Shooting Stars

I don't know what the real name of these flowers are. I've been told they are called shooting stars - which seems apt. It turns out that this plant is a nightshade (Bitter or Deadly Nightshade to be exact) as I expected at least according to this website: Andy's Northern Ontario Wildflowers.

Wildflower Gallery

Andy's Wildflowers - Northern Ontario

Ontario Wildflowers

Wildflowers of Ontario

Wildflowers and Other Flora

Guelph Aboretum Flower Gallery

Noxious Weed Control Program




I included a few wildflower links above.

Jennith 

Feather Duster Flower

Softness bends bobbing -
The wind dusting river banks
Sun stained pollen motes 

Gindigo Gink!

Aside from being my new favourite colour and a long standing favourite tree. We had one in Thunder Bay - part myth (well real enough that a mere mortal (aka me) managed to snag a leaf on the eve of my graduation) and anywho.

Momentous events this week

I finally finished "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson. I started it last fall and have been reading it a few pages at a time in the Salle de Bain for the last 10 months. Don't get me wrong -its a fantastic book detailing the history of science particularly in the last 400 years as well as the myriad theories and truths we've uncovered over the period. Fantastic book. Hard to put down - but I've been rationing books lately.

Next - I also finished Kushiel's Scion after again wistfully gazing at it on the shelf for 2 months. It didn't last nearly as long as the other - because one simply can not put Jacqueline Carey's books down once they are started. She is simply a wonderful author, a story teller and a human and a poet.

Meanwhile, I've been frantically reading stuff for school and trying to learn as much as I can. Gabe has been incredibly patient with my stressing, spazzing, zoning and general iratibility and busyness.

Ginko leaves always seemed lucky to me. Its a rare species that would be extinct if not for the tender care of humans. Hopefully their luck is contagious.

Anywho, I'm off to learn about surveying and survey equipment.

Cheers,

Jennith 

A Brush of Grass

Grass is just a cool plant - one rarely appreciates just how many species are around and how neat their "flowers" are.

Gabe is playing a droney podcast in the background - and I'm labeling photos from my fieldwork.

Wish me luck with my boredom.

Jennith

Burnished brush of grass -
Stalks wind with many fine wings
For distant lovers 

Gnarled hand reaching
From shadowed earth to grim sky -
Winter's grasp threatens 

Garden Spider's Lunch

This enormormous and somewhat intimidating spider was busy packaging a grasshopper lunch for later. 

Surveying Under Stormy Skys

Cattail Soldiers stand
Watch stormy sky from damp trench
For Signs of Terror 

Love at First Hike

Here is the love of my life shortly after we first met when I dragged him up Mount Katadyn less than 1 week after we starting dating(or thinking about dating at any rate) which was more or less when we met. (Technically we met at a party at the end of August then didn't see each other for a month).

So it was definately love at first hike, if not sight. Heck, I was just glad that he was still talking to me after the 12 mile hike to the summit and back (Actually I think it was 12 miles in both direction and those directions would be straight up and straight down.)

I would recommend the trip to anyone - to the park if not up the most popular and possibly grueling trail in the park. There are lots of trails and I'd love to go back and hike some other ones - they sound great and its one of those places with presense. There is a sense of ancient peace and remoteness unrivaled even in Central Ontario.

:D

Cheers,

Jennith

Oh, in other news I have my photos updated until March 2006 - that leaves just April and May to complete! 

The Tree King

Ancient father king
Gestures at the cobalt sky
Golden Crown Adorns

The Last Days Of August

As always, it amazes me how quickly the days pass and all of the sudden the summer is near over and school is officially started. The picture was taken on one of the first of our family's traditional summer camping trips (this one to Killarny). I love this fiery maple clinging to the rock crevices blazing while everyone else is still green. (Although this likely doesn't bode well for the tree's health, it did make a nice photo.) This year's trip is to Algonquin with the primary goal of taking Gabe to a wolf howl. They don't always work out, but knock on wood, hopefully this year is a good one for the wolves and us.

The excitement of this week includes the purchase of the first season of Due South - the best Canadian TV show ever. I can't wait to make my family watch it - giving me an excuse to watch it again.

In other exciting news. . . I'm getting ready for my field work season - I suspect that the next few weeks are going to be crazy. I'm currently reading up on methods to assess the effect of woody debris on the channel roughness and flow properties. Its been an interesting topic, but leaves me worried about the existing base of knowledge. But, from an ecology point of view, it is cool stuff.

Solitary tree -
Cool fire on burning rock
Harbringer of fall

Jenn

Brunswick St

 

Sumac in Snow

Feather white dancers
Scatter, a graceful ballet
To silent music 

Here is one of my favourite pictures of the church

Here is the picture I was thinking of when I started putting pictures up of the church. There are even better pictures I took this October day - the first snow fall of 2003 maybe. 

Rusty Autumn Days - Church from Head Hall

I suppose I didn't take any good fall pictures of the church with my digital, I'll have to go back and find my real pictures from the first few years there.

JP 

November. from the other side

 

Fredericton Blues

The above picture is of the Christ Church Cathedral (Anglican Church actually) - a prominant landmark in Fredericton's Riverside Downtown area. This picture was taken when there was still enough snow on the ground to call it winter, but warm enough to wear only a fleece. It looks great in all seasons, but I suspect my favourite pictures of this landmark are taken in the fall.

Otherwise, I've gotten out of th habit of blogging or have become even more busy than I was before if that was possible. The "weekend" was productive with Gabe and I finishing painting the doors outside, helping my mom grocery shop, walking the dog, exercising, helping Geoff with the basement and visiting my Grandparents and Uncle Stevie. To top it off, I broke down and started reading Kushiel's Scion by Jacqueline Carey. So far I'm blown away by the wonderful story telling of the author, but I've put it down for the day to read about Coarse woody debris and its impacts on fluvial geomorhpology and flow in German Streams. Its been tough, but at least it was a pretty good paper.

Cheers,

Jennith 

Blog Status Update

As you can see, my blog is back to posting and the pictures seem to be staying sight. I am slowly working through my old posts and updating the photo links to the new server. This is why my cluster map has such a great variety of international hits. Once I'm done updating the old posts, I'm sure my international hits will drop off and my Canadian hits will increase. I have relinked August, July, June, November and December so far, although there are several missing files for May and June that are simply not on the server yet. I'll let everyone know when everything is back in order. A big thank you to GEOFF for all of his help getting me moved to the new server and all my bugs sorted out. I'm starting to get HTML, and I hope to learn more of it as I go - so maybe some neat stuff will happen to my blog. In the mean time, I'll just have to figure out pivot tables and nested conditional statements for excel.

Cheers,

Jennith

Blurry Winter Vegetation

Well, my reason for picking this picture (Alma - Upper Salmon River) may or may not have to do with the litany of Chuck Norris Comments I've just been deluged with. Hopefully, I won't recieve a round house kick to the head. 

Double Take

Still at Cape Enrage with Gabe and his doppleganger.

We were trying to take pictures of a snowshoe hare in the twilight, but without much luck. This was about the best picture that came out of that bunch.

Jenn 

Cape Enrage

Evening coolness
Dusts the red hills - the rock bones
Of New Brunswick's soul 

Esoteric thoughts on Regent Street

Another fall 2004 picture of Fredericton - looking towards the Regent and Beaverbrook intersection.

As for the esoteric thoughts, they began as a side ponder on bravery and another on how the topography and ecology of where you grew up shapes your personality -- i.e. What kind of person would I be if I lived on the praries or on a mountain or in a desert. Of course, nothing is that simple, but I personally identify very strongly with forested places - so a lack of trees would definately change who I am, maybe not in an important way.

Its an interesting thing to wonder about, but then you get to thinking about all the other variables that shape a personality - family, socioeconomic status, faith, technology, pop culture... I'm as much a product of the 1990's as I am the forest and more a product of my family than I am either. Who would I be if there were no such things as computers? Given my struggles with spelling and writing legibly I somehow doubt that I would have chosen the career path I have without the aid of computers and spell checkers to enable me to overcome those challenges.

I'm the last generation to go through highschool without the internet, but one of the first to go to university with it. Is that a dividing line? Do I see my world differently because information wasn't always a google away? Is that how the first generation of motor vehicle dominated transport felt? That one day, no one would know what it was like to depend on a horse or your own feet for getting from A to B? Although that transition happened slower - did they ever miss the good old days, free from noisy cars or the sound of hooves on cobblestones?

Anywho,

Only thoughts I supose, but so much goes into creating and recreating the person you are - that it's mind boggling to try to tease out which strands are most important.

Jenn 

The beginning of the big bang of Jenn photos

This is one of the first pictures taht I took with my digital camera (thus the beginning of an explosive increase in the number of photos I take).

Its taken in downtown Fredericton in mid October. It looks like a populus or a linden.

I miss down town Fredericton. You can't feel safe the same why here.

JP 

Swim of the Loon

Loons - I think the thing I miss the most not being up at Doe Lake this summer is the haunting sound of a loon call as I'm falling asleep.

They are strange birds. Amazingly talented swimmers and divers, yet limited flyers as a result. They are not particularly showy, but there is a beauty that they have just in their simplicity and shear wildness.

A melody haunts
The aurora's laughter soars
Among the star gods

Jennith 

Falling Over the Escarpment

This spot has scandolous memories for me - which I won't share, because I wasn't involved in any scandolous behavior. It was also one of the places we visited when I was doing my guide hiking badge - where I got started on my love of backpacking and canoeing. 

Sunglasses on a rainy day!

In my defense, I was driving west about the same time that the sun was setting and the rain had recently ended.

:D

Jennith 

Another clipboard warrior

This pesty catapillar (again, I'll have to ask Amanda its name) was romping accross my field sheets distracting my excellent assistant.

It was a good catapillar week!

Jenn 

Book Worm

I'm afraid I'll have to hope that Amanada reads this and can tell me again what this crazy little catapiller's name, rank and serial number is - or common name anyways.

He was enthusiastically exploring a paper on riffles or something.

Less than sentence length
Green warrior battles words
Pinning pencil first!

Jenn 

Cat in a box

Well, Colin I challange you to produce a cuter picture of a Jack-in-a-box. At least you have a cute little Jack on hand.

This here pic is proof that money spent on toys is wasted when a 12 can pop box is all you need for hours of fun.

This is my other brother's kid. Pretty darn cute, isn't he. He's not even one and he can walk (and perform amazing mid-air (aka ariel) gymnastics in pursuit of feathers and springs and stuff.


Box can hold pop cans
Small cats and large kittens too
Cozy hunter's den

Jennith 

A Milton Morning

Okay - The flowers in the last post not mine, but the bros. This one is mine. Its milton at some ungodly hour of the morning - but pretty and hazy. I'm sure I could be inspired to write a haiku about it.

Cruising the morning
Haze shelters the escarpment
Gas prices rising

Humid summer morn
Commuters drone on highway
Cloud-gauze softens glare

Okay... Posting and hoping for the best

Jennith 

Test of Photo Posting from Dashboard

Ah hopefully this posts... These flowering raspberries apparently don't taste very good, but they look pretty.

Jenn

Home Stream Home

This is the pretty little spot that I am priviledged to do my field work. Nice cedar forest and gravel bed stream and lots of Coarse Woody Debris.

Cheers,

Jenn

Turning over a new leaf!

So, I've finally turned over a few new leaves actually! The first is that I'm hopefully sucessfully posting a new photo on my blog for the first time in several weeks. I finally got it moved to www.bog.araska.org. You'll note that none of my photos are visible in the archieves. Give me a few weeks, since I have to individually change the html in each post twice. If there is a particular picture that any one wants me to get up, let me know (i.e. by comment) and I'll prioritize that picture. So, hopefully I'm back to blogging.

I also did my my first field work this summer. Amanda MacIvor (who also deserves credit for the picture of the monarch catapiller) was my volunteer field assistant (I may need more soon - if anyone is interested in taking notes and helping me out.) We had amazing weather (generally sunny, not too hot or cold and dry) and a fair bit of fun on my pretty little stream. Lot of the local people stopped to talk to us, including two or three that took part in the Wilmot "Check your Watershed" event. Like all first run field work, some things went better than planned (actually this is rare) and other things of course were monkey wrenches - like my laptop battery only lasting 1 hour and the map of the site being completely not representive of what the river looked like (a lot more meanders than expected) or me simply not having the experience or knowledge to confidently identify bedforms.

We stayed at Sandaraska Park - a privately owned trailer/camping park north east of our site on a 200 acre sandbox. We had a nice site and there was even a pool, although it was too cold to swim that evening. The owners were great. We checked out the other nearby park which turns out to be a bit cheaper. It was a totally different setting in an old growth cedar wood, but it also looked nice and the guy running it was really nice too. Nice part of the world actually - everyone was interested in what we were doing and very helpful in telling us how the stream normally is etc. Its been a great opportunity to discover a part of Ontario I likely would have overlooked since it lacks provincial and national parks.

I'm starting to really look forward to taking Gabe to Algonquin for the first time. I hope the wolf howl works out. I can't explan my spiritual connection to Algonquin - but it is home to a part of my soul that isn't quite at home anywhere else. I also love that the end of summer camping trip has become a family tradition - down to everyone dozing off around the campfire and our annual trek along the bog walk with me exclaiming over the leather leaf and pitcher plants.

Anywho, hopefully I'll be back to daily posts on the excitement of my rather mundane life. I'm eagerly awaiting Robin Hobb's next book "Forest Mage" after finally reading Shaman's Crossing. Certainly, it isn't as amazing as the Assassin's Aprentice - but its still miles beyond most other books I read.

Cheers and thanks to Amanda.

Jennith 

Liftoff?

Well, hopefully this post marks the beginning of the end of my blogging disaster. We'll find out tomorrow if my pictures have moved to araska or not. So, lets cross our fingers and hope that I'll soon be back to my photo/ramble mix of blogging. I've moved my cluster map and hopefully will get the URL straightened out for my site meter without losing any of my records - I think I can actually leave it alone.

There is lots of excitement to write about... like the new and improved garage (i.e. clean and organized version) and the aerobics zone in the basement (read foam mats over musty carpet so I don't have to sneeze through my sit ups.) I'll try and post some pictures soon. I miss my parents and can't wait for them to get back.

I'm heading into the field tomorrow. So I will have some new pictures soon and hopefully I can patch up the missing ones from the last month.

Cheers,

Jennith

Hilton Falls

For the first time in far too long, I stopped for a short hike on my way home from work at Hilton Falls. I was surprised at how much more foresty it has become since I've last been there. The trees are mostly fairly young, with a few older trees intersperse and the vegetation is different from what I recognize. I did identify poison ivy, which I've seen lots of this summer and flowering raspberry and indian pipe.

There were few other people there (around 6 pm) and the sun was setting a bit. I was surprised at the mosquitos - but then it served me right hiking about in a pair of sandels.

They've added 3 bicycle trails to their original 3 trail/ski routes as well as generous parts of the bruce trail running through the park. I'll have to go back and explore it more thoroughly when I have more time and better shoes.

Cheers,

Jennith

Testing?

Not sure what is going on today

Happy Birthday to Jack!!

Ooops, I almost forgot that my only nephew has turned 1 years old. Happy Birthday Jack.

For lots of great pictures check out Colin's blog.

JP

Quick Post

I've been kind of off line for a bit between being busy and my blog being up in the air still. Blogger is working on the problem - but it seems to be that they have a lot of problems going on at once right now. Its funny. I really hate vandelism, any kind of mindless destruction and the targeting of blogs by spammers is simply vandelism- the kind of antisocial behaviour that forces people to lock their doors and be so supicious of strangers that we walk by people in need and never ask for help. Its these people who make the world a lonely place.

On other anti social behaviour - there was an artical in the star this morning about pocket bikes. These are 60 cm high, 45 lb mini motor bikes that are "popular with teenage boys". Now the article mostly complains about the noise, but our local pocket bike riders concern me because they have no concept of road safety. They weave out onto our street from behind parked cars on the wrong side of the road without looking. I've seen them cut a few people off without looking (including myself). Thank god the bikes are noisy or there would be a lot more dead teenage boys. Apparently it is illegal to drive them on either the road or the sidewalk (they are meant to be driven off road), but I first rand into them shortly after attending my highschool boyfriends funeral (a motor cycle accident) and I just want to shake them and tell them that people get killed on those bikes. Our street is especially bad because it is a collector street for our neighbourhood and people frequently use it to cut through to another minor artial street - this means they go much faster around the bend than the posted 30 km/hr. I haven't seen them lately, but hopefully someone talked some sense into them.

In other crazy excitement, I got to excersize my first response skills at a local hardware store when someone had a seizure. It has made me reconsider my decision not to look into the EFRT at my school.

Anywho, back to reading and writing for me.

Cheers,

Jennith