2.99 seems like a good sweet spot

Sorry, I missed your response until now. I also have a hang up about charging for my app. I suppose I should get over it. What do you think is a reasonable price that says I'm not being greedy but also this is a quality product? 😂

Photo of young trees in front of a freshly harrowed field with pine covered mountains in the background.

Got the cover crop into the ground right before a good rain. This field has been abandoned since homesteaders left in the early 1900s and had been a weed bed since.

#farming #covercrop #rurallife

Photo of plastic vials used to collect soil samples next to native bunchgrass and organ grapes.

Photo of a freshly tilled field with forested mountains in the background

I don't like tillage, but it's a necessary evil to control weeds and plant without a drill. How evil? I'm trying to find out! I sampled soil in tilled soil, non-tilled soil left degraded from original homesteaders, and native forests. I'll have a lab analyze for PLFA and basic nutrients.

#farming

Photo of kids on scaffolding bolting on rock climbing holds onto new plywood.

The dream of converting the machine shed into the ultimate gym took a huge step today -- top rope climbing wall nearly complete!

I appreciate the understanding. I took some soil samples before working up the soil and after tillage. I hope to take more over the years. Hopefully I can show an improvement!

Do you do any soil tests?

This is awesome and I'm very jealous. I just harrowed 10 acres of land to broadcast seed and feel terrible about it. Unless we want to go into debt or spray tons of herbicide, tillage is our only option. (Hoping to establish a perennial crop to lessen the damage)

Photo of five elk standing in a field

Photo of five elk browsing on a hill slope with grass shoots and small brush just budding out

Just had my morning coffee with a small elk herd

Photo of an arrowleaf balsamroot lite by the sun and in full bloom on top of a mountain that overlooks the Columbia River.

It can take the arrowleaf balsamroot 3 years to produce its first flower under the best conditions. Given the challenging shallow soil here, it’s likely these took much longer. Knowing this puts their resilience in perspective and makes their bloom all the more beautiful.

#nature #photography

Line graph showing total installs as a function of time. The daily installs start at 16 on October 9, 2025 and slowly step up to 23 on April 6, 2026.

I told myself I’d skip the iPhone version (and the $99 fee) for #Ecoseek until hitting 100 Android downloads. I’m still convinced it’s a niche app, but enough iPhone-using friends have shown interest that I’ve finally caved.

Let the cross-platform headaches begin.

#BuildInPublic #IndieDev #Ecology

A new #Ecoseek version! This is a big one! I revamped the Discover page to get your motivated to explore through dynamic content (thanks #iNaturalist!); added support for multiple photos, added achievements, improved the map, and more.

#appdev #buildinpublic #ecology #nature #conservation

Easter update

Considering adding social features to #Ecoseek. Beyond 'collecting' ecoregions, I want users to help track ecosystem health to help discovery and provide research data. Imagine 'checking in' to a prairie and flagging its condition for others.

What do you think about contributing to citizen science?

Close up photo of a small Arrowleaf Balsamroot. There are only a few small leaves popping out of the ground, one of them is partially eaten.

It's partially eaten and was buried in weeds, but I think I found our Arrowleaf Balsamroot (Balsamorhiza sagittata)!!

I whole heartily agree -- I find the open understory to be very calming and the far vistas to be captivating

Screenshot of Ecoseek showing the Discover page. An "Almost there" nudge shows a progress bar of level 4 ecoregions explored in a level 3 region. A "Today's spotlight" lists an ecoregion with species that have been recently observed on iNaturalist. And a "Trending in Washington" that shows North Cascaded Lowland Forest at 14x higher iNaturalist activity than previous month.

One thing I'm trying to do with #Ecoseek is to encourage exploration of new ecosystems. I'm experimenting with nudges if users are close to completing an area; featured ecoregions; and highlight regions that have relatively higher #iNaturalist activity -- assuming phenological changes.

Some places you can see the results of those columns falling. We found some completely standing alone. Wild. We were definitely nervous parents while the kids were exploring.

Photo of columns of basalt with sage brush in the foreground

This is what it looks like from the side. A marvel!

Photo of hexagonal rock columns formed by basalt in the foreground with a huge valley of sage scrub steppe in the background

New weird personal goal reached: standing on top of columnar basalt in the scablands of Eastern Washington.

#photography #geology #nature #pnw

Photo ballhead waterleaf showing new growth

It’s alive!

The aboveground vegetation of Ballhead Waterleaf (Hydrophyllum capitatum) completely dies back after flowering, so I was worried this little fella hadn't survived some recent disturbances in our #NativePlants bed.

Apparently, it comes back with a vengeance!

Yeah, exactly. Just south of the bears, on the other side of Terra View. It's worth exploring -- there are various paths that peter out but lead to interesting areas.

It's the WSU Arboretum on SE campus, South of the golf course. There are a couple miles of gravel trails, a pond where the occasional great blue heron and king fisher can be seen, but it's not really an arboretum. Someone has started planting native forbs recently and the bunchgrass is established.

Photo of native bunchgrass in the foreground and replanted forest in the background. The bunchgrass shows year old gray stalks being encroached by new green growth

Ah, I love seeing the restored #PalousePrairie on the WSU campus come to life in early spring.

#NativePlants

Photo of a messy garden with lupin stalks from last season. A praying mantis egg case is attached to one of the stalks.

One of the many benefits of leaving your native garden messy in the fall is that you can find little treasures if you look closely.

I'm excited that our yard is starting to support predator species!

#NativePlants #Gardening

Photo of white sand dunes under a blue sky

The Gypsiferous Dunes ecoregion is one of the largest dune fields in the United States and the biggest collection of gypsum sand dunes in the world.

Four shots of Boylston Ridge SE of Ellensburg, WA showing the shadowing that occurs in spring and fall as the earth rotates on it's axis. In full summer and winter this is not as apparent because of the angle of the sun. Also show the sage brush, bunch grass which is the predominant feature on the landscape, until the wildflowers begin to really bloom in the next 2-3 months.

Four shots of Boylston Ridge SE of Ellensburg, WA showing the shadowing that occurs in spring and fall as the earth rotates on it's axis. In full summer and winter this is not as apparent because of the angle of the sun. Also show the sage brush, bunch grass which is the predominant feature on the landscape, until the wildflowers begin to really bloom in the next 2-3 months.

Four shots of Boylston Ridge SE of Ellensburg, WA showing the shadowing that occurs in spring and fall as the earth rotates on it's axis. In full summer and winter this is not as apparent because of the angle of the sun. Also show the sage brush, bunch grass which is the predominant feature on the landscape, until the wildflowers begin to really bloom in the next 2-3 months.

Four shots of Boylston Ridge SE of Ellensburg, WA showing the shadowing that occurs in spring and fall as the earth rotates on it's axis. In full summer and winter this is not as apparent because of the angle of the sun. Also show the sage brush, bunch grass which is the predominant feature on the landscape, until the wildflowers begin to really bloom in the next 2-3 months.

Back to Boylston Ridge for some shots to show how fast the snow disappears and how quickly the seasons change. The shadowing along the ridge is a spring/fall thing, in summer the sun is too far north, in winter too far south.

I'd really like that! Likewise if you're ever in Pullman or Northport. We have small Palouse prairie plots around Pullman but a lot of acreage that we're restoring near Northport.

You're doing the good work! ✊

Again, good point. And that's the exact kind of perception that I'm hoping to quell with the app.

If you don't want to download my app (it's android only at the moment, unfortunately), PlantMaps shows similar regions that you can view: www.plantmaps.com/interactive-...

Good points, and I agree! You can't tell from my screenshot, but the app uses the EPA's definitions of "ecoregions", which they've defined 57 different ones in WA state. I believe the two you referred to may be Yakima Folds and Palouse Hills, respectively