I hung my photos for the March show today, and they are mostly spring wildflowers and various invertebrate critters that begin to show up in the spring. All the while, I was thinking about the recent weather forecast that said we could receive snow every day for the next week! Well, I'm fighting back by posting these from last spring.
Ever get mad at a little piece of styrofoam? I did. Went out this morning to investigate the new storm and started shoveling. I thought I was going to work today, but not possible. As I started the back-breaking job of tossing the snow clear of the already tall piles, This little styrofoam ball on my antenna kept grinning at me. Sort of silly, but I did get mad. This storm is no laughing matter!
The global warming deniers will fill the coffee shops and barber shops today. Yikes. This is the most snow I can remember in Quincy and it's still falling. Decisions, decisions. Shall I ski to work? Will the heat be on? Right about now the wood stove at home seems like a good place to be.
Here's another one of my bugs from the forthcoming show at Main Street Artists at 436 Main Street, Quincy. The show will be open for viewing March 1, but the formal opening will be Friday night, March 4, 5 - 8 pm, during Quincy's first Friday Art Walk. Several other art venues are open that evening including Plumas Arts where I'll have one piece showing and the Plumas County Museum where my son Ryan will have a show for the month of March. Please come by and enjoy the hors d'ouvres, music, and art and mingle with Quincy's art lovers. Or at least the hors d'oeuvres lovers. Find out why we love Quincy.
The always-inteesting science writer for the San Francisco Chronicle, David Perlman, had a great one in today's issue. Titled "Lizard-tick ties yield surprise," it's about a study being done by some UC scientists on the relationship between the lizards, ticks, and Lyme disease. When I lived on the coast, I remember the many lizards my kids and I caught, especially the Alligator Lizards, often were carrying quite a few ticks. Before the word of Lyme disease got around, I'd handle these lizards and their ticks with abandon, but always remembering to rid myself and the kids of ticks when we got home. Some of these lizards carried literally dozens of ticks in their "armpits," "groin area," and ear openings. The lizards eat lots of ticks, too, but they'd almost have to eat them off their companions because the ones on their own bodies were out of reach. Maybe there was some sort of social bonding behind this?
Everything outside is still white around here. My daughter is having softball practice indoors. I am wondering how the Eskimos can have dozens of different words for snow - or so I've heard. I think I can differentiate maybe six kinds. Anyway, my need for color erupted again as I stepped onto the cold deck, barefooted, to get a new bundle of firewood. I thought I'd post a few poppy photos that don't look like everyone else's. The middle photo is of Frying Pan Poppies on Table Mountain. In the background are Bird's Eye Gilia.
I went out and shoveled snow for about an hour, all the while in awe that the flowers in the previous post remain alive under it all. Well, not the flowers, but their parent plants - in some cases bulbs, in others seeds or other kinds of roots. Also, the eggs or other stages of many kinds of bugs, and dormant reptiles. It's all pretty amazing, and now we have to wait longer for these life forms to reappear above the surface.
Did Punxsatawney Phil predict this? I looked out the window at 6:00 a.m., and it looked like about 3' of the white stuff on the ground. The split-rail fence that had been my snow gauge until now has completely disappeared. In a little over a week, my photo show opens at Main Street Artists. Very much a Springtime theme, I had thought "what great timing; a wildflower and insect display just as the 'real thing' is beginning outside." Well, it looks like winter will be around a while longer. I'm sure I'll get out and wander around with my camera in a while, but it is definitely tempting to spend the day reading and drawing by the wood stove - and hope the roof doesn't collapse!
The trip home, after taking a few photos in Greenville, was more exciting than I expected. First, I got behind a Prius going up the long grade from the Greenville Y. Yikes! Barely crawling along, I couldn't stop safely and I couldn't get around her safely for about a mile. Constantly hoping I wouldn't be rear-ended. Yeah for passing lanes. We got by her and got up to a safer 30 mph. Then, just before the Keddie Y, on the scariest curve of the trip, we were startled by this jack-knifed big rig taking up both lanes. After braking as safely as I could and sliding into the ditch on my right, Ryan and I spend the next two hours sitting, looking at this stupid truck that was inadequately chained up for conditions. Radio reception wasn't too bad, and I did have some good reading in the car. My son had some music on his iPod. Low on gas, so we didn't run the heater. All in all, a mini-study of the natural history of winter driving. I did spend a little time thinking about the various critters that were comfortably waiting out winter a couple feet underground.
We've had a series of small "winters" this year, but none, until now, seemed like what we need. Namely, lots of stored water for the forthcoming season of agriculture, fishing, and all-around recovery of drought-stricken and otherwise abused ecosystems. I woke up this morning to nearly a foot of new snow - see top photo - and various amateur and professional forecasts of another week of this kind of weather. Coming to work on a day like today is topped only by hanging out at the barber shop for discussions of weather. The reactions range from anger to delight and various sideways responses not on the spectrum. As a naturalist who is always looking forward to the next spring, I can both lament another delay and admire the many kinds of critters who are adapted to surviving winter. I can only imagine the various critters that spend the winter a foot or more underground, that is, unless I want to get out a pick-axe and dig for them. I get frequent reminders when I split a few more rounds of firewood and find larvae and adults of various insects inside some of them. I have breathed on these inactive critters long enough to bring them back to life, so to speak. I take a few photos, then stick them back into what little holes I can find to give them another chance to make it through the winter. They'll end up in the wood stove one way or another, but let's not think about that. 
A few weeks ago, I mentioned here that I had seen a flock of turkeys grazing in a field near the beginning of Dixie Canyon Road, but I was going too fast and it was not a safe place to stop, so no photo. Well, yesterday, on my way home in a steady rain, I thought I'd slow down and take a peek. There they were! Around 30. I had appointments to keep, so I got a few photos from the front seat of my car. Fellow blogger Sierrosmith informed me that a group of turkeys is called a rafter. I can't get used to that. After all, "what's in a name?"
First installment for the day. It's relatively warm and rainy this morning, the kind of day that often causes some bugs to emerge to see if it's really spring. My camera hopes so. Stay tuned....
Art Walk in Quincy, March 4, 5 - 8 p.m. I'll be sharing a show with sculptor George Fluke at the Main Street Artists Gallery. I'll also have a piece at the members' show at Plumas Arts. My son Ryan will open at the museum with his collection of electronic inventions, pyrotechnics, and origami. The shows at Main Street Artists will be ready for viewing when we open on Tuesday, May 1, but the opening Friday night will be more fun. Several Quincy venues open to show art plus music and snacks.
I didn't get a chance to do any outdoor photography today, so it was satisfying to have a new colleague move into the office next door and bring a potted orchid. A cultivar, for sure, complete with the nursery label still attached, but nevertheless, like all orchids, pretty amazing. Especially when viewed up close. I walked by it several dozen times in the course of my morning duties when, finally, I couldn't resist any longer and went to fetch my camera. The results are above. Click on either photo for an enlarged view. In fact, click twice for a closer close-up of any part of the photo. Of all the world's major regions, we have the fewest wild orchids, so it was quite a thrill to find Mountain Lady Slippers (an orchid) in the forest just outside Quincy.
Just for fun, I titled this photo "Format Lie." Can you guess why? Hint: Photographers are most likely to know.
How blue can the sky get? This is how it looked yesterday in Greenville and Indian Valley. These two colors are in my set of acrylics, and I'm pretty sure mine are artificial because they were really cheap. I researched these two colors and found they have complex histories and come in many different forms from traditional "pure" forms to a variety of alternatives. Thinking back on my high school chemistry, it would have been a lot more fun if we got to play with pigments - maybe even make some and use them.
