Lichen Hunting

Today while I passed time until my fiddle lesson, I took a walk in a near by cemetrary. 

It was the perfect kind of day for it, as it was damp outside.  

For 25 minutes I stared at a few tombstones with dozens of different lichens growing. 

Some were tiny and some out stretched. 

Some over lapping. 

It was glorious.

I can't quite tell you how much I love and adore lichens. 

For so many reasons. 

I'm so inarticulate most of the time and all I can say is I love lichens.

For the past day and a half, I've been checking the mail about a dozen times as a very special tool is arriving soon. 

The one and only,

Brodo's Lichens of North American.

An encyclopedia size book with keys that will help me identify my finds. 

Next on the list, is a microscope.

“I find myself inspecting little granules as it were on the bark of trees little shields or apothecia springing from a thallus such is the mood of my mind and I call it studying…"
~ Thoreau