WatershedEvents

Sutton Mountain Surprises

I was able to get away to the John Day River Basin last week - five days/four nights. I pitched camp at Mule Shoe, my usual preference. Much of my hiking was in that immediate area (more on those hikes in a later post). But I drove over to the Sutton Mountain WSA twice and crawled up a couple creek beds that meander out of the north slopes of the site. Cougar Creek was first on my list. I almost never go over to the Basin without stopping by that creek. This trip in the weather wasn't all that pretty, but I managed to get a shot or two I'm happy with. 

Along toward the end of the hike I came across a strange material occurring in considerable quantity all along the face of one of the lighter colored ash deposits. I'll keep working on the details associated with this post so that someday I may provide more specific information regarding which John Day ash group this particular formation is most closely related to. But, for the time being I'd like some help on figuring out just what the heck this blue stuff is. at 1:1 the diameter of the assemblage on the left is about 20mm. Note the tiny specks of blue all over the surface of the ash.

My best guess is the blue material is a type of lichen that is very common in this area. The white material that appears to be embedded in the surface is most likely specs of the silicates that are so prevalent in the ash itself. But I am not sure of any of that, so input would be deeply appreciated.

Food For Thought

Kitty and Buddy hard at work in our new garden area.

We've been waiting impatiently for a chance to begin working on a new garden along the southeast property line of our property. Since we don't use herbicides for such work, we have to separate the grass and soil mechanically. This can be a daunting, even impossible task if the ground is saturated, as it usually is this late in the winter. However, the dry and unseasonably warm weather we've experienced the last couple days has led to almost perfect conditions for the task.

You never know what to expect the first time you dig into a new yard, but so far we've been delighted by what we haven't found - namely old roots, huge rocks, metal or glass scraps, etc. We have, however, encountered a large number of these critters. 

I don't have a positive ID yet, but my best guess is they are the larval stage of crane flies. The infestation is pretty extensive, at least in the area where we've been digging. On average we've been running into one every 2 square feet. I doubt the distribution is uniform throughout the entirety of grassy areas in our yard, but just for the sake of discussion I'll assume it is. That would mean there are approximately 8,000 of these plump little bundles of protein nestled snuggly among the grass roots. What a feast for anything that might be able to eat them. 

I've never intentionally eaten an insect, although I once accidentally took a swig from a Coke can that was serving as a sugar pantry for a yellow jacket. However, for a couple minutes I seriously considered taking a bite out of this one, just to say I had. I asked my wife, Kitty, what she thought we should do with them. Her reply was almost immediate. "Put one in a pillory box," she said, "and put him out there on one of those dirt mounds, so's it can serve as an example for the rest of them.

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On a side note, while we were diggingI noticed this fungus growing on some old stumpage in my neighbor's yard. According to my favorite mycologist and chicken herder, this is Auricula mesentrica, AKA tripe fungus. Apparently, and much like the crane fly larvae, it is not poisonous; but it still isn't edible for a variety of other reasons. Guess I'll have to give up dreams of getting rich by farming insect larvae and weird fungi.

At actual size this would be about 4"x5".