Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay

Here begins the tale of a weekend full of fishing, fun and epic failure...
One Saturday Jessica, Tomas and I went to Port Orford to go crabbing. Tomas's friend Steve set us up with traps and bait. Generally crabbers use turkey legs as bait, but Steve thought that fish heads would be particularly successful at attracting some delicious crabs.





Steve tosses one of the pots.




Waiting for dinner to be served.


The pier is a really neat place with lots of action, even on a Saturday. While we were waiting a boat came in with sea urchins. We also went to the cannery to check out the days catch being held in the live tanks. There were quite a few fish in the tank but what I found more interesting was a small fish tank with things that were accidentally caught. There were small colorful fish and sea stars and star burst sea stars (I think this is what they're called, or atleast that is what they look like they should be called) and lots of other neat looking creatures.


Steve is a fish biologist and he goes out on fishing boats to keep track of how many fish are caught and thrown back over dead to get a better estimate of the number of fish killed. He said that they are always hiring more people and all you need is a natural science degree. Maybe if I could stand being out on a small boat in a storm I would consider applying. What sounds interesting to me is getting to see all of the birds that are off the coast 20 miles. Steve said he has been a few albatross which I think would be neat!



After wasting some time touring the pier we still hadn't caught any crabs so we decided to leave a few traps over night. The next morning we got to Port Orford at 10am only to find our traps empty. Someone working on the pier said it was suspicious not to catch anything when the traps had been out so long implying that we may have had our crabs robbed. We weren't about to give up on dinner so I bought a fishing pole and we went to a lake in Port Orford. After we had no luck, not even a bite, we decided we needed a sure bet. There is a pond between Gold Beach and Port Orford that stocks fish for kids. Tomas insisted that Jessica looked like a child in her overalls and baseball hat already and that it wouldn't really be cheating.



Unfortunately, after a few bites we lost our one and only bobber and were forced to conceed to fishlessness. We ended up buying fish from the grocery store, the fish market closed half an hour before we got there, just so we felt like the day wasn't for nothing.



Chef Tomas and the tempura




In the end the fish wasn't the greatest, but maybe that's because we didn't catch it ourselves. Next time I won't let Tomas attempt to deep fry it.


It was a fun weekend but next time we go crabbing and fishing I'm not leaving until we've caught something.

For Giggles

Trying to keep ourselves entertained during a long day of data entry.

White April

These pictures were all taken this week if you can believe that. There was a lot of rain this week and snow at pretty low elevations. We went out to put flagging around a few rare plant sites before a timber harvest.



I was surprisingly happy to play in the snow. Lisa made a snow angel and we built a snowman which Clint knocked down before I had a chance to take a picture.

Lisa's snow angel...


Tomas's snow angel...

Trillium kurabayashii

This is a rare species of Trillium that is found in the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest. We found a new site of this big beautiful flower last week. It was a nice break from looking at all of the invasive plants, being poked by Himalayan blackberry and attacked by poison oak. Pretty neat!

Under the Redwood Canopy

I feel fortunate to be living in so close to so many diverse ecosystems. Where the ocean meets the land, sand dunes and tide pools are created. Serpentine rocks and soil produce uninhabitable conditions for plant growth, and yet there are species that have adapted to these environments and are able to thrive. Where fires have become a common disturbance, the redwoods have grown ancient and extraordinarily tall.

During their visit, Dad, Nancy and I took a trip to Jedediah Smith State Park to see the California redwoods. I knew that I would love it there even before we went.

It's unbelievable to think that forests like those used to cover much of the Pacific Northwest. The footage from the planet where the ewoks live in Star Wars (VI) was filmed near Jedediah Smith State Park. I was told, however, that the stand that is featured in the film has since been logged. I can't believe that anyone would want to destroy such beautiful trees. Do they not understand that once all of the old growth has been cut it will take hundreds or thousands of years for them to grow to such a size? They should be protected, and viewed with admiration and respect. Enough ranting though.

Later that week we went to the Oregon redwood trail for work. Clint is planning to reintroduce a plant that was eradicated from the state with the logging of the redwoods. The plant is, ironically, called Clintonia and is found just a few miles South of the Oregon redwood trail in California. We walked the trail looking at other species found under the redwood canopy.

We also went off the trail to scout out sites to transplant some of the Clintonia. It made me wish that my legs were longer. At one point I ended up straddling a huge log and my little stubby legs were too short to push my all of the way over. I came out of the forest pretty scratched and dirty.

One thing that I thought was interesting is that the layer of needles, dead branches, etc. (the duff or litter) that have accumulated over the many years that the stand has been growing might actually be a problem when trying to get the plants to establish. This layer will have to be cleared for the plants to be able to reach the soil. In the past fire would have paved the way for understory plants. Fire is generally prevented in stands like the redwoods to protect the trees, but this has left little space for plants that rely on fire for their survival.

The ferns don't seem to be having this problem!


It was exciting to explore off of the trail and find places that not many other people have seen. The picture below, for example, is a natural redwood bridge over a creek. I don't think that the photo does this tree justice, it was about as wide as a sidewalk!