Daisies and Deluges

Doing fieldwork in remote places allows for plenty of opportunity to sit in the truck and contemplate your navel or whatever else happens to breeze through the brain.  Zoning out is easy to do in the back seat of a truck moving at 70 mph for 2-3 hours at a time.  We drive 4-6 hours round trip when we work in the field and so we have some long full days of work bookmarked with long drives.  It is a good skill to be able to zen out with the green passing by the windows.  This morning, I’ve been doing some flower thinking.  Canola is planted here in great swaths that turn blazingly yellow this time of year with their vibrancy accentuated by the deep blue of the water-vapor-free sky.  Wildflowers are blooming now all along the roadsides.  Rosa rugosa, fireweed, some sort of Queen Anne’s Lace, a bright purple spiky thing, a soft mauve carpet.  The drive is colorful.  The weed inspector came to Meanook yesterday and chastised the station for having a field of daisies…   Sigh….  They seem so benign….   They will be all mowed down in the next day or so. 

Facing East: Meanook

We do so much driving that we have a rule that the copilot is required to stay awake…   Their job is to pay attention to the wildlife along the road to help keep us safe.  This makes it difficult to completely zone out, but it does keep you from sleeping your life away.  This morning we passed at least 6 different groups of deer, several redtails, an osprey, a flotilla of swans, fuzzy goslings, baby chicks.  Our last trip yielded two bear.  The coyote which used to be so abundant here along the roads are few and far between this year.  I’m not sure why.  Perhaps the wolves are moving further out of the mountains…   More things to contemplate.

That little blurb was two days ago… it seems very difficult to find the time this trip to chat about much of anything.…  today, I am tied to Meanook under a low cloud ceiling, occasional torrential downpours, and loud lightning rumbles and booms.  It is a good day to be inside and that is where I stay.  It has been off and on raining for a few days now – at least in the afternoon and evening – and something about that has unleashed an onslaught of mosquitoes.  Not just the normal massive beasts that cast shadows as they pass by, but also some wee little dexterous buggers that flit in and get you stealthily.  At least the big ones fly like lumbering bombers making them easily detectable.  These little ones pack a punch.  I was getting eaten through my big fat and fuzzy Smart-Wools.  That’s just rude.

And so home is on the horizon.  I welcome it with open arms and many cuts and bruises and bites.  I am looking forward to seeing what my garden has done in my absence…   I am guessing there may be club zucchini in my future.  I’ll take it.