Peeking into the rock

It's been raining. Since Friday.

Generally, the rain is about over, as I observed recently, but this isn't freak rain, just a bit unusual.

The river is up a couple of inches: I can tell because when I go to cross over from the bank to the sand bar at the place where I could just step over last week, I have to wade this week.


Redwing blackbirds are very happy with this state of affairs, and so are the dogs (I have the temporary dog again this week). I just wish Truffle wouldn't get all excited about rolling in unidentifiable feces. Duck, I hope, but there's no reason to think so.

What else? Spent the afternoon attempting to replace my phone. Finally succeeded by giving up and going to Radio Shack for a "go phone" and sticking my sim card into it.

My lovely, lovely Palm Centro had a serious flaw -- the keylock didn't work. When I was out at Snapshot Day getting water samples, the phone simply died. No, it wasn't wet, though the day was: my pocket was dry. What happened was that the phone decided it was hotsynching with the computer and put on a hissy fit because it couldn't locate the computer in my pocket. It refused to stop trying. Half hour later, it was dead. I thought, well, I charged it last night, but it could be that it was not well connected. So I tried charging it again when I got home. All it did was get hot.

It was a real drag because as usual, once we got out into the field we had some real questions and we couldn't call the hub to get the answers so I had to wing it. I did wing it though, and it was all right. Moore Creeek is beautiful. That's the creek -- for you locals and semi-locals who might be interested -- that originates on the University campus, in the Great Meadow up behind the Arboretum. It skirts the lower edge of the arboretum and wanders through the residential neighborhood directly below the campus, through Meder Street Park and I'm not sure where it ends up -- Antonelli Pond? Dissipating into the karst?

At Meder Street Park the poison oak leaves are as big as your hand. It's really a beautiful, beautiful plant, with infinite variety in leaf form and growth habit. It was a true, brilliant leaf green -- not flame red as it will be in late summer. And it was blooming, delicate spathes sort of like the flower-things grape vines make. It's funny, how poison oak is so irritating to a lot of people -- to the point of being life-threatening for a few people -- when it is a key player in the riparian habitat. It's a pioneer in disturbed ground, for one thing, and acts as a nursemaid to trees like oak and black walnut. It provides a home for a lot of native animals (and plants and fungi!), and food as well for those who can use it. I think it's not irritating to very many other animals besides humans, but I don't know that for sure.

So, my phone -- I went to the phone store, and the news was awful. One, there's no guarantee your phone will actually work unless you pony up for the insurance. Two, if you try to buy a phone earlier than your anniversary, the phones cost hundreds of dollars. Three, all of the phones are really annoying. I liked my phone except for the keylock thing and the fact that I couldn't get anyone to explain how the music functions worked and the fact that it died less than a year after I got it and the fact that the phone company's international calling people accused me of fraud when I tried to get that turned on. If the whole company was like Luis at the local office, I'd have a working phone. But all of the phones available had doodads I didn't want or were hard to use or just plain stupid and delicate. And my phone has been discontinued and there are only seven of them anywhere. I wonder if everybody else had the same experience as me?

Luis said if I wasn't sure I wanted to get any of the ones there, I should go get the go phone at Radio Shack. So for twenty dollars I have a phone with no bells or whistles, but since the bells and whistles haven't really panned out for me, I guess it's okay.

Radio Shack was discontinuing a nice little digital camera, takes an SD card and AA batteries, 12X optical zoom and 10 megapixels, for $200. I got it. I think it's a nice little camera: it has a panorama function I don't quite understand, but which looks useable.

I wanted a fast camera, but I think it's not, really. But time will tell. And you have to give on some features to get others.

Also, I have three horseradish plants I have been growing from a slice of horseradish. Soon I will plant them. In a year or so I will harvest one of them and root another slice of it. And my grapes are blooming, and I have enough baby lettuce in the garden to have a salad every couple days from it.

Soon, cherries.