A Week of Work in the Mountains

I had some work to do up in the Tehachapi Mountains this past week. We stayed up high, about 5,000 to 6,000 feet, working at various locations during the day and tenting next to an old cabin at night.

We had some incredible winds during our stay, and I haven't slept in the forest in a while (too long). The wind would whoosh through the trees from the north while I huddled in my sleeping bag, listening to the gust come closer and closer. My trepidation was justified; I was sleeping in a meadow containing some old valley oaks. Evidence of past treefalls and fallen branches (widow-makers) were all around. Luckily, my nightmare of a tree branch crashing through my tent never came true.

During the time I was there, especially when I was waking up, I would occasionally hear a familiar sound such as a truck backing up, a cell phone vibrating, a truck driving very nearby, or a printer spooling. Through the filter of my subconscious, the other sounds of the forest (squirrels, birds, branches creaking in the wind, etc.) were being translated as familiar city/office sounds. I was hardly aware of this until just after, upon considering what I just heard for a moment. As I spend so much time outdoors, and consider myself pretty attuned to nature, this is a little embarrassing!

Lots of flowers were out, and they helped make this trip a fun one, despite suboptimal sleep conditions and hard work. Nice to finally sleep out at the field site, and certainly liked saving 16 hours of driving over the week.

Creosote Bush

Lightening

And the house shudders and sobs

Drips from every edge

Asks the sky how it is possible

Why the rain strips the roofing bare of insulating dust

Seeps into old cracks and scours the surface in new ways

Why the concave angles, so striking and angular in the afternoon light

Wood and ceramic tile built to endure heat and light

Are asked to be channels for water

In the morning

Steam rises from red tiles

From the eastern desert

A warm wind has infused the air with creosote bush

Echoing the storm

But sweetly

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Live-forever plant

Thought I'd share a little miracle with you.

This is a plant that I picked up (saved from being trampled) at a local park last spring, called lanceleaf live-forever. Mom and Dad had walked with me there during their visit a few years ago. This is a cute plant that lives on rock outcrops, in little crevices, but only in undisturbed places. It's one of those "special" local plants that people like, partially because of how it seems to thrive in such a harsh, hot, dry place, and because of its odd form and small stature. A little like why dad loved the alpine gardens so much.

It had fallen down from the rocks, or perhaps been picked or ripped down, and was on the path and so I brought it home and put it in a pot. It has just sat there growing small new leaves for about a year, and then suddenly, in the last few weeks, it grew a huge number of leaves and it sent up an inflorescence stalk!

I'll send a picture when it flowers.

Knitting (for) a Miracle!

Here is my fruit hat, from start-to-finish! Well I'm almost finished, but I'm too anxious. I had to share!

Thyme is flying!

Literally! I made a delicious acorn squash soup with prosciutto (and thyme) and it was delicious! It got thrown all over the counters while I tried to make that and a simplified coq au vin at the same time.

I'm juggling teaching and research and really busy. However, I would like to take some time now and then to blog again. I really enjoy the writing practice. So I'm writing today to get in the habit again.

I'll be headed out to the desert on Thursday to look at the invasion of fountain grass in a canyon there. I hope to get a good start on my research out there.

I can't believe it's almost midway through November!

L

Happy Halloween!

Dr(s) Allen annual holiday pumpkin-carving party!

Up High: Big Sky and Tiny Flowers

Last weekend I went on my first backpacking trip to the Sierras. It's technically my second visit to the region, my first being a brief 24-hour escape to Sequoia National Forest, land of overwhelmingly giant trees, small red "snow plants" and meadows full of corn lilies. It was a car-camping excursion spent overwhelmed by the height of the mountains, the clarity of the Kern River and the scenery, and the fun of escaping the smoggy air of Southern California with some out-of-town guests.

This second trip was an overnight backpack, albeit a brief one. We hiked out of Horseshoe Meadow trailhead, up to a pass, and north on the Pacific Crest Trail to Chicken Springs Lake. After a night spent acclimating at the trailhead campground, we headed out on the trail. A total lack of understory vegetation was the first thing I noticed. Giant trees cast their defined shadows on bare white rock and sand and surrounded us for the first 2 miles. A few lupines formed low silvery mounds like little area rugs here and there in the forest.

As we climbed up the pass, slowly (though we beat a small pack of boys and male adults WITH our 30 lb packs!), we began to see some more vegetation- a shrub in the oak family (name escapes me), looking a little like a small magnolia, and some more flowers popped up here and there. Totally unexpected for me, as flowers bloom in my area in the winter and late spring into early summer. The late summer is a time for senescence and seed dispersal. Nevertheless, purple sages, large yellow asters and others popped up here and there, it seemed, just to keep us from succumbing to the thin air and our eagerness to sit and rest.

The final push to the lake was tough, as my pack wasn't adjusted properly (my fault), and the chest strap was missing, so I had tied a bandana between the straps, basically putting weight on my collarbone. I was eager to take off my pack!

At the lake, the scenery was unbelievable. Thick, hardy pines dotted the rocky area surrounding the lake. Nearer to the water, a small area of meadow formed a wonderful carpet of grass, and small flowers. We spent the afternoon photographing those, pumping water and then cooking our meal at an overlook over Big Whitney Meadow.

An experience to remember, especially literally the cool weather at the moment as I go about my day-to-day research planting seeds, and remembering that it won't be 104 degrees all winter!

Summer in CA: Data and Knitting

So it's that time of year again. Nothing is growing, it's August and summer conferences are over, there are no holidays to distract, and classes haven't started yet.

To boot, my experiments are starting in late fall, and I can't get out to do my observation work while it's still 100 degrees in the desert (maybe at night with infrared goggles!).

So here I am inside, organizing plot data from the spring (percent cover of species in plots along with fountain grass). It's been satisfying to see the data progress from a messy datasheet to a clean copy to an organized excel spreadsheet. Just spent the day lumping plants into "functional groups" (e.g. adding up all the exotic/native perennial/annual forb/grasses/shrubs % covers and all possible combinations thereof). We'll see how the data looks. Either way I'll be glad to be dealing with nice clean data when I write my dissertation even if I don't get to analyze it now.

Also paralleling winter in the east is the urge to nest, knitting. I just learned and here is my first strip (well my first knitting since I was very young). I can see my progress already!

So here's to the coming of fall and winter. So I can get outside, do my experiments and give my knitted objects to their new owners! It can't come soon enough!

L

Miraculous fruit

I planted some tomato seedlings a few weeks ago. They have been accumulating little branches with flowers, and then I saw one day that tiny green shiny balls had appeared where the pistil was. Two days ago I sat outside for a lot of the day and watched as the little fruits on the lowermost branch turned from a greenish-yellow to a full orange by the end of the day. These are the first fruit that I have ever grown myself and it's just such a miracle watching them grow. I have a similar feeling watching large flowers come from a tiny bud at the node, grow outward, grow a pedicel, sepals, petals, stamens and carpels. It's just amazing that a hunk of cells "knows what to do."

In any case, my miraculous bounty (of 10-20 cherry tomatoes, ha ha) is arriving just in time for my trip far and away (to a greener place!) for a few weeks. They will have to be part of the reward for my house-sitter.

Eat tomatoes and feel blessed!

Missed it by 24 hours

Well the Corpse flower hadn't opened at the Huntington when we went to see it. However, the entire gardens were open and we spent the entire day looking at plants from all over the world. It was pretty amazing all around. Here are some pictures, although I'm sad I don't have pictures of it open!

It was in a hot, humid glass house filled with tropical plants. I can't imagine being in there when it smells like something's dead! They actually have 5 planted in there that were propogated by seed from the 1999 flowering. Imagine if all 5 bloomed at once in a hot, humid, enclosed space? Whew!!

The leaves were incredible! The Amorphophallus puts out one gigantic leaf. The petiole is the size of a person's arm!
We saw what looked like a reddish tinge inside and we thought, it's going to open any time now. We even considered sticking it in a paper bag with some bananas :) but of course that would not be allowed. :)

The Huntington was beautiful! Truly a treasure and actually a bargain even at $15. It absolutely delighted us at every turn, and at the end of the day, we were surprised to see that 6 hours had passed, and we had to leave.

Titan Arum! aka "The Son of Stinky"

I'm going to see the Titan Arum tomorrow, otherwise known as the corpse flower. It blooms only randomly and blooms are a media event. They last had a bloom at Huntington Gardens in 2002, when the parent plant of this one bloomed. Its 1999 bloom produced the seed for the current plant, the "Son of Stinky."

I'll be sure to take some pictures of it. I hope it's open by tomorrow!

L

Spirits arise in Phoenix

I took a walk amongst some amazing sculptures by Dale Chihuly at Scottsdale's Desert Botanic Garden. It was amazing to see forms of desert plants echoed by glass. It was his first desert botanic garden installation. I find that odd, as the glass seems to fit so well. You could almost just believe that the forms were alive.

As we walked along and looked at the many installations that were very skilfully placed, I realized that there was a wonderful feedback between the forms and the plants. Seeing the sculptures made the plants look more like artistic objects. The plants made the sculptures seem more playful, as if they were impish sprites that alighted next to the cacti and were imitating them.

Interestingly, the names of the art pieces indicated that they were not actually representing plant forms in most cases. Many were named for things like boats, scorpions, etc. The very skillful botanists and artists apparently got together and made the display based on not only convergence of form and essence, but with an eye to that sort of playful interaction.

What a wonderful exhibit. I will never look at plants in a botanic garden the same way.

Another year another flower fest

Had a nice walk in the park today. I took my time, since I have a foot injury, but certainly the flower viewing helped keep my pace slow!

I may be going on another wildflower walk tomorrow in the desert. I'll certainly post pics if I do.

Here's a montage of my pictures. I accidentally had my cell phone set on low resolution. Ah well. I'll do it again soon. There were some flowers I'm still waiting for, like Phacelia. [note these pictures are actually pretty terrible but I promise to do this again soon]

Fiddleneck (Amsynckia)



Brassica spp (yellow), Calandrinia (pink), Cryptantha (white)



Goldfields next to my fingers- Lasthenia














Gilia spp?

Hiking in L.A.

Had a nice hike today with a friend in L.A. We had to cut it a little short due to time constraints, but I'm glad we went. Some snow and ice on the trail, but only here and there.

Nice to sit by a stream and breathe fresh air for a bit too.

Lots of volunteers seen doing a trail cleaning day. One woman mentioned that MLK day is also a service day- we're meant to volunteer on this day. I hadn't heard this before- I hope it's not a hijacking of MLK day, but I'm sure Dr. King would approve of people doing good things for their community on this day. I plan to remember this for next year- I'd love to join the cleanup day. In any case, the trails were sparkling clean (as they should be, but due to the proximity to LA and the 45+ people we saw in our 3 miles, it's not surprising that this sort of event is required). I made sure to thank the volunteers as they came down the trail. They all looked so inspired!
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UPDATE: Thanks NPR- just heard that this day was designated as a national day of public service by Congress in 1994. I'm glad I learned that today (sad I didn't know before). Better late than never!

Advice from a much-cited scientist

Gaia loves you.
The safe question gets funded, but the best question gets cited.
Failure is fertilizer.
Critics give you gifts.
Wherever you go, there you are.

Apparently I'm not a southern belle

Here's my first pie. At least I didn't waste 2 cups of pecans entirely! I was a little afraid...

It's not perfect- a little overdone on top and underdone (?) in the middle.

I think I need to go spend some time in Georgia.

It is delicious though!

Foraging (again)

This time we located a really bountiful tree on campus. A pecan tree! It's amazing that it spends that much energy making thousands of nuts full of proteins and oils. Precious energy spent...

We were first cued in by the crows-- they were perched up top, dropping nuts! (WHOA JUST HAD AN EARTHQUAKE here!) We heard them drop them on the pavement. When we started gathering them, there was much jibber-jabber amongst them. We could almost make out what they were saying ... "Hey, those colorful moving animals are taking our food. Better try somewhere else."


In any case, I returned with probably 5 pounds of raw pecans. Perfect!

Answer- Shadows

Well the answer is: Yes, I can rule it out, since the shadow must be pointing NorthEast, whereas the mountain is southwest of me.

As to which mountain it is-- I need a compass and a map- I'll take the opposite reading (+180 degrees) to the one I mentioned as the maximum amplitude reading. Both are at school!

In the meantime, here is a picture of my dinner. Stuffed grape leaves (rice, pine nuts, garbanzos), fatayirs (spinach pies), and my own creation, pita with melted goat cheese and uncured back bacon. The latter was a nod to my hubby's need for more protein. I wanted to cook ahead for this week, so at least I have two grab-and-go items. First try on the grape leaves- not bad!

Sunsets, angles and amplitude

In looking at my photo from the other day, and my guess that the mountain in the second photograph was Mt. San Jacinto, I decided to use a little detective work to figure out what mountain it is.

Of course, I could probably just look on a map and guess, but that's not as fun, and directions and distances can be deceiving. Serendipitously, my shadow was pointing straight towards the mountain in the photograph.

The facts I gathered, some extraneous and not needed (and correct I hope!):
I was in a park that is about 34 degrees north latitude.
The photograph was taken a few days before the winter wolstice (we'll call it close enough).
The sun is hovering over 23.43 degrees south latitude at the winter solstice (the Tropic of Capricorn).
The sunset "travels" at 1041.67 miles-per-hour at the equator ("slower" as you go north).
The maximum amplitude of the sun for this latitude is 28 degrees north/south (according to: The Essential Wilderness Navigator, by David Seidman and Paul Cleveland). This means that the greatest difference from a true west sunset (270 degrees) at this latitude is 28 degrees.

Mt. San Jacinto is east-southeast of here, about 100 degrees. Can I rule it out?

Stay tuned for the answer.

Magic Time!

I had a lovely walk with my dog in the park today. Great views of snow on the mountains, just when the "sunset spotlight" was shining on the hills... I love it. The snow was down to maybe 3000'- although I'm not sure. That's Mt. San Jacinto in the distance with snow. These are pics from my blackberry- not bad!
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