More field pictures

More field pictures. These are from yesterday. We have a wetland mitigation sight next to a small goat farm in Northern Lancaster County. And the owners don't mind if we visit with the goats.

This goat was a little ominous. He just kept staring though the window.

See the giant spider? Sort of in the middle of the picture? It is hard to tell without something for scale, but it was enormous. Yuck. Some kind of fishing spider but there was no way I getting closer to tell which kind. The thing had to be close to 4 inches across. My co-worker thinks I am dramatic and am overestimating the size. It sure seemed huge though. And it freaked me out that it was that high up in a plant that I easily could have brushed past. Usually they are around rocks in the stream bed. I don't like spiders at all.

Field Photos

Last week I had a lot of field work to do for my job. Tiring but good. Here are some photos.

The first two are from Fairmount Park in Philadelphia.

I am 38 years old and I never noticed that the inside of a black walnut looks like a heart. Now I see them everywhere.

An orange shelf fungi. You could see this from a mile away, it was so vibrant.

A giant piece of conglomerate. Conglomerate is a sedimentary rock and you don't often see pieces this size. I think it is part of the Pottsville Formation found in the Anthracite regions in Eastern Pennsylvania. Zoom in for a closer look. That is my field book for scale.

Checking in

So lately I've been feeling like my horizon has disappeared. And I'm somewhere in the horse latitudes. I feel adrift with no sense of if I'm moving forward or backward or standing completely still. Not necessarily panicked or anything, but a definite sense of "I'm not where I want to be at this point in my life". So I haven't been blogging. Just lots of taking stock and thinking.

But here is an "I'm okay" post and thanks for all the emails and comments of concern. I just got back from 2 weeks at the beach, which was totally awesome. And I pretty much know where I want to be now. I just have to work up the courage to make the trip from here to there.

For some reason I'm into lists lately. Well, that is a lie. I've always been into lists, they help keep me sane and organized. I mean lists for no reason.

Things that have been making me smile lately:

• tomatoes - because who can really be glum when eating a bowl of tomatoes with fresh basil and thick balsamic and good olive oil and salty olives?
• banana pudding - I had for the first time a sour cream banana pudding made by Connor's Market in Buxton, NC and it was one of those moments when you eat something and everything gets all shiny and tingly and I think I actually laughed out loud because it was that good. Hard to believe, but it was. Banana Pudding! With Nilla Wafers! They only had it one day out of the week and the nice lady behind the deli counter shared her recipe, so I'll try my hand at it soon.
• The Republican Party imploding.
• A sign on a conservation district building on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.....it said "Keepin' it rural since 1963." haha. keepin' it rural.
• Little girls in kayaks that swore they would never, ever get in a kayak. Let alone check a crab trap or reach down into an underwater grass bed to pick up a scallop.

So I'll keep in touch. And thanks Pete, I had forgotten all about Mr. Hartman. I am power!

Much better

Yay June!

April and May were soap-opera-ish months and I am weary of drama for awhile. I'm going to put my nose in the dirt for a few months. Actually, until frost.

Thanks for all your kind words. Last week was a bit weird but I think I'm all better now. I'm still sad that things turned out the way they did, but there really isn't anything I could have done to change that. Nothing is gained by me dwelling. It is what it is (I say this so much lately).

And while it does annoy me that there was no spectacular, thoughtful birthday gift from the husband, the lack of did enable me to purchase a new dress and two pairs of spectacular platform sandals which I will show as soon as the come in the mail. God I love these new free-shipping mail order shoe places.

Behold my volunteer foxglove. I love foxgloves. I want a whole big sweep of them. I have wasted I don't know how much money buying foxgloves and planting them only to have them grow about a foot tall and die. So two years ago I stopped trying. I gave up. Foxgloves just did not like me. I had one remaining foxglove that limped along that summer. It dropped seed and last year I had several volunteers pop up. They were healthy all summer but had no blooms. I left them alone. This year this beauty suprised me. It has to be at least 3 feet tall. So I try not to look at it too hard or fuss with it too much. One of the other ones also had sent up a spire but that one succumbed to a fat yellow hen that was too lazy to walk around it and instead walked over it. You just can't have nice flower beds with chickens.

And my newest friend. This toad has decided to live in one of the flower pots on the front porch. He is there every day and then climbs out (the top of the pot is adjacent to a step) and is on the flagstones every evening. This pot has pansies and johnny-jump-ups in it so I'm not sure what he'll do when I change over to something a little more heat tolerant. I will keep his needs in mind though. Something to shade him during the day and keep him cool. Perhaps some big leafy sun coleus?

ves

C'mon June 1st!

Boy am I glad May is almost over. I have not really enjoyed this month. Memorial Day weekend was busy. I cleaned and cleaned and cleaned some more and then planted and planted and planted some more. And I'm still not done. But at least all of my tomatoes and peppers are in and lots of seeds are planted and there is basil to brush past and strawberries to ripen in the sun.

Late Memorial Day afternoon I finally got to sit on my clean front porch and have a beer and know that I got a ton of stuff done.

Monday was also my birthday. I turned 38. I didn't really want to, but apparently you don't get a choice. I am not enjoying getting older. Not at all. And I don't really enjoy birthdays anymore either. It doesn't help when you don't get any gifts from your husband and the only card from him makes a sarcastic comment about your housekeeping skills. Thanks. I know. I am whining. I can whine if I want. The only saving grace was that I bought myself two huge ferns and found the first homegrown strawberries of the season. So my pity party happened while I was also eating awesome strawberries over the kitchen sink.

I was kind of glad to get to work on Tuesday morning. And then I opened an email from my cousin that let me know my father had died over the weekend. Somewhat surreal sitting at work and opening an email that tells you your dad passed away. Now this dad hadn't wanted anything to do with me for the last 20 years and I wasn't really expecting to feel sad or really feel anything when the time came. But I did. I was a little overwhelmed. Stunned and sad and angry. Angry that I never got a chance to tell him what I thought of him. Angry that I never got that dramatic phone call at the end saying "sorry I was such a shitty dad and will you accept my apology?" Sad that somebody that shared my first 18 years of life had decided that I wasn't worth knowing anymore and never bothered to see how I turned out.

So dad, sorry it turned out this way.

And in case you were ever interested, I turned out okay.

Actually, despite you and my crazy mother's best efforts to make it otherwise, I turned out awesome. I am smart and I'm funny and I'm interesting and I am strong. I provide for myself because I learned early on (thanks again) that most people could not be depended on for much and you are better off never expecting help. Valuable lessons those.

So, not getting to know me was very much your loss.

Thanks for the dimples though. They've always made my smile stand out.

(I don't look 38, do I?)

Almost May?

How is that possible?

My chickens still aren't on their own yet. Still in their comfy giant box in the garage. I tried. I really did. One whole day in the chicken house. And then at night they simply didn't know what to do and peeped sad and loud and long and I took them all back to the garage. I would be a terrible mother. I can't help but spoil.

The foofies know this and exploit my weakness shamelessly.

My flowers are speeding right along. The tulips are now over, daffodils are long gone. I had iris blooming yesterday. Yikes. Bleeding heart is probably my favorite plant. I wish it lasted all year. But then maybe I wouldn't like it so much.

How am I behind already?

Spring so quickly becomes overwhelming. Or is it just me? You wait and wait to be able to go out and get dirty and then it just seems like you can't keep up. There are so many things I have to plant yet!

And as usual, I panicked and bought my tomatoes too early, so afraid that the ones I wanted wouldn't be available if I waited. So I dutifully haul those in and out of the garage every day. I'll wait until the beginning of May, but even that is two weeks early based on out last frost date of May 15th. But at least I am set for San Marzanos again for 2008.

But I suppose it is good to be busy. I spent entirely too much time the last few months thinking about things and it is good for me to have a distraction. Even politics has failed to draw much of my attention. Can you believe it? I did work the polls on primary day this last Tuesday. And while Obama lost Pennsylvania, he did win in my precinct (the only Obama precinct in my district) and I like to think it was because of my smiling face and my "Lancaster for Obama" pin wishing everyone a good day.

My trout lily (Erythronium americanum) bloomed for the first time. Actually, they aren't my trout lillies, I didn't plant them. I've noted the foliage every year that we've had the house, but never seen a bloom. There were three this spring, although I was unable to get a shot of any of them fully open. The leaves really do look like a speckled trout's back.