Archive for February, 2008
This diminutive very early-blooming plant eluded me when I was chasing flowers to include in Wildflowers of the Pacific Northwest. I spent many hours searching for it, in locations where reliable sources said I would find it, all to no avail. In the end, we left it out of the book. But it’s been nagging at me, or calling to me, or something like that ever since.
When I received my Native Plant Society of Oregon February newsletter which announced an Emerald Chapter field trip to Mount Pisgah Arboretum to see Enemion stipitatum I decided I just had to drive down. Since it’s about 400 miles from Bellingham to Eugene I inquired a few days in advance whether the flowers had started to bloom. So last Friday I tossed my sleeping bag in the back of the truck, loaded up the camera gear, and headed south. I stopped briefly at the Washington Park Arboretum in Seattle to photograph Witchhazels and then got back into the nasty Friday afternoon Puget Sound traffic on I-5. I slept in the back of my truck at a rest stop just north of Eugene.
I got to Mt. Pisgah early, so got a little exercise by hiking the 1000 feet vertical to the top of the mountain, climbing out of the valley fog into glorious warm sunshine. I ran most of the way back down so I wouldn’t miss the group.
Thirty people showed up for the field trip, which is a large number for a native plant outing. There were concerns expressed about the big group doing damage to the plant we’d all come to see, but as far as I could tell everyone was very respectful of the resource and no little flowers got trampled.
I had expected a small flower, but not quite as small as it turned out to be. Plants were scattered among grasses, fallen leaves, and the foliage of a weedy geranium so you really had to look to find them. The habitat is near the river, where it floods periodically, in open forest of Oregon White Oak (Quercus garryana).
With my tripod as low as it would go, I photographed two specimens of the Enemion, working with a 100mm macro lens and then with an extension tube as well. For some photos I had the camera right on the ground to look the blossoms in the eye. As the fog lifted, I pulled out my diffuser to soften the bright sunlight. You can see all the variations, as well as the two other plants in bloom on Saturday, at Mt. Pisgah on my web pages.
Am I certifiably crazy to drive 800 miles round trip to see one tiny plant? Perhaps. But I read about birders flying across the country to see some rare bird. At least plants don’t take wing before you get there.
February 18 2008 | Photography and Native Plants | 1 Comment »
I thought about going for a bike ride today, but with rain in the forecast I decided to walk instead. As I started from home it wasn’t raining and was a bit warmer than yesterday. I headed east on North Street and picked up the Railroad Trail to Whatcom Falls Park. There were a lot of people out on the trail — walkers with dogs or kids in strollers, joggers, and a few cyclists. I took off my rain jacket before I’d gone too far and rolled it up in the hood for easy carrying. I was traveling light, with just a Clif bar in my pocket for a snack. I counted on water fountains working in the parks.
Whatcom Falls was running full, but not at flood stage. I headed toward Woburn Street on the Water Line Trail, which has been designated as an off-leash dog area. There were a few dogs and their owners out enjoying themselves, all well behaved. When I got to the back side of Bayview Cemetery I headed south toward the corner of Yew St. and Lakeway. From there it was a long climb up to the top of Yew Street hill. There were three cyclists ahead of me riding up the steep hill, but even riding slowly they were much faster than my walking pace.
Somewhere along the road I saw my first flowers in bloom. Nothing interesting, just the weedy Senecio vulgaris. It’s not too unusual to see it blooming during the winter. About the time I got to the top of the hill it started to rain and I put my raincoat back on. It also seemed to be quite a bit colder and a little windy. I passed the new elementary school under construction near the fire hall. I hadn’t realized the school was going to be right next to the road. There’s no shoulder at that point and some of the cars seemed to be going a bit faster than I thought they should. I had to watch out for them.
When I got down to Lake Padden I entered the park and followed the trail around the near side of the lake to Padden Creek gorge. I headed down the gorge trail, enjoying the sound of the creek cascading over rocks beside me and noting the trees that had come crashing down in one of our winter windstorms. I took the loop trail, which follows closer to the creek, for the first time. It’s not much farther, but more interesting than the main trail. The gorge trail ends at 36th Street, which I followed until I came to the street that descends the hill and passes under I-5 to become Old Fairhaven Parkway.
There’s a fairly new trail and bridge that crosses Connelly Creek and then passes by the newish Bellingham co-housing development on Donovan Ave. I hadn’t been down that way for a while and had never seen what the co-housing group had built. It’s attractive, with the houses clustered together and all the auto-oriented stuff around the edge of the site. I followed Donovan to 16th and headed up the hill. There’s a trail where the hill is too steep for a street, and then the street continues.
There are a lot of nice front yard gardens on 16th Street, as well as on Garden Street which I followed next as I worked my way back north. There was a hazelnut (Corylus sp.) just starting to bloom along the sidewalk, probably not our native species since it was in someone’s garden. I stopped briefly to examine the catkins. When I came to WWU there was a sign pointing to the trail down to the Boulevard, so I took it and then followed the South Bay Trail into downtown and then home on city streets.
Overall, the route was a bit over 15 miles and I walked it in 4 hours 20 minutes, averaging about 3.5 mph. An online calorie calculator said I burned about 1100 calories along the way. I mapped the route using my TOPO software, which reported about 1145 feet of elevation gain and loss, with the high point at the top of Yew Street hill. There was enough water available at Whatcom Falls and Lake Padden to satisfy me, and my Clif bar was enough of a snack to hold me until I got home for a modest lunch.
February 10 2008 | Gardens and Fitness | No Comments »
This isn’t a political blog, and isn’t slated to become one. However, I think my experience at this afternoon’s Democratic Party caucus is worth a few comments. I admit that I was a reluctant participant. Casting a primary ballot is a much simpler process that requires considerably less time. In Washington it’s particularly confusing because we received presidential preference primary ballots in the mail a few days before the caucus, but the primary only counts if you consider yourself a Republican.
Apparently the Democrats broke through the general confusion and attracted lots of people to their caucuses today. Everyone was patient with the sign-in process, which is where you indicate your initial candidate preference. Some people didn’t understand that, but had an opportunity to commit to a candidate before the first tally. I was one of the two official vote counters for our precinct. The local party organization provided a good set of instructions for us to follow. One observer for each candidate watched what we did as we counted and did the delegate selection math.
Following the first count people could speak on behalf of their candidate and then there was a question period. Those who had marked uncommitted or to a candidate that had a very low number of votes could then change their preference and the handful of latecomers were added. We counted again and announced the results.
The last step in the process was subcaucuses for each candidate to select delegates to the legislative district convention in early April. Those folks will select delegates to the state convention, and they in turn will select delegates to the national convention. It’s a long and involved process, but it seems pretty open.
In our precinct, the great majority of people who participated looked to be under 30. I think that’s good news for our country, from the perspective of one who is on the high side of 50. We had 85 people, with 15 supporting Clinton, 84 for Obama, and 1 who remained uncommitted to the end. We’ll know the feelings of the whole state later tonight.
February 09 2008 | Human Nature and Politics | 1 Comment »
We’re in a period of what passes for miserably uncomfortable weather on the northwest coast. It’s about 38 degrees, windy, and periods of rain. It feels a lot colder than it really is, colder even than standing around in the snow in the mid-twenties. Days like this seem made for staying inside, which wrecks havoc with any outdoor exercise plan. I did get out three times today, once in the morning for a brisk walk around Cornwall Park while my scanner was busy digitizing slides, then to the post office and an evening meeting downtown.
The weather certainly hasn’t been conducive to photography this week. Not bad enough to look dramatic and not good enough to make beautiful images. Fortunately, the winter blooming shrubs last a rather long time in the cool and damp conditions so there isn’t much that’s pressing in the garden anyway.
While it’s been raining I’ve been busy selecting images for several magazine customers to choose from for future issues. I think my transition to all-digital submissions is nearly complete. Since if one editor is looking for a subject another is sure to seek the same thing in the future, I’m scanning everything that isn’t already digital that needs to go out. That seems easier for an editor than having to look through both slides and web previews for one story or one issue.
February 06 2008 | Gardens and Photography | No Comments »
Without deadlines would I get anything done? Probably, but deadlines sure provide a little extra motivation to move a task to the top of the priority heap.
I committed several months ago to give a slide show based on my Bellingham Impressions
book, which was published last August. The show dates are this Monday and Tuesday, so today I finally made time to select the photos and sequence them. The show will be all digital, created in Open Office Impress. I already had digital files for everything that’s in the book, as well as a number of other photos I wanted to include in the show, so that part was easy.
For me, the hard part of building a slide show is deciding how to arrange the images so it makes sense and has a nice flow. I didn’t want to mimic the book, which has a color-based design that looks good as 2-page spreads. Print and screen are two very different media. To put the show in sequence I used what seems like an anachronistic technique — I printed thumbnails of every image I might want to include and cut them apart so I had dozens of little squares of paper. Then I started playing with the order, moving pictures around until I was happy. I numbered each photo, then picked up the thumbnails and carried them to my computer so I could page through them as I entered photo file names and built my show. I made a couple of minor revisions to the order and I was done.
Finally, I previewed the entire show and thought about what I wanted to say when each slide was on the screen. I’ll run through the show again on Sunday after I transfer it to my laptop. If you’re in Bellingham Tuesday, come to the Whatcom Museum at 12:30 for the brown bag series in the Rotunda Room and see the show. I’ll have autographed books for sale, too.
February 01 2008 | Photography and Human Nature | No Comments »