Poetry Poll for Pollen Poem Dilemma

Ok, here's the deal: I have written all the verses for Erotica Botanica, but I have to make a decision - which version of one particular poem to use. So I thought it would be fun to ask you all your opinion.

This particular verse is referencing "buzz pollination" or "sonification." A year and a half ago I didn't even know what this was, had never heard of it.

Certain flowers, like the shooting star and
the tomato, potato, eggplant and other flowers with cone like centers are buzz pollinated.

This is done by a bee at close proximity moving its flight muscles rapidly, causing the anthers and flower to vibrate and the pollen to be released. I assume the bee then gathers the sticky pollen from the air as it is released, but I don't know. About 5% of flowers are thought to be buzz pollinated!

So I have two verse versions. I like them each for different reasons. You can respond with just saying you prefer #1 or #2, but I would appreciate hearing your reason if you can take the time. Printing happens at the end of the week, so please respond!

#1

your dashing beat of wings
ruffles my flashing colors
sticky from what floats between
both you and I
dizzy

#2

your dashing beat of wings
ruffles my flashing colors
tipsy with what floats between
both you and I
dizzy

you can click on the word "comments" below this picture to reply, or reply to my email, whichever your preference!

"Is That A Pistil In Your Pocket

or are you just happy to see me?"

I was dying to use this variation on the famous Mae West quote in my book, Erotica Botanica, back when I had other ideas of what my book was to be.

These are some of the flower prints for the pop-up version of Erotica Botanica.

I am working pretty hard, and can't really focus on blog posting these days. But I thought it would be nice to at least post a proof of some flowers and some real flowers that are thick into their "reproductive behavior." I love euphemisms.







This orchid cactus is not native to here and lives indoors. I don't think it has a friend to help it out.


Bill is at the kitchen table trying to rescue me from my latest registration "challenge." I think I should go help him now.

Chasing Spring

Elephant's Head growing in a swamp on the hike up.

Bill and I took a 3 day hiking trip up in the Goat Rocks Wilderness this last weekend. One of the great thing about summer hiking in the mountains is that you can chase spring up the mountain, seeing flowers as they emerge from winter hibernation.

I was still bruised, scraped, and muscle sore from the weekend before, but somehow I forgot till we got miles into the hike. On the 4.27 mile hike to camp, every stop to rest was also an opportunity to lighten our load by drinking water, eating trail mix and peeing. Even the mosquitos tried to help us out by relieving us of our blood! Bill lightened his load by losing his water bottle in a stream 1/2 way to camp.

Bear Grass was blooming everywhere, from near the bottom to the very top, but around camp it opened in full over the 3 days we were there.

We camped off the Bypass Trail, near the waterfall. This is Bill's favorite spot. He says this is his 8th or 9th trip up here!

Valerian was blooming everywhere, different stages at differing elevations.

We set up camp then headed up to Goat Lake. That bowl shape up on the right holds Goat Lake. Base camp to Goat Lake was a climb from 4,200 to 5,800 ft. It took us nearly 3 hours to hike these 2.5 miles.

We were a bit early for the spring flush of flowers that carpet the meadows. So instead we got a lot of snow melting run off that created beautiful falls, and many springs. We had to cross this one, but it was easy peasy.

And though the big blooming fields weren't painted red and purple, there were a lot of anemones blooming everywhere. Bill said he has never been here early enough to see the anemones in bloom, so this was one of his special treats.

We had to cross many snow fields on steep slopes. It was all very dismaying to me, liking neither heights or fast slippery experiences (including ice-skating, roller-skating and skiing). You can see the trail at the left side of the picture. The path is really only one foot width wide. I am looking southeast towards the Goat Rocks Ridge, the lake is behind me. Most of these snowfields were fairly short crossings, but one in particular was too long and too steep. I almost couldn't do it, but I had come so far, I wanted to see the lake!

The lake was still frozen and mostly snow covered.

We probably took fifty pictures just of Mt. Adams, this one is from the lake.

The way back to camp was slow. We took so many pictures of flowers. Every squat down to take a picture required Bill to pull me back up to sitting, my muscles were still so sore from the previous weekend's hike. Bill was pretty sore, too.

That first night was strange. In the tent Bill had just closed his eyes. It takes him about 60 seconds to fall asleep, so I woke him when a few minutes later there was a bright flash, like a headlamp being turned on to, and then away from, our tent. Soon it became apparent there was a thunder and lightning storm. The echoing of thunder off the ridges was like nothing I had ever heard before; never to be forgotten. The strange part was the non-lightning light which seemed to glow for a long time now and then. Bill suggested it was others campers setting up nearby, and I accepted that.

The next day we headed up to the Pacific Crest Trail toward Packwood Glacier. We saw more wildflowers and great rocks.


The paintbrush were just starting. In the background on the right you can see the mountains that hold Goat Lake. I think that snowy top might be Mt. Rainier, but we didn't know that when we took the picture. We are now on the trail below Goat Rock Ridge, as seen from Goat Lake the previous day.

Again, Goat Rock Ridge. Where does this color sky come from?

Somewhere up here we talked to some hikers who asked how the storm was for us. They said they could see three fires the lightning started, one quite near where they thought we were camping. Oh my! The mystery light was solved. This information was a little eerie.

And of course, there were more snow fields to cross, but not so steep as yesterday.

We were quite committed to get all the way to the glacier at 7,100 ft and only 2.5 miles from camp. It was a bit disappointing when we got there, as the glacier was covered by snow and looked like any other snowfield. Here was our view of Goat Lake, however, from our destination point.

The icing on the hike was this surprise view of Mt. Rainier from the glacier. Right away I started talking about when we could come back and get a longer, better viewing. The fog was lifting, but it also appeared a storm might be coming in. Time to eat chocolate and turn around.

The next day we hiked down to the car. So many flowers had opened down below while we were up there. I won't post all the pictures, we took hundreds!

Thimbleberry flower.

Get Lost!

The Wondering Wanderers on Wonder Mountain.

It was a special group of five of us that went exploring on Wonder Mountain on Saturday. Special because as Kassie put it "there was no whining or grumpiness."

I had no idea we would become explorers. Last year Billy and Don climbed straight up the mountain, never finding a trail and never reaching the top, but finding a nice meadow to camp in for the night. On the way down they found a trail of an old logging road and thought, "we should do this again now we know the way and the trail."

Well, the trail runs out! So then we followed florescent ribbons that went mostly straight up, probably tied by mountain goats. Seldom on the way up did I give a lot of thought to what the way down would be like. And when I did I thought "we'll find another way down." Well, we did find another way down. It was mostly straight down. I kept trying to outlaw language such as "straight up" and "straight down." But no one was listening to me.

Often the fallen trees were used like ropes to pull ourselves up through the duff that slid away under our shoes.

On the way up Don commented that it was more like swimming. And it was! My entire body was so close to the side of the mountain putting my arms up over my head and pulling myself along with the assistance of the huckleberry and baby cedar undergrowth. "Sorry." "Sorry." "Thank you." I kept saying to the plants as I pulled myself up. Sometimes I could only say the words in my head since I could hardly speak. I don't want to be whiny and complaining now, only to give you a sense of what we did. It was amazing!

Once we were off the trail there were thousands and thousands of orchids. Mostly in the coralroot family. They were so beautiful.

There were Northwestern Twayblade orchids, which I had never seen before. These were sweet thrills on the way up. I didn't care so much on the way down.

Eventually we climbed up into bear grass country. Don't pull your self up with the bear grass! It cuts into your hands.

So another problem was that we didn't bring enough water. Or perhaps I should say, we wish we had brought more water. Bill had brought his water filter, so we knew we could refill from mountain streams, but we left all the streams behind rather quickly and we were all getting thirsty and rationing our water before long.

When we hit snow it was so welcome! We mooshed our heated hands and faces with it. And then we stuffed our water bottles with it. I started eating snowballs as we walked from snow spot to snow spot.

And where there is snow there are glacier lilies! What a joy!

There were also some fantastic views here and there. This is the Skokomish River Valley. Somewhere down there is the road we came in on, and I mean down there.

Eventually we arrived at the top!
I was not interested in this last little rock climb, I confess. I stayed just below it. It didn't matter, the view was incredible from everywhere.

Mt. Rainier is out there! We could see Mt. St. Helen's as well, but she didn't come through in the photos.

It is a wonderful feeling to be so high up in the mountains.

We pretty much lost the ribbon markers right away as we started down. And of course we were all pretty thirsty now. There were many slim finger ravines and ridges, and we needed to find the right one. There was a good chance if missed the right one we would at least end up at the river -- eventually -- which wouldn't be all bad.

But we had to go this way, then that way; looking lots at the map and the compass. We tried women's intuition and men's intuition, everything we had. It was usually straight down, or straight across to get over there. This was hardest for me. I kept sliding and sliding. My feet were sideways in my shoes, trying to cling to the sides of the mountain. It was wearing me down fast. We all kept cool though. I had great faith we would find our way, and I had great faith in all my companions, all of whom seemed very smart and capable. Of course, none of us brought enough water and all of us left the ribbon markers. But we had tons of food!

Eventually, after a few hours of challenging maneuvering, Kassie and Jackson who were leading the way saw a ribbon! Hooray! It was right after this the ground under me gave way and I tumbled and slid a little way down. I was fine. A large rock broke my fall, but not me. I did have a small twig impaled near my elbow. Bill had to tug quite hard to get it out. It hurt quite badly, but only until I slid the next time and took lots of skin off the forearm of my other arm.

The good news is that was my last fall, as we had reached the trail of sorts that was not more than a few miles from the logging road. We shared the last of our water. I hated being the "injured one." It's hard on the ego. But I was also proud of my ability to stay grateful and positive. When you have no choice but to hike out, you might as well choose to stay positive as well. I gave lots of gratitude to the shrubbery and the mountain. Everything could have gone much worse.

And when we were at the bottom, I marveled at how amazingly hard it seems in this day and age to actually get lost. It is like using muscles that never get used when dealing with this situation. You get to find out what kind of person you are and what kind of people you are with. What a blessing to be with these wonderful people!

We had begun our hike about 9:30 in the morning and got back to the car just after 8 pm. It was a long day. We were so tired and worn out on the way home. But the feeling of accomplishment and the appreciation of beauty stayed with us.

And if any other worse case scenarios had happened, we knew we would have had this big bright full moon to help us out.

Today I am still so sore I can't even push a bathroom or kitchen drawer closed with my thigh! I know it won't improve sitting here a the computer, so I am off! Happy adventures!