A beautiful day in SOOR

It was another productive Monday. I "shopped" for a new phone this am and after the frustration of that became unbearable I hopped on the bike. I just don't get the whole on-line shopping thing - it's not for the tactile (or the technologically challenged!) It was a bit chilly when I left but it warmed up nicely. Yesterday started cold and ended even colder. I came home and made chicken soup! Wasn't yesterday the 1st day of summer??? Anyway, Jay and I went out for a quick 60 miler. At the 1/2 way point we stopped at this new mini mart out in Ruch. I love the Beans part because it seems especially random.

Siskiyou National Monument

Derek and I went on an adventure today in Siskiyou National Monument. We hiking near Jenny Creek because Derek likes to rock hunt and fish there. He didn't catch any fish this trip but he did find a deer head. It had maggots crawling on it because it wasn't quite picked clean. GROSS! It still stunk too and he picked it up - nasty, nasty.

Here he is holding his 9 point buck. We saw cougar scat near the cabin but not near the deer head. The body wasn't with the head either so who knows what all ate it. It's fun because there aren't any trails in the Monument. It's fun to bush wack and happen across random stuff like this. We also saw a molted snake skin, tons of butterflies and different dragon flies and a few Western Fence Lizards. Not much else.

end of season hike

For our end of season hike we went to a few places along the Rogue River. It wasn't much of a hike, but it was fun to see something new. We went to Mill Creek Falls, Natural Bridges, the Gorge and to some random reservoir. I had never been to any of those places even though I have driven by them several times. At Natural Bridges, the entire river goes under ground into lava tubes. At Mill Creek Falls there is a nice waterfall where Mill Creek dumps into the Rogue. That was pretty, but what was even more interesting was the giant boulders.

I liked how the roots of this tree were growing down the rock in search of cracks in the rocks.

I have been getting into the lichen lately. Here is a picture of Dragon Skin (Loberia oregana). It's a really neat looking lichen usually found only in old growth forests. It indicates a healthy forest ecosystem rich in nitrogen. This particular lichen is also a nitrogen fixer, meaning it has a cyanobacteria living on it that changes atmospheric nitrogen into ammonium, a usuable source of nitrogen for plants. The ammonium leeches out of the bacteria when it rains and makes its way to the forest floor.