Life on the Outer Coast

Another beautiful sunny, cool day. Woke up Friday morning to a frost. The garden beds and boardwalk had a thin layer of frost, the temperature was 33 at the house.
The goldeneyes were by the Wade's dock Friday morning and several fork-tailed petrels were near Kutkan Island.
Started the second round of PCR using Cornus and Gentiana, have to wait until Monday to run the gel, so no idea of results. While I was working with Josh and Caleb on that set-up, Chris and Lacey set up and ran the gel with the products from the nested PCR with Coptis and Trichophorum. I'm more than a little frustrating that they didn't draw a map of the layout in my lab book. We looked at the stained gel after they went to their next class and had no idea what we were looking at. Were the bands something we were looking for or a control?

One bit of frustration did work itself out, the added agar to the MMN media did the trick and I had usable media to transfer cultures. Subcultured several dark septate hyphae from Carex livida, Cornus suecica and Trichophorum root pieces that were placed on corn meal agar.

Decided that I needed to collect the Amanitas, so went to Totem park and walked around the loop. It took me awhile, but I did find both color forms that seemed to be in okay shape. Also collected a few Craterellus and Lactarius rufus. Finally saw the Buffleheads in the river as well as Goldeneyes, mallards and mergansers. There were surf scoters and harlequins just off shore the west side and I could see the petrels near Kutkan Island from the beach. I felt like I was cheating my lab time, but it was nice to go for a walk in the morning, instead of being confined to the afternoon.
What I wanted to accomplish with the mushrooms, besides looking more carefully at the subspecies of A. muscaria, was to try to culture some of the fungi from spores. I surface sterilized the cap with 2.5% bleach and cut a wedge from each species and placed it gill side down on a slide in a petri dish and covered it up for the night. I'm hoping that the MMN media has the requisite nutrients to allow growth. It seems like a possibility, since it was listed as a growth media for some of the chanterelle isolates.

Spent the late afternoon at the rifle range in the interest of not wounding an animal. The last time I was there, Deirdre slept through the event in her car seat, so it has been a few years. I forgot how truely awful the noise is, especially when the folks in the next range shelter are using cannon size rifles. No surprise that my 100 yard markmanship needs a little work. I did finally manage to get a couple of shots where they were supposed to be, but it was rather pathetic. At least I didn't scope myself. I was also relieved that I didn't wake up with a bruised shoulder. I did manage to amuse Ian though, so it was worth the effort and minor pain.

Went home around 9pm after my waitress shift at "Art and Soul". The stars were visible and the snow was glowing on the mountains, no northern lights, but the night was lovely enough without them.