One more time, some more mountain flowers.

Alright so I know this is getting a bit tedious, more mountain hiking, more pretty flowers. But this is the last, I promise. My hiking buddies are going on a long backpack trip next weekend and after that the flowers will all be over. And also there is another purpose to all this flower identification thing – I need some reference so that next year when I hike again and I see these flowers I will know what they all are (the memory is not what it used to be, and it wasn’t all that good at its best). So for the sake of my memory and perhaps someone’s enjoyment, here we are on the road to Wright’ Lake in the Desolation Wilderness.


Brian, Allison, Mike and myself.


Tiger Lilly - quite a wonderful thing to behold.


I am not sure what the proper name for this one is, but it's smell gives it the knickname - Smelly Socks - pretty nasty smelly socks too.


This is fireweed (Epilobium angustifolium) which takes its name not from its color, but from its opportunistic ability to quickly colonize areas devastated by fire. In England it is called the Rosebay Willow Herb or when I was a lad we called them "tip" flowers, because, in the same opportunistic way, they were one of the few things that colonized the coal tips around the area.

Alright - no more flowers.

More Sierra Flowers

Another hike up in the Sierras this weekend. This time to Thunder Mountain which lies above Kirkwood Meadows (the ski resort), and where, again, the flowers were just wonderful. I think I could quite get into this flower indentification thing. Allison, who hiked with us, knows quite a bit about such things and she was eductating me on the way. My problem, of course, is remembering these things from one week to the next, not to mention from one season to the next.

Here is the view from the top of Thunder Mountain looking south.


Here are Mike, Brian, and Allison languishing in the afternoon sun (where is Paul?).


And here, as I stop and smell the roses along the way, are some of the wildflowers we encountered.




Wallflower


Forget Me Not


Sierra Primrose

The Bees continued….

In the continuing saga of my bees, there has been a change of events. Last time I reported that the bees had absconded and left the hive to the Wax Moths and I was resolved to having to find another swarm from somewhere. Well, this week my caretaker of the bees (they are temporarily at my friend Doug’s house), reported there was bee activity in the hive again. Yesterday, I went along to inspect and see what could be done and indeed the hive was occupied by bees and they were in the process of cleaning out all the damage caused by the wax moths. I talked to someone who knows far more than I do about beekeeping (Fred from the Bee Shop) and he thinks that a passing swarm decided to take up residence. So without me having to do anything, I have some bees again (or actually as Doug pointed out are they my bees or his bees, since it was in his back yard that they squatted in my hive – we will have to resolve the ownership later).

Doug and I cleaned up the hive, and replaced any frames that were too damaged by wax moth activity. We also removed a lot of debris and squished a lot of wax moth larvae (sorry wax moths). Apparently, wax moth larvae are highly prized by fishermen – they drive the trout crazy. Perhaps we should have gone into business selling larvae to fishermen; certainly we would have had more grubs than we will have honey to harvest this year.

The Omnivore's Dilemna

I just finished reading The Omnivore’s Dilemna by Michael Pollan – a fascinating book about the things that we, as omnivores, choose to eat. And a disturbing tale of what we are doing to ourselves by going along with industrial food production as the major source of our inputs. I will not look at a farm in quite the same way again, and I will certainly be more mindful and wary as I decide what goes into my grocery cart.

It opened my eyes so many things about today’s industrial farming processes and what a road to ruin it appears to be. It is amazing how a series of small and likely well meaning decisions has led us away from small self-contained and relatively sustainable farming to the large scale agricultural monocultures that we have today. One part of the country is growing either corn or soy beans with the help of vast amounts of artificial petroleum based fertilizers, and the other part raising vast numbers of identical animals (pigs, chickens or cattle) in absolutely horrible conditions with the aid of lots of antibiotics and feed (corn) that many of these animals (the cattle at least) weren’t even designed to eat (they are ruminants).

Nevermind that the food produced may not be the best, from an environmental standpoint it is a disaster. One part of the country is suffering from toxic run off from over-fertilized fields while the other is floating in lagoons of excrement that we don’t know what to do with.

Anyway, a very good book (as was his previous book – The Botany of Desire), that I highly recommend. Check out Bill Maher’s interview with Michael Pollan on Amazon.com’s Fishbowl program.

The flowers of Castle Peak

Another little hike in the Sierras this weekend – this time up Castle Peak which is another one of those easy access freeway hikes (you literally park by the off ramp from Interstate 80 and the first few hundred yards are accompanied by the roar of passing trucks).


Most of the snow had gone by now, and the flowers were just going wild. I am not sure what all these different kinds are, but to follow are some photographs that I will try and identify – help anyone?

I think I have them all named now, thanks to Allison Spreadborough, who put identified them all for me.


This is a Sierra Onion surrounded by Phlox.


and this is one of the lupines, which one I am not quite sure.


This is what I call Indian Paintbrush. But then I call everything that's red Indian Paintbrush.


This I thought was the Mariposa Lily (Calochortus Invenustus) - my favourite. Actually Allison tells me this is the Sego Lily. Same family, different species.


Above is the Penstemon.


And finally the Scarlet Gilia.

The bees are gone....

As you may know, I had moved my bees over to a friend’s house while I had some work done on my back yard. All was going well for a while, but there were some signs that the hive was perhaps weakened - the bees had some difficulty in preventing ants entering the hive. Well the other day I got the call that the activity level at the hive was down – way down.

On opening the hive, it became evident that the hive had become invaded by wax moths. Normally, a healthy hive can cope with wax moths – chasing them out of the hive and destroying their eggs. However, if the hive is weak, then the wax moths or rather their larvae get the upper hand and the bees leave for better conditions elsewhere. The larvae are extremely destructive as they feed on the wax and pollen and as they move around the hive they create these strange silken tubes in which they travel. The damage just looks awful. No wonder the bees gave up.

At this late time of year, I cannot buy any replacement bees so I will likely have to wait until next spring before repopulating the hive. However, in order to try and re-establish the hive before next spring, I put my name on the callout list for anyone needing help in removing a swarm from their property.

What usually happens when someone finds a swarm of bees on their property is that they call the local beekeeper’s association and then one of the beekeepers comes out to retrieve the swarm. I have always thought that it would be interesting to go and retrieve a swarm in the “wild” so to speak so I am hoping to get a call. However, I could imagine that it could turn into a bit of a debacle if things don’t go according to plan and I would imagine there many ways things could diverge from the plan (whatever the plan is). Stay tuned…

An Inconvenient Truth

I finally got around to seeing Al Gore’s film on global warming – An Inconvenient Truth. It is definitely a worthwhile film that seems to get the facts right and presents them in a reasonably accessible format. But, I was a little surprised with the how much it was about Al himself. After all the fuss about him inventing the Internet, it almost seemed like he was responsible for recognizing global warming. I would have preferred it to be a bit more focused on global warming theory, and a little less about Al. But perhaps, this movie is as much about Al reinventing and repositioning himself for another run in the political arena (I would vote for him).