roofers here all day...

 so i ended up doing a lot of house stuff and catching up. i totally can't say they prevented me from leaving, they didn't.  i just had regular life stuff to get to and today seemed like a good day for that.  cleaning, litter, shopping.  this flower reminded me of a purple sea urchin...that took it to the list of favorites quickly.  it's an aster...suassurea angustifolia.  not that i memorized that, though everyone seemed to be making a game of the name...i believe there was a song created to help remember it.  will have to check my sources on that though.

 this is yet another type of aster i believe.  it's pretty common and there are loads of hybrids. i discovered the use of the word hybrid works well when identifying flowers...

 they really only had to serve us one dinner during our trip out there...so smartly planned by them. it was a good one. hard to go wrong with spaghetti though.  worked for me.  filled us all up and it went well with the box of wine that a few friends of mine had smartly brought.  :-)

 saxifrage is another common flower family it seems.  so this is a type of saxifrage i think.

 moss campion.  these are really pretty.  i guess it takes a super long time for these to grow..we saw some huge patches of them and she(our instructor Verna Pratt) said those were possibly 15-20 years old at least....even this small patch here was 3-5 years in the making.

 climbing up creek beds is a great way to find lots of wildflowers.  you may spy stuff that is generally found at much higher elevations but the seeds have been brought down by the creek and has taken root.

 this is bear flower...another type of saxifrage.

 the instructor sends us up hill sides in search of new finds.

 tanya heads up and gets some photos to help with identification.  you can't pull stuff up as it's all a National Park so all protected.

 yet another saxifrage...i think anyway...barnacle saxifrage?  the book is pretty helpful and so was the class...but still i can't say 100% on most of my identifications.

 it's been nearly a month too...

 always strange having workers at the house...pounding away at the roof this time.  i actually took a nap for a bit after being woken up early.  then i went about my business.  naked in the shower and hoping the roof held and nobody came falling through.  haha.

 the dogs seemed to not notice the workers either.  the cats..well, they hid for the entire day so they were more disturbed by the noise.

 lichen above and moss campion below...a bigger patch.

 this flower is corydalis or more commonly earthsmoke.  we saw just a few of them.  you get a group of people hunting specifically for flowers and it is amazing what you will see.  makes me want to return places i've been and hunt for flowers differently than i did before.

 i'm sure she'd be happy to hear that.

 they were all excited about these patches below...i'll have to ask what they are....saxifrage?

 a large clump of it that TO climbed up to see closer.

 forget me nots of course.  always a favorite of mine and our state flower too!!

 aster of some sort and moss campion.

 the spell check is not happy with these names...obviously wildflowers are not studied at great length in the computer world.

 some time on the walrus cam today. there were a few minor stampedes of unknown cause.  the one you could hear what sounded like rock fall, the other was bigger and on a more distant beach.  one poor young walrus was up on a rock and dropped off.

 these stampedes are an easy way for walrus to get injured or killed.  falls on to rocks, trampling.  it takes very little to cause a stampede and we don't fully understand it all.

 walrus can abandon haul outs if this happens too often though. walrus are very sensitive to these disturbances and concern is that as the sea ice melts the shipping traffic will increase, and already has actually.  the impact this could have on the walruses could be quite negative.

 this is a geode next to the yellow flower above.  i guess there are many out there...of course, again a photo was all we took of it.  what is found in a National Park, stays in a National Park.

 above is crepis nana...another aster.  we all had fun with this one as well.

 i began to get interested in the cool and varied rocks walking back down.  TO and i both did and our photo's turned a bit to the rocks.  crazy variety in type and color.

 some were quite breakable.

 the rest of the class moves on in front of us.

 someone had posted this article about a huge fault line that is really never spoken of along the Oregon/Washington/BC coastline.  apparently, research is showing that a huge event has happened on a fairly regular basis...large scale earthquake and tsunami...of course, these areas are totally built up and the article was just addressing how ill prepared these areas are for what will come.

 depending on the day of week/time of day the death toll could be horrific.  it's an area of subduction.  seemed that events seemed to have occurred about every 250 years...of course give or take many years...as of now it's been nearly 350 years since the last event . speaking with elder natives in the region and the stories they were told from their ancestors...these events spoken of through their oral history seemed to correlate with science research.  interesting article.

 i always am amazed by how plants and trees as well find a spot and cling on and grow.  saw a few trees that were on a big rock.  over years "dirt" patch forms on the rock and then finally a seed lands there and is able to grow.  the roots spread along the rock.  old cabins have been seen with a variety of plants growing from them.

 was enjoying these little miracles of life.  no matter what events happen that to us humans is catastrophic...eventually the plants will find a way to rebuild the life that once was.  insects, plants, birds, mammals...it all comes together to recreate.

 it is always funny how humans seem to arrogantly believe that they are the superior being, the one for which it was all created for.  in my mind we are just another creature living on the earth.  a mammal, a primate....we do have some evolutionary perks that many of the other mammals do not have...but what we see as perks are often really not perks at all.

 we seem to be a species that is flumuxed by the big brain we seem so proud of! i often feel our brains have evolved faster than our ability to deal emotionally with all that comes with this evolved brain.  therefore we have a great deal of misery, mental illnesses, suicides, homicides, and perhaps even all these social impacting disorders.

 for sure you won't find any other primates with eating disorders. their self esteem is not tied in to body size or bad hair days.

 more flowers clinging to rocks and making it work.

 more forget me nots.

 cool rock with some dwarf fireweed...

 yes, this is not a flower...it's a big spider who has a big egg pouch...

 more cool rocks.

 and lichens on those cool rocks.

 not many big trips for me this summer.  will have to be happy with some great drives and hikes....need to bump up my hiking.

 twin flower.

 yesterday i did a slip and landed on the front of both knees.  it's so funny, these things initially hurt the knee, and i think scare me, and then after i get up and moving, my knee feels better than before.  i'm still convinced that these falls break up some scar tissue. hopefully there is less and less of this to deal with over time.

guess i have hit the end for today..i have rambled on as usual.  thankful for:  A. people who will listen even if i ramble B.  my small part in nature. i don't need to rule the world, i just need to be nice and respectful to all i share the earth with...even tiny flowers and bothersome insects.  C.  that acetone and a magic marker help take ink out of dryers. oops.  :-)