that photo comment is not true-- you are there slightly lower from centre, on the right, behind the fellow in a white t-shirt that has black short sleeves and to your left (stage left) is a fellow with a cross-chest camera strap. You can run, but you can't hide!
beautiful pics of campsite and lovely description! we have mullein all around here, often actually cultivated in home gardens, but also just happy along lanes, etc. and you are right about the flowers -- they stalks can be easily a metre long and you think the yellow smallish flowers should wind all the way up, but they see to bloom and drop off at irregular times, so don't see a full distribution all at the same time in a given stalk. (MIchael, it's finding the hairy rope just in time that's the problem - but maybe real cowboys thought ahead more.)
Great tale! Those ant courses must have provided great opportunities to work together and share knowledge and good times.
(Unless you have a doppelganger, I think I see you standing in front of the feet of the white-shirted colleague who's sitting on the big rock in the back.)
No Tequila sour for me- I'm a teetotaler nowadays, but I loved this account anyway! Agree about the virtues of minimalist camping. We called it 'cowboy camping' and sometimes you don't even have a tarp. Like when you're out in the desert. Snakes can be a bother though I was told- they're supposed to be attracted by your heat. For that you were supposed to surround yourself with an old hairy rope.. the wisdom was that snakes didn't like slithering over it. I don't know about that.
Juice of one lemon, two heaping teaspoons of sugar, one to two shots of tequila, stir, then fill with ice. When you've emptied the first one, you can lick the sugar in the bottom of the glass. You'll want a second....
Here's the link: https://www.calacademy.org/scientists/ant-course. Sadly, there are no AntCourses planned for 2024 and 2025. Apparently, Bryan Fisher is bowing out of organizing the course. The last one will be in Papua New Guinea. Twenty-four years seems to have been enough for Fisher.
that photo comment is not true-- you are there slightly lower from centre, on the right, behind the fellow in a white t-shirt that has black short sleeves and to your left (stage left) is a fellow with a cross-chest camera strap. You can run, but you can't hide!
beautiful pics of campsite and lovely description! we have mullein all around here, often actually cultivated in home gardens, but also just happy along lanes, etc. and you are right about the flowers -- they stalks can be easily a metre long and you think the yellow smallish flowers should wind all the way up, but they see to bloom and drop off at irregular times, so don't see a full distribution all at the same time in a given stalk. (MIchael, it's finding the hairy rope just in time that's the problem - but maybe real cowboys thought ahead more.)
I was hiding from the FBI. You blew my cover.
I remember sleeping like that in the Oregon sagebrush steppe somewhere northeast of the Abert Rim, never saw snake one!
I had a skunk walk across my face once. Luckily, I didn't jerk awake.
Great tale! Those ant courses must have provided great opportunities to work together and share knowledge and good times.
(Unless you have a doppelganger, I think I see you standing in front of the feet of the white-shirted colleague who's sitting on the big rock in the back.)
Geez, another one to blow my cover.
Your essays are brilliant. If you published them in a book, I'd buy the first edition!
No Tequila sour for me- I'm a teetotaler nowadays, but I loved this account anyway! Agree about the virtues of minimalist camping. We called it 'cowboy camping' and sometimes you don't even have a tarp. Like when you're out in the desert. Snakes can be a bother though I was told- they're supposed to be attracted by your heat. For that you were supposed to surround yourself with an old hairy rope.. the wisdom was that snakes didn't like slithering over it. I don't know about that.
I rarely had a shelter in the desert, and just slept under the stars. Of course, I always had an old hairy rope with me....
Recipe for tequila sour, please. I loved this, Walter.
Juice of one lemon, two heaping teaspoons of sugar, one to two shots of tequila, stir, then fill with ice. When you've emptied the first one, you can lick the sugar in the bottom of the glass. You'll want a second....
Walter, I read about Lasius emarginatus, the invasive "ManhattAnt". Maybe next research camp should be in Brooklyn!
Could pitch a tent on Park Avenue...why not?
That looks like him, alrighty! Marylee spotted him too.
Now I have to stay a step ahead of the FBI.
I want to go to AntCourse!
Here's the link: https://www.calacademy.org/scientists/ant-course. Sadly, there are no AntCourses planned for 2024 and 2025. Apparently, Bryan Fisher is bowing out of organizing the course. The last one will be in Papua New Guinea. Twenty-four years seems to have been enough for Fisher.