The Death of an Air Mattress (among other things)

In the course of this internship I have effectively destroyed two air mattresses. By sleeping on them. With my whole average girl weight I managed to do this. This is how it starts.
Two of the tube cell things merge together with a nasty popping noise that is reminiscent of far off gunfire. Then when you fully wake you realize your bed has developed a tumor. At this stage its cuddle-able, but when three tube cell things merge, the bed consistently tries to throw you off. And that's my story. Now I sleep on a rock-hard little mattress with unknown origins. On to brighter things.

Why are there so many February birthdays!?
I can't be the only one who has noted the preponderance of birthdays that seem to occur in this slightly abbreviated month. There were three birthdays this week at work, but also this month is my boss, my mother, a niece... you see.
Leonie made pretzels at my request, and man were they tasty!
We then collaborated on a carrot cake for one of this week's birthdays. I made and frosted it, and she did fancy things with marzipan.

 There was a potluck party, and we brought the best food.Surprise?
There was twister playing, food eating and a couple dogs roaming around looking woefully at our food. They weren't very convincing as they both probably weighted around 70 pounds.

It was also my birthday this week! Yay. I fear Martha's ploy to inundate me we owl related objects is working. Thanks Martha. For the record, while I think owls are nifty, I have no desire to own a bajillion owl things. One of these is edible and the other I was eyeing up and down until I convinced myself not to buy it (I didn't have a grown up wallet) and then it magically appeared in my birthday box. Thanks otter =D
Leonie made an
Indian feast of palak paneer and naan, and I made samosas and lassis and cake and then we feasted like the middle class citizens we aspire to be.

 Oh look, there's an elusive otter behind the cake.

 I'd been accumulating a stash of birthday things, so when I fumbled my way into the kitchen on my actual birthday, this awaiting me.  Apparently pigs are good luck in Germany, I was a little stumped at first as to what inspired her to make me a marzipan pig.

Despite all the fun and the food, work trundles on. This week we pack the last plants for the last site for this season! The can yard looks so empty compared to when I started.
We have been rotating out planting duty all week, luckily it refrained from raining too much.

Remember how I blabbered about all those trees that had somehow stayed upright underwater in the reservoir for the duration of its existence?
Then I speculated, at least mentally if not verbally, about how long they would remain standing?
Some of them still are!

 Some side runoff channels are still doing this super oxidized thing, and I decided finally it must be the rocks. I even collected some and brought them home with some intention of photographing them to show... but I forgot and I'm elsewhere now. Anyway, a lot of the rocks have these veins of bright red oxidized somethingorother in them. Particularly quartz. There are rocks that are quartz heavy and riddled with red, and then just chunks of quartz pocked with holes where other less durable minerals/substances have weathered out. Geologists feel free to step in here. Anyway I'm going to call it iron ( I know that's not 100% accurate) and it gathers in the slower moving channels and puffs up in little plumes when you walk through the water.

These sites are planted into the logs that were transported downslope via helicopter this past fall. The WCC crews are often notable for their vibrant yellow raingear.

 A lone white pine in a low density planting contemplating it's fate. At least it's got a log to protect it.

 Facing south (upriver), that terrace to the right used to be level across the valley. The river is currently braiding to the left.

Spring is trying to come! Every species that we took cuttings of seems to be popping open leaf buds, and the seeds that were sown last fall and left to winter in the can yard are beginning to germinate. Yippee!

                    Scouler's willow, twinberry and red stemmed ceanothus.

 Nootka rose, red flowering currant and snowberry buds just beginning to contemplate popping open.


This big leaf maple seed looks like a pig snout, pointed upward and squealing, tongue exposed, angrily fighting its way out of the tiny cell it go trapped in. Mhmm.

 One of my coworkers thought these were weeds, and at first glance they certainly appear as such. But on closer inspection these weeds seem to be in ever cell, so they must be red flowering currant.

Indian plum and vine maple. And this is the greenhouse. Five 60x4ish ft tables, 4 and 1/4 of which are covered with cuttings and flats of seed sown in the fall.

Here are the actual employees, hobnobbing and mulling over the obvious path of their future. Transplanting. For days, weeks, months. And trying to find enough pots and space for all these tens of thousands of plants. Good luck guys, I'm out!

Leonie loves eclairs. So I made some eclairs to love Leonie back. I'm pretty proud of this heart, for sizing reference, that's a dinner plate.

Happy Spring all you lucky southern dwellers, and to the rest of us, Fake Out February is half over (with all it's damn birthdays). Cheerio!