(no subject)

I've read the internet this morning, reveling in various botanical and ecological content, tweeting and plusing away.

Yesterday work started very early after a long evening of things going wrong with an install. So i quit at the end of the east coast day, tried to nap, and then pushed Christine out the door to go to a native plant nursery. The nursery was "over the hill" on the way to Half Moon Bay, and the "need gas" warning came on as we drove there. Since i didn't want to be delayed to when the nursery closed, we decided to get gas in Half Moon Bay (surprisingly, not marked up beyond belief).

Since it was 5 pm-ish (and, gee, won't the traffic home be miserable) we went for dinner at Ketch Joanne. I think of it as a reasonable hole-in-the-wall with delicious food, but the bill was more than a tank of gas -- and provokes a great deal of budgetary pondering on my part. Then we took a tiny walk on a harbor beach, and i found in the very limited wrack line a nice diversity of seaweeds.

Green: ulva sp
Brown: Stephanocystis osmundacea (bladder chain), Postelsia palmaeformis (palm tree), Macrocystis pyrifera (giant kelp)
Red: Mastocarpus sp, thick clump of a feathery algae seems like Ceramiaceae family with bits of Corallina vancouveriensis, and a delicate epiphyte on surf grass

On the way home we pulled over so i could pick some lupines from the roadside. Thief, thief! So i better go photograph them before they fade.