Two Interesting Happenings

On our trip to the cottage over March break two exciting things happened. 

1.  It was the first time any of us had seen a moose at the cottage.   We have seen them occasionally along the highway driving to the cottage but never at the lake itself.  Unfortunately I got there a bit too late to see this one, but my parents, who were already there, saw it and took a photo of it.  The moose walked across the ice on the lake in front of the cottage about 30 feet off-shore. 

2.  I found a cliff along the road to the cottage that I had never seen before.  This was no ordinary cliff - it was covered in the hugest lichen I have ever seen.  The lichen covered the cliff so from a distance it looked like ivy.  You can see that some of the lichen is bigger than my hand. 

Some lichen facts -

Did you know that lichens are a composite organism composed of a symbiotic association of fungus and alga. 

Did you know that lichen do not have roots and are able to survive prolonged periods without water so they are able to grow in conditions impossible for most plants, like bare rock.

Did you know that lichen growth is used to determine the age of exposed rock surfaces (a technique called lichenometry).

Lichens are very slow growing, so I'm guessing these ones are very old. 

Now that is record-breaking excitement for a trip to the cottage - a moose sighting and finding a cliff covered in over-sized lichen.