Category: Local

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I walked to lunch today, and paused along the way to take pictures of some of the lichens I saw.

There were only a few species represented (I assume, based purely on superficial appearance, which my brother tells me is not actually a good way to identify lichens).

Lichens on a tree right outside my front window.
A closer look.
I assume the large blue-grey lichen is a different species from the tiny blue-grey lichen also visible on the trunk, but what do I know about lichens?

I also saw this handsome moss along the way:

Moss on roots of a tree that also had lichens up on the trunk.

Someone on Twitter was just mentioning that the fact of their easy visibility in winter is one of the best things about lichens.

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Jackie and I went out for a walk this morning, as we do. The double-digit negative windchill seemed to offer a bit in the way of bragging rights, even if it wasn’t nearly as cold as a year ago.

Me and Jackie one year ago, when the temperatures were -16℉

I’ve got a bit more in the way of clothing choices this year, having bought a bunch of cold weather gear for winter running, but I didn’t use much of the new stuff.

I wore my Alaska pipeline coat, of course. Under that I wore my Dale of Norway sweater that Barbara bought on her last trip to Antarctica. Under that I wore a silk mock-T base layer. For my lower body I wore my flannel-lined jeans, which were just the right weight by themselves. (I’ve got a pair of fleece-lined khakis a size larger, big enough to wear tights or something under, for when it’s really, really cold, but I didn’t need them today.) I wore silk sock liners under my usual wool/silk-blend socks, under my new waterproof Lems boulder boots. (I’m very pleased with these boots so far. All the minimal/barefoot features I want, waterproof, and warm enough for the bitter cold.)

The one imperfect thing about the Alaska pipeline coat is that the hood is hugely oversized (I assume so that it can go over a hardhat) and tends to slump down over my face, obstructing my vision. So to keep my head warm I wore the Khyber pass hat that Jackie made me. (If you remember the war in Afghanistan, the Northern Alliance forces wore the same sort of hat. Very versatile—roll it up and it covers the top of your head to keep the sun off. Roll it down and you’ve got a thick wool hat you can pull down over your ears.)

All of that, except the bolder boots, was pretty much what I was wearing a year ago in the picture above, but this year I had one novel item: I wore a buff over my neck and the lower half of my face. It’s just a thin layer of microfiber, but over my beard it was dramatically warmer than just the uncovered beard. I’ve had buffs for years, but I mostly wear them in hot weather (to keep the sun off my neck), so I think of them as cooling rather than warming. It was amazing to find how much of a difference it made just to put a layer over my beard.

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Since reading a couple of weeks ago about the importance of blue places for both physical and mental health, I’ve been trying to spend a little more time near water, and to pay attention when I’m there.

Today Jackie and I took a short walk along the little creek that runs just south of Winfield Village. It’s really a spectacular amenity that I don’t appreciate nearly as much as I should. (I spend a lot of time admiring our little prairie and our little woods, but I mostly just cross the creek itself with scant notice—nowhere near what it deserves.)

Perhaps you can help me catch up on appreciating our creek. Is it not admirable?

It got me some vitamin W for the water and some vitamin N for the nature, but sadly no vitamin D. The vitamin D window has closed, and won’t open again for 57 days.