Guess we’re official now…
Oregon State Parks gave us our very own name plate to hang at our volunteer site.
We’ve really been enjoying our time here at Beverly Beach. The weather has been quite Coastal Oregonian and that’s o.k. All of the moisture adds not only to the natural character of the place but to our overall experience.
Even when it isn’t raining the trees still drip.
Usually it is due to all of the moss but often even the bark is just oozing wet.
The weather is starting to turn however and life is starting to SPRING forward.
We took another walk on the Spencer Creek Trail the other day and saw a bunch of things we didn’t see the first time.
New fungi!
Pretty sure these shrooms were on the way out.
And yet these guys were just getting started.
The most exciting part of the hike was not seeing Newts again, although that was pretty exciting. It was, in fact, seeing all of the slugs that we did. We should clarify that while this was exciting for us, it is not so exciting for the State of Oregon. We have been told that the slugs we are seeing are of the invasive variety. Given our stance against the salting of innocent slugs, for their own safety, we will not reveal their names or their individual locations.
No, not a slug. We’ll get to them. First, boy was it fun to try to take a picture of this little guy as he swung at the mercy of the wind. Have you ever been looking so intently at something on the screen of your camera while you take a picture and then suddenly it rushes at the camera but you think it’s really rushing at your face? Yes, Nicole screamed.
O.K. Bring on the slugs.
Darlene first thought this was a ‘gift’ from a dog.
But then he made an appearance.
Tripled in length.
And, slimed away.
This guy was just super cool; like a little speckled puppy.
And, this one… can you see it? Exactly! Think pine needle. Now do you see it?
This is possibly the worlds smallest slug. We say possible because we really don’t know. But it was really, really small. The yellow stuff it is wrapped around is pollen. Yes, it was that small.
Did we tell you about the octopus trees?
They are all over the park and are a result of old time logging operations. Old stumps as they decompose become Nurse Stumps to new growth – typically Western Hemlock and Sitka Spruce. As the nurse stump continues to decompose it leaves the roots of the newer tree exposed.
A different kind of fossil from what we find on the beach.
Well, our time here at Beverly Beach State Park on the beautiful Oregon coast is winding down. Only three more volunteer days and we’re off to somewhere new.