School and flu season...

Another quarter of taxonomy begins

The kids went back to school one week before I did and they brought home something nasty and I've been sick for the past two weeks.  I really thought I would feel better by this weekend and get to do some hiking over the MLK break.  But no... I'm even sicker now.  I feel dizzy and I have a fever.  I had hoped to hike tomorrow but between being sick and the snow that is supposed to move in, it might be best for me to stay home.

I felt so good during the break and got to do so much hiking, I guess I should just be glad for that.  I was just starting to lose weight, I hope I don't gain it back being sick.   I wish I could give my extra weight to my husband; he is so skinny now that it's getting scary.

My new camera has not come in the mail.   My text books have not come either and I'm not sure if I'm going to have all four books when they come or if I ordered the same books that the book store ordered and will need to mail order the two other books.  It's total confusion.   I bought a book on the mosses in the Ireland and England and I ordered it from the UK and I bet it will come in the mail before any of my books come from California. 

Well the UK is maritime and at nearly the same latitude, so they must have some of the same mosses.   The books from nearby British Columbia are too expensive to buy but I have ordered bunch of them through the inter-library loan.  I'm going to need to get  a wheeled cart like the little old ladies in Seattle use to lug their groceries around in when all my books finally do come.

Will my moss books ever arrive?



Leucolepis acanthoneuron

I ordered my books on December 23rd, and my credit card was charged on December 28th:
CA NATIVE PLANT SOC 0916 12/28CA NATIVE $144.50. 

But the books have not yet arrived and one of my classmates who did not ordered the books a week later than I did already has his books.  What the hell is going on?

I emailed and asked that question, but in a much nicer way and the response I got was they can't even look at my account to find out where they screwed up until January 17.  Just great...  I wish there was someplace else to order these books from, but there is not.  It looks like I have no chance of getting my required text books until late January.

I tried the get them through the college interlibrary loan and found two of them and ordered them only to get a message saying: We regret that we have been unable to fill your Summit Borrowing Request
for the title listed below.

Even the college bookstore can not get these books or get a reasonable response from the folks sending them.  If I was the author of one of these books I think I'd find a better outlet for selling them..

I'm starting to see moss, I mean I always knew it was there.  This blog was originally called nativemossback at blog spot becuase I'm a local and moss grows everywhere here, even on the backs of locals they say.  But I lost my password for that account soon after I started it.  Then I decided to go with walks with moss and a play on the whole dances with wolves thing.  I wonder if I could even find or figure out how to recover that blog? Oh here it is : http://soggymushrooms.blogspot.com/

I think this is Oregon Beak Moss

But now I am noticing the moss growing next to the lichens and some of it I am beginning to recognize.  I'm surprised at how fast it is happening too.
This blog is a bit messed up with double posts of everything since I deleted mosswalks and then restarted moss walks and reuploaded every thing all in the hope of fixing the search problem with this blog.  Well the search problem is not fixed and now I have two of every post.  I am slowly working my way through deleting the double posts.

I am still feeling ill with some sort of cold that just hangs on, I am also getting manic.  It's tough to fight mania when ill.  I need to go hiking for my mental health but I need to stay home and rest up for my physical health.  So am staying home and obsessing about moss.  There are far worse things to obsess about when manic.  I hope to calm down and get over this cold in time to do some hiking this week.

My class is going to invade the Lower South Fork Skokomish trail.  This will be the third class I have taken that has invaded that trail.  Funny that I've never run into to other classes out there.  Funny how I always end up taking a class that has me hiking in the woods and taking pictures.  I can't believe that I am earning my Upper division science credit by going for hikes and taking picture of moss.  Wow, I'm so lucky!

Maybe I don't need a macro lens for moss

I'm having pretty good luck taking pictures of moss with my 50mm prime lens but  it takes a bit of fiddling around and I'm doing it at home.  I'm still glad I have a new waterproof camera on the way though.  I won't have such good luck with my 50mm prime in the woods and certianly not in the rain.  I can always take my moss samples home to get really good pictures of them when it's not raining and the light is right.
I hope my new camera comes before we go to the Hoh.  I'm really dreaded the 3.5 hour ride out there and back.  It's going to be a very long day.  I hope I get to sit next to interesting poeple in the van and I hope we don't get packed in like sardines.  I've never even considered doing the Hoh as a day trip, I don't even go to Quinault for day trips anymore.

I get car sick if I try to read in a car so there won't be much for me to do other than look out the windows and wish I was home with my family or hiking in the Olympics..

Here are my first few experiments in moss photography
Maybe I can be the stephen sharnoff  of  the moss world.  Maybe just maybe there is a niche for moss photographers and I could add to a book someday.
I really want to learn how to use the automontage at the colleg and I'm going to really push to get the training for that this quarter.

Leucolepis acanthoneura

\

Leucolepis acanthoneura  with blanched future stems

Leucolepis acanthoneura

Plagiomnium insigne

Plagiomnium insigne or Badge moss

New SPOT on the way

Plagiomnium insigne or Badge Moss is my best guess, the first moss I have identified

OK I ordered it from Amazon.com instead of a mystery drop shipper this time and did not have to pay for shipping or sales tax due to some sort of loophole.  The drop shipper said they will give me a full refund and gave me a code to get a 5% discount if I order something from them in the future.

 While I was on the Amazon site I also ordered a waterproof camera that excels at macro photography.  I hope to have lots of fun taking pictures of moss with it this quarter.  It will be a relief to not have to worry about getting my camera wet and it will be a relief to not have to lug my huge expensive DSLR around all the time.  

This new camera is not rated as well as other waterproof cameras for landscapes and such but that's OK because I don't generally do landscapes in the rain.  When it's raining macro photography is where it's at for me.  This camera comes with a lighted lens and ring can focus on things just 1/2 inch away, that is going to be so much fun for taking pictures of moss and fungi... 
Pentax Optio WG-1 Adventure Series 14 MP Waterproof Digital Camera with 5x Wide-Angle Optical Zoom (Purple) is what I've ordered.

My prime lens on my D-90 has to be 1.5 feet away from something to focus on it and that can be a problem when taking pictures of the undersides of mushrooms!  My other lens is the kit 18-105 DX VR lens  (Nikons softest lens in the corners boo hoo..)    and the lens is physically taller than most mushrooms so getting it under mushroom is pretty much impossible unless the mushroom is on a tree or on a steep slope.
For a little more money I could have gotten a dedicated macro lens for my Nikon D-90 but I really wanted a waterproof pocket camera that I can have on me at all times.  I don't presently own a pocket camera.  I own a d-90 and a Kodak Z612.  I pretty much ruined my Z612 taking pictures of myself on the summit of Mount Rose during a windstorm of snow and rain.  I knew it was not good for my camera but I was just having way too much fun up there that day.  Ever since I did that my Z612 has been prone to randomly going through all the menu options or other totally random stuff when I press the shutter button.  The only fix is to turn it off and then back on and hope it behaves better.  I miss a lot of shots due to that problem.   While the Z612 is a point and shoot, it is not a pocket camera.  I took the photo at the top of this page with the Kodak Z612 in manual mode, with a timer and a bean bag.  I think it's a horwort.  My pet Pilophorus acicularis is growing on top of the rock in the back ground.

What ever it is I'm keeping it and I just happened to waypoint it and remember quite well where it was growing so it's going to be my first bryophyte to try to ID.  I sure hope my ID books get here soon, I ordered them weeks ago.

New SPOT on the way

Since my spouse is dependent on my SPOT and is he is  getting ever more frightened by my hiking as he gets weaker and weaker, I have already gone ahead and ordered a new spot.  It will cost me $121 including shipping.

This is the last message my SPOT ever sent:

Ginger's Spot
Latitude:47.50257
 Longitude:-123.31544
 GPS location Date/Time:01/05/2012 10:17:16 PST
 Message:Doing great, just checking in.
 Click the link below to see where I am located.
http://fms.ws/6nJEw/47.50257N/123.31544W
 If the above link does not work, try this link:
 http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=47.50257,-123.31544&ll=47.50257,-123.31544&ie=UTF8&z=12&om=1