tags

ale, BC Ferries, beer, cancellations, people are nice

Home.

It has been end of term, and that means marking. These terms are oddities of a sort, as they end 2 weeks into January, not at the Christmas break. And because different terms in different institutions end at slightly different—well, never mind, it’s not interesting. The point is this: normally I spend part of each week in the Big City and part of each week At Home. I try to schedule work so that At Home consists of at least 2 full days. If I work it right, I might be able to score 3 full days—that’s what I’ve managed the term that’s starting, hurrah!

A lovely necklace

Tags

necklace, seaweed

I found this, exactly as shown, at the beach a couple of weeks ago. Isn’t it lovely? I looked at the detail and thought,

          Wow, that would be gorgeous cast in silver.

—and then I thought,

          Silly, it doesn’t need to be.

Snow and rust

Tags

rust, snow

(And then of course I had to think of something that could cope with being next to orange slime.)

I like my rural(ish) life, and I like taking pictures of nature. When I’m in the city for extended periods I tend to panic: Oh no! What can I take a picture of?

But of course the truth is that there’s just as much to photograph, it’s just a bit different.

This is a bit of snow on a bit of iron garden sculpture. Rust and snow look good together, don’t they?