A few weeks ago I woke up early and spent three hours typing about my adventures on the Wonderland Trail. I was feeling great, coffee in hand, brain swimming with ideas, and my fingers flying across the keyboard. What happened next, I'm sure you can imagine the pain that swept across me. The computer froze just as I was about to post it. I waited and waited for a miracle, for my page to reappear. Instead I had to re-boot, losing everything I had just written.
Now I'm sitting in the lab, finally taking a break from school work. The chatter of students is making it quite difficult to think. I've turned in my dried mushroom and lichen specimens, labeled, drawn, and data collected. On Sunday we are headed off to Opal Creek Center hidden amongst an old-growth forest south of Portland. We've had two prior field trips, days full of lectures, microscopy, and culturing of specimens.
On the side, we also have a project to fulfill. I have joined forces with three other students and we will be doing our project on lichens in high places. Two students will be visiting alpine habitats and studying lichens adapted to this type of area. The other two which includes myself and Sam, are tree climbing and identifying lichens. Sam had previous tree climbing experience in Panama. By the end of the quarter we will have an expo booth in the library. We will be providing pamphlets and information about recreational tree climbing and what types of lichens people would find in the PNW trees and alpine areas. There are fifty students in the class so there are a variety of projects. Some projects include dying, bio-indicators, agricultural uses, and culinary uses.
I will try to post my epic Wonderland experience once I forcibly take the mushroom out of my mouth, the lens out of my hand, the books out my lap, and the microscope out of my peripheral view.
No comments:
Post a Comment