Westwood Community Survey Results

Westwood Community Survey

2010 Survey Results

Tuesday, March 6th

6:00 pm

Westwood Visitor Center

presented by Jonathan Kusel, Sierra Institute for Community and Environment

Mark your calendars!  See flyer here.

Letharia columbiana (American wolf lichen)

This bright lichen is a welcome sight across our monochrome winter woodscapes, and forms a chartreuse pelt on coniferous tree trunks.   This is Letharia columbiana, or Western wolf lichen.   On the subject of lichens, I have much to learn.  I took a great one-day course through the Chico State Herbarium (Introduction to Lichen Identification) a few years ago (it is being offered again this year, on March 3), but I still have a long ways to go.  The brown discs are apothecia, a fruiting body that produces fungal spores.  This feature helps me to distinguish this species from Letharia vulpina (wolf lichen).    And that’s all I’ll say about lichens, because I am a botanist who is usually firmly rooted in the world of vascular plants!   But the microscope beckons.  As the girls grow, I do hope to make better acquaintance with lifeforms heretofore overlooked by my botanical forays (mosses, liverworts, fungi here I come!)

• Species: Letharia columbiana
  
• Plant Lifeform: lichen
• Where I saw it: Swain Mountain, Lassen County
• Look also: widespread on conifer trunks and branches throughout our area

Trail’s End Farm CSA

I am so very excited!  Trail’s End Farm, who frequents the Susanville Farmers’ Market, has been running a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) program out of Susanville for the last few years.  CSA subscribers pick up weekly deliveries of fresh, seasonal produce from the farm.  And for the 2012 season, they are considering a Westwood drop-off!   This is fabulous news indeed.  Since I drive across the pass to Susanville so often for work, I rarely make the extra trip to the Saturday farmers market.  But here is M. last fall with a haul from one of those rare trips — much of this is, I believe, from Trails End.  Delicious stuff!

I am encouraging other Westwood residents to take a peek at the Trail’s End website and consider joining as well — a healthful, economical, local choice for good summer eats.

Mucking About in the Yard

We’re not quite sure what to do with ourselves in the yard these days.  Mornings are icy, afternoons a mud pot.  But M. has found one spot that melts and refreezes each day to create a skating rink of sorts by the front door.  And A. has is smitten with a couple of duck decoys that have made their way to our door.  One was picked up on a summer canoeing trip at Last Chance Marsh.  I spied the “bird” at a distance through my binoculars, and excitedly speculated on its identity.  My companions soon had it pegged as a fake, but I continued to marvel at how close it was letting us approach until it just about bumped into the side of the canoe.  It came home with us that day.  Several years later, M. left it out in the front yard one night, and the next morning, it had been mysteriously joined by a friend.  A. keeps trying to bring them inside to cuddle, but we think they are better off out of doors.

Looking Toward Spring

With this long string of sunny skies, it is hard not to look toward spring.  We know it is still solidly winter, and yet our thoughts turn toward the 2012 garden.  The girls got into the seed packets last week and found that they made excellent shakers.   Despite insistent begging, I would not let them peek inside.  But the girls found that they could determine which held larger seeds (beets, chard), and which held smaller seeds (lettuce, carrots) by the higher-or lower-toned pitches that they made when shaken.

In other winter news, OR-7 has taken a real liking to Lassen County as seems to have paid another visit to Pine Creek Valley over the last few weeks.  Our local paper was featured in a New York Times article on the subject last week.  Skiing is still good up at Swain Mountain.  Our late-January storms did not, however, do all that much to make up our snow deficit, as our snow  water equivalent is still a dismal 38% of normal.

The Sound of Ice

We bundled up yesterday morning and made the quick drive to Mountain Meadows at Indian Ole Dam. Once across the dam, the roar of water faded away and we heard the ice.   The sound of expansions and contractions where water as solid meets water as liquid. Deep, twangy ricochets and fluid bass echoes.  It is not every outing that the girls are content to linger and explore. But the sun was rich overhead, and the girls found much worth their interest. They hucked rocks onto the ice and listened as they skittered away. Found tiny snail shells to pocket. Played hide and seek with Papa among the trees.  Dissolved into giggles as they tried to walk on the ice at the very edge of the lake.

Of note for interested local readers:  nordic skiing conditions are quite excellent at the Swain Mountain Snowmobile Park right now.  Plenty of snow with just the right amount of give in the early afternoon.

Things to Do with Crusty Old Snow

Poke holes in snow with feather

Consume the remains of last Monday’s snowman

Practice ballet at a raised bed barre

Snow Day

Monday morning we woke up to roughly a foot of new snow.  I looked at my buried car, looked at the forecast, looked at the two foot berm blocking the driveway, looked at the roads, and decided it best to call it a snow day.  And oh my did we take advantage.  My long-limbed nearly four-year-old is at last nimble and strong enough to take on the snow.  She launched herself off of every high point in the yard — brushpiles, stone walls, rail fences.  Then peppered the yard with snow angels.  A. was a little less certain of this slippery new substrate.  But she kept relatively content munching the carrot she swiped off our snowman.

Winter Descends . . .

A month or so tardy, but winter is here! Not enough yet for skiing, but plenty for snow play. M. carpeted the yard with snow angels, A. kept her mittens on for a record length of time, and both girls busied themselves for a long while snapping off ‘treesicles’ (tiny icicles dangling from pine needles) and popping them in their mouths.

Winter Wildlife Viewing

Today’s Westwood-Susanville commute was a good one for wildlife viewing.  At Goodrich Meadows, a coyote ran across the road in the near distance, then paused at the roadside to watch us pass by.  A red-tail hawk soared over the 101 Ranch.  My car flushed several covey of quail as we wound our way through Susanville.  Yesterday’s precipitation saturated the landscape, and the spicy scent of damp sagebrush penetrated even our sealed car.

For remote wildlife viewing, we are tracking the progress of California’s lone gray wolf, OR7, on the California Department of Fish and Game’s interactive map.  Zooming in, we can see that over the last few weeks, OR7 has been winding his way through the Lassen National Forest.  He appears to have been in the vicinity of Timbered Crater, Ajumawhi State Park and Bunchgrass Valley, then cut between the Thousand Lakes Wilderness and Lassen National Park and crossed Highway 44 between Pine Creek Valley and Grays Valley near Bogard Buttes.  As of last week, OR7 had swung back to the northeast and was north of Eagle Lake approaching Madeline Plains.

The closest OR7 came to Westwood looks to have been was near Bogard Buttes, roughly 20 air miles away.

This weekend?  SNOW!  Can’t wait to get the girls out to play.