The end is near

December 17 already! Three more days until the winter solstice, 8 until Christmas (ocho dias, we say in Spanish, meaning one week; we count both ends). A week more, and it will be 2026, and we'll be done with the first quarter of this century.

Where did the time go?

I'm making up my now traditional list of "Things that Made me Happy this Year". It's long; it has been a good year. While I'm working on it, here are a few mushrooms, photos left "for later" from several places. Maybe this will count as one category in the TtMmHtY file.

Mycena sp., Elk Falls trail.

Tinies hiding in a friend's lawn. (This could fit under the category "Friends".)

Hypholoma sp. on a fallen twig, Roberts Lake.

Probably Lactarius sp.. Roberts Lake.

More Lactarius, these from Elk Falls. I was searching beside the parking lot, looking for slime molds and disappointed because I hadn't seen any, Now, looking at the photo, I think that might just be a slime mold hiding behind the fallen mushroom. A hint, maybe, to slow down a bit?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

¡El 17 de diciembre! Faltan solamente tres dias para el solsticio de invierno, 8 dias para Navidad. Una semana más, y ya estaremos corriendo el año 2026, y habremos acabado con la primera cuarta parte de este siglo.

¿Adónde se fue el tiempo?

Ahora estoy haciendo mi lista tradicional de "Cosas que me hicieron Feliz en este Año". Es una lista larga; ha sido un año lleno de delicias. Por mientras, aquí hay algunos hongos vistos en varios sitios; fotos que había dejado para "más tarde". Tal vez esto debe contar como una de las categorías en la lista.

1. Mycena sp. Elk Falls
2. Honguitos escondidos en el césped de unos amigos.
3. Hypholoma sp. en una ramita caída. Robert's Lake.
4. Lactarius sp. Roberts Lake.
5. Un grupo de Lactarius sp. detrás del estacionamiento en Elk Falls. Había estado buscando mohos mucilaginosos aquí, sin encontrar ni uno. Ahora, mirando la foto creo que esa mancha blanca detrás del hongo tirado puede haber sido un moho. ¿Un consejo, quizás; ¡no tengas tanta prisa, mujer!?

2012 critter sampler

December 31st! Already? I'm still doing end-of-summer catch-up!

Alex Wild is curating "Best of 2012" science and nature shots on Scientific American. I was reminded, again, by BugGeek, who posted her collection. Beautiful shots; I've seen them all before, and will review them again tomorrow. Not tonight, because it's hard to blog when you're green with envy.

I looked over my photos, picking out the favourites, not to submit, but just as a year-end summary. And there were too many! I cut them down to just critters; still too many, and I kept remembering more. But I've finally trimmed the list down to a dozen favourite critters, not without difficulty.

Here's the collection: Critters only:

Ant nest uncovered, with the adults rushing to drag the larvae down the holes, out of sight.

Aphid in a moss forest

Caterpillar in morning sunlight

Garden snail, feeding on glass.

Grainy hand hermit, in human hand

Harvestman volunteer

I had trouble choosing my favourite of all the spiders. I have to smile at this fat mama, who does NOT like lime and pepper chips.

Life's an adventure. Hermit crab in aquarium.

Lazy moth in jar lid and morning sunshine.

Spider #2 Long-jawed orb weaver, on hosta leaf.

This was an exciting find; a molting ghost shrimp.

Ok, I give up; I can't choose just one or two spiders! Spider # 3, Ozyptila, the spider-eater's spider eater.

Spider #4, Mother toting her eggs.

Would have been #12, if I hadn't snuck a couple of extra spiders in there. Plume moth on outside wall.

And tomorrow is 2013! I never thought we'd get here. May it be a good year, the best year so far, for all of us!

Captured by a meme, again

This end-of-the-year meme has been going around the blogosphere, and I thought I wouldn't catch it. But I guess I'm not immune, after all.

The instructions say to take the first sentence of the first post of each month, and post them. But I do have a mind of my own (if ever so weak), and I chose another sentence, instead, of the designated posts.

So here goes the list:

• January 1, 2007: Recently we spent a couple of nights at my daughter's house in Strathcona, house- and cat-sitting. (First Post of 2007)
  
  
• February 1: Oh, for the talents of a cat! Who can sleep any time, any place, any position. (Why is it...)
  
  
• March 1st: (With a tint of pink. Some hanky-panky with flamingos back in his ancestry?) (Beacon Hill Park)
  
  
• April 1, April Fools' Day: Lemon jelly slime. (Or maybe Witches Butter, a mushroom.) (Two Slime Molds)
  
  
• May 1, MayDay: A red-headed woodpecker shouted out from a tall cottonwood; although we looked from all angles, we couldn't see him. (Just a Peaceful Walk)
  
  
• June 1st: Except, of course, for the roar of waters, the crashing of rock, the ping! of splitting ice. And probably the howl of wind. (A Terrible, Stark Beauty)
  
  
• July 1, Canada Day: Beside the road, a young bear was grazing in a bed of clover. (Home again, Home again, Jiggety-jog)
  
  
• August 1st, BC Day: (I don't touch jellyfish with fingers; one never knows if they sting.) (Remembering King Canute)
  
  
• September 1st, Labour Day weekend: A photo post, so here's one of the pics.
  
  
  
  
• First of October: The next day, I noticed a green caterpillar nibbling on the tiny yellow flowers at the tip. (Astounding!)
  
  
• November 1, Mexican Day of the Dead: Head decor, this Hallowe'en. (Three Horns and an Axe)
  
  
• And December 1: But aren't they great? I especially like the big curly one. (Mushrooms at the Quay)

Hmm... Birds and bears, cats and caterpillars, scenery and 'shrooms.

It's been that kind of a year.

December 30th. Embers.

We're coming up to the end of 2006. Various memes are working their way around the blogosphere; listing the first lines of the first post of each month, tallying up the numbers, comparing "top tens", making predictions.

Me, I'm a newbie. Not to the web; I've been here forever and a couple of days. To the blogs. I started May 1st of last year, on Delphi. A bit of Mayday madness that has become a meme all by itself: a post a day. Or thereabouts.

So: waving goodbye to 2006 in my own way, I will post bits and pieces of those early blog posts, bits that tell who I am, where I'm going and why.

May 5, 2006: About Names

Why "Weeta"?
I answer to a whole slew of names. The one my parents gave me; Susannah; the one they called me, and my brother still uses (nobody else, please); Susie. To casual acquaintances, often Sue.
...
And to my grandkids, I have been, according to the age and favourite language of the kids, Grandma, Jaba, Jabasoo (his spelling, not mine. And Canada Post actually delivered a letter sent to that name, and with a wrong street address. Pretty good, eh?) and recently, Weeta. Which is a 3-year-old's pronunciation of "abuelita".
I like it.

Same Day: Immortal Words

The internet is clogged with trillions of words. Stashed in hard drives all over the planet, pixels appearing on screens on laps, on desks, on beds even, then disappearing a moment later, vibrating energies coating this old planet like slime on a pond; here today, gone tomorrow.
Even more ephemeral than paper, barely more permanent than the brief hellos we interchange with the neighbour in his driveway. ...
So: words into the void. But so what? I will still say hello to the neighbour; I may as well still keep on pouring words onto the screen.

May 10th, Mexican Mother's Day: Unappreciated Beauties A photo of dandelions. And, I think, the unifying principle in most of this blog; to wit:

We mow them down. Roundup them. Tear them out by the roots. Swear at them.
And what do they do to us? Smile at the sunshine. Brighten dingy days. Give little children something to blow away.
My granddaughter, 3, carefully searched out the dandelions that had already lost their little parachuting seeds, and harvested a fistful to take home to Mommy. Arranging them in a glass for her, I realized that they are beautiful, too, with their silky round stems, a neat little creamy cap on the top and a lacy fringe; how long is it since I had really looked at them?

It's a sad time of year, especially this year, maybe because this year has been difficult and fraught with loss, maybe because the future looks dark. There are health issues as we grow older, financial worries, the closing of doors. The weather no longer is a trusted cycle, "seedtime and harvest"; whether to expect ice and wind or baking drought is not something the almanac can tell us any more. And the world seems populated by insane ideologues hell-bent on suicide and willing to take any number of people with them, some by the dozens, others by the millions.

And the sun comes out only long enough for us to get our coats on.

But the world still manages to produce its beauty. Sunrise, sunset. Unassuming beetles, moss-covered logs, fruit flies with brilliant red eyes. Blue lakes mirroring a bluer sky. Eleventy-one tints of green in the bush. The ceaseless whispering of waves against the pier.

I can't do anything about the weather, my age, the news or the sanity of my neighbours, far and near. I can't do much about the beauty around me, except treasure it, cultivate it. Celebrate it.

Call it my act of defiance against the closing dark.