Drought year
Scouted most of the Phacelia peirsoniana paratype localities [here, Sherwin Summit with Jim Linnberg and Trigger the service dog] and accessible Consortium of California Herbaria specimen sites on this trip based out of UC SNARL. Love that place. Too dry in some places for some of the target species I was looking for [also looked for Phacelia tetramera out on alkali sinks], but there are patches of blooms where precipitation seems to have struck and stuck.
A really good trip, and I wish I could have stayed out another week at least. Next year I hope it rains, and I can go in April and again in May to catch these taxa.
This was also the first trip I had an iPhone and definitely prefer my Nikon for photos. But for planning out a daily botany itinerary with the Jepson eFlora, Consortium of California Herbaria search results, Google maps, and CalPhotos – I used that iphone nonstop when there was areas with service. Tom Schweich’s area list for Mono County is AWESOME – full of great resources, as is Tim Messick’s Bodie Hills flora.
2013 Disability Awareness Week March 10-15th UC Berkeley
Trigger the service dog on a field trip to collect Phacelia species at Monocline Ridge. The bloom is literally jaw dropping! And so are the great programs that the UC Berkeley Disability Services Program offers – check them out!
Disability Awareness Week is March 10-15th at UC Berkeley, and there is also the Graduate Diversity Day on Sunday, March 17th
http://dsptrio.berkeley.edu/
Are Cripples Screwed? *Monday* March 11th, 170 Barrows, 6:30-9 pm. A viewing of The Sessions followed by a panel discussion.
Resource Fair *Tuesday* March 12th, Cheney Lounge, Unit 1, 3:30-5:30 pm
Pizza, Pepsi, and Puppies *Wednesday* March 13th, RSF, 12-4 pm
No events Thursday
Disability Rights: Past, Present, and Future *Friday* March 15th, 122 Barrows, 6-8 pm
Graduate Diversity Day *Sunday* March 17th 8:30AM-2:00PM Alumni House.
Disability Access Services: http://access.berkeley.edu
Some days are worse than others
Trigger working hard at a collection site for Phacelia tanacetifolia off of Panoche Rd. Many thanks to Ryan O’Dell at the BLM Hollister office for taking us out to see the phacelias!
Monolopia lanceolata at BLM’s Monocline Ridge. The spring bloom is going off right now – Amsinckias & Mentzelias galore. Goldfields and Gilias are coming in around the Ephedras. Talk to Ryan O’Dell at the BLM Hollister office about wildflower info. It is going to be a good couple of weeks to see spring annuals at the Panoche Hills.
New semester
The Berkeley fall semester started – against my wishes to keep the summer writing routine in place – and every new beginning deserves a celebration. New collar for Trigger!
SNARL
Along with the upcoming Jepson Workshop to the White Mountains, I am also pretty excited to extend the field trip by staying at SNARL. Any UC Reserve is great, but this one has a particular magic for me. I was fortunate to be funded by the UC VESR research grant during my MS thesis and stayed at SNARL for field research – and the phacelias in that area are great – in terms of diversity, historical collections, and ability to grow in the cracks of the parking lot. Trigger came along with me on those trips and enjoyed the sagebrush – but will be on a vacation for this one. Service dogs are working dogs, and get vacation days too.
One thing at a time
At the Disability office at SFSU, there was a bookmark that calmly recommended ‘One thing at a time.’ Dr. Baldwin talked with me about preparation for oral qualifying exams and the scope of my thesis prospectus, and recommended his version. “One crisis at a time.”
Some ideas have been developing since my master’s thesis, and feel like a logical progression toward the goal of being able to answer questions of evolution in this group. Others are somewhat of a departure from systematics, and are less well articulated at this stage. I don’t know how other people write, but every potential thesis chapter definitely does not spring fully formed from my brain, it comes out as odd misshapes. Sentences that include notes to myself, find and insert citation here, random marginalia. Sometimes I write in notebooks in the field and later transfer it all together inside a larger structure, and sometimes I close my eyes and type everything listening to dubstep.
I am reading on edaphic endemism and serpentine for a committee meeting this week. The books have been sharing the window sill with my pet serpentine rocks. The state rock of California, yo. The button was given to me by Dr. Judy Jernstedt, my academic advisor at UC Davis, who signed all the paperwork that let me stay in school. The debts I owe and can never repay.
That gratitude includes my debts to Dr. Ellen Dean, who gave me botany training and a job at the Davis herbarium, and took me out in the field to show me what serpentine looked like at Payne Ranch. And she still gives the best advice ever.
Berkeley Disability Awareness Week 2012
11-16 March 2012 by the Disabled Students’ Union. Check out the epic events for the week on the flyer. Calendar of events also updated on the [Disabled Students Program] DSP/TRIO website.
