Just South. (fill in while the crazy)

Yesterday, a plastic container plant shot fire balls into the air next to one of my project sites, separated only by a barbed wire fence.  No one was hurt, except maybe a fairy shrimp or two.  

Day before, an East Bay Parks staffer was shot at by pot farmers just south of another of my project sites (again, separated by a barbed wire fence).  He had to be rescued by an armored car.  Rugged East Bay hills, ideal for pot farmers farming, my caution is increased.

Glad I'm in the office this week.  Even if our servers did crash.  Sigh.

Something good?  This: 

Summer fun updates next!

barbed me

Last night, I had a strange dream that left me with fuzzy eyes for hours after I woke. I was at my parents' house, they were going out to dinner, and I was staying home alone, sick. But once they left, as I made my way into the kitchen, I opened a door into the UC Davis botany lab where I worked YEARS ago, and realized that I hadn't finished my masters degree at all and still had integral algae experiments running in the lab....where oddly everyone gathered on Friday nights to indulge in science geekdom and beer and I was overwhelmed by their expertise. And I could see my parents' front yard out the window.....And I was trying to decipher algal species amongst mold from specimens left too long ago.....

My brain is full of Latin. My legs and hips are full of climbing steep hills and navigating inclines. The last three days were divided between looking for rare plants on the coast, identifying grasses, monitoring vegetation in wetlands, and trips to IKEA. Je suis fatigue.

We are fence hopper extraordinaires. Stacy and I contemplated a fence surrounding a wetland at Callippe Golf Course in Pleasanton. There were no good footholds. Barbed wire in pre-conceived locations would catch a boot trying to jump o'er the top and stop the hand from gripping the bar. Stacy lifted my foot, I almost made it, and we had to backtrack, muscles shaking in mid-lift stance. And I stood there. And she looked at me. Resigned, I looked at my hand, where it was impaled, stuck to the top of the fence, a barb to the hilt in the fleshy part of my palm. I pulled up.