Life on the Outer Coast

The trees are in their autumn beauty,
The woodland paths are dry,
Under the October twilight the water
mirrors a still sky;
Upon the brimming water among the stones
are nine-and-fifty Swans.
The nineteenth autumn has come upon me
since I first made my count;
I saw, before I had well finished,
all suddenly mount
and scatter wheeling in great broken rings
upon their clamorous wings.
I have looked upon those brilliant creatures,
and now my heart is sore.
All's changed since I, hearing at twilight,
the first time on this shore,
the bell-beat of their wings above my head,
Trod with a lighter tread.
Unwearied still, lover by lover,
They paddle in the cold
Companionable streams or climb the air;
Their hearts have not grown old;
Passion or conquest, wander where they will,
Attend upon them still.
But now they drift on the still water,
Mysterious, beautiful;
Among what rushes will they build,
By what lake's edge or pool
delight men's eyes when I awake some day
To find they have flown away?

I've been waiting patiently to use Yeats' poem since I heard it put to music in August at the Shakespeare festival in Ashland. Walked up to Thimbleberry lake in search of the swans Pat told me about this afternoon. She had seen two on Monday, but I only found one today. The one was almost lost in the sedges, so its partner may have been a bit further back in the vegetation.

I ran into Pat on the Indian River trail on another "last" search for mushrooms. They seem to keep on coming despite the rapidly cooling temperatures. Alot of what I found was on the way out, but there are other species that seem like they are doing fine. Collected Hydnum repandum and umbilicatum, and Cantharellus cibarius to look for signs of lignin degrading enzymes. They are in the freezer awaiting DNA extraction. Collected Pleurocybella porrigens in hope of getting some spores to try cultivating the spores on cardboard. Found those fungi up where I had found Polystichum andersonii. Couldn't find it today, despite wandering around the Devils club petting the ends of fern fronds in hope of finding a vegetative bud. I vaguely remember that the old fronds were smaller than the typical braunii type, so I was probably spending too much time petting the easily seen larger fronds. Need to look for the smaller ones next time.
Collected a white Hygrophorus today with a veil similar in structure to the H. olivaceoalbus and a small Mycena (?) from a yellow cedar.

Found a few more western hemlocks with Lobaria, two small ones up on the top of the cantharelle ridge where the forest opens up. So much for the idea that the trees need to be older to allow the lichen adequate time to grow. One tree was a distance off the trail near the three large notched stumps closer to the cut-off to the Cross trail. It was a largish hemlock with a patch of the lichen roughly 10ft by 3ft, the yellow-green was rather striking. At least it is striking now that I'm looking for Lobaria. I didn't have time to look at the tree closely, so I could be off on area covered by the lichen.

Set up the cardboard culture of the Panellus serotinus this morning in class. Didn't really have any rhizomorphs to work with, so we just used the stems and cap bases. Not sure if I should bury the container in a vegetable bed or keep it in a cool place indoors.

6 buffleheads in Galankin lake. 5 Goldeneyes, 2 pelagic cormorants on the way to town. Too dark this evening to see anything on the way home.