Lichen 5

Found on a branch pruned from the Purple King plum tree.

This lichen is rather subtle.  It just looks like a pale splash, grey when it is wet, as it is here, or chalky white when it is dry.  I hadn't considered it as a lichen until I began taking macro shots and saw the fine details.  I'm not even certain that the red fruiting bodies are the same species as the grey ones.  There have been grey ones on the apple tree for years, but I've never seen red ones on it.

Other lichens in the series:  1, 2, 3, 4  Quite good in large.

The news from Christchurch continues to be bad.  There are a lot of displaced people, and many families still in their damaged homes.  It has been estimated that 60% of homes in Canterbury have been damaged.  I am so fortunate that my house is among the 40%.  Many are still without power, water and unable to use their toilets.  People have to get their water from tankers parked in the neighbourhood, and use the portable toilets set out on street corners.  In our modern city this seems bizarre.

Among the heartbreaking stories of loss are the amazing stories of survival.  A boy was sheltering between his bed and the wall in his upstairs bedroom when the wall dropped out, taking him with it.  A woman who was walking in the dark along her concrete path suddenly found herself up to her neck in oozing mud.  She had to fight for her life to get out of the deep fissure.  Nightmare stuff.

For me the earthquake has worsened my chronic insomnia.  I am wretchedly tired.  When I waken in the night it takes me an hour or two to get back to sleep, if at all.  The aftershocks wake me.  Last night there were two magnitude 5.4 Richter and one 4.0, along with a number of smaller wobbles.  I was not traumatised by the earthquake and the aftershocks don't scare me.  How frightening they must be for those, especially children, who were.


For those interested- a video of the earthquake fault on farmland as seen from the air.  Note the displacement where one side of the fault has moved in one direction while the other side has moved in the opposite direction, with diagonal tearing between.  Hedges are no longer straight.

Sorry, the video is no longer available.