midweek splendor; beech explosion; ferns are weird

Here’s what’s going on in the mystery woodland next to the house. Ferns are coming up!

Let’s take a closer look.

They are apparently made of tiny blobs welded together.

Plus a bunch of fuzz.

Let the records show that we have a flowering trout lily on our own property. It hasn’t turned inside out in ecstasy, the way we saw the other day:

Back to our woods: we have a bunch of these things:

I’m guessing sessile-leaved bellwort. Seeing a flower would be helpful, but so far, none seem to be even on the horizon.

You’re not tired of blue cohosh yet, are you? 

This is pachysandra, which has been sneaking into the vinca’s territory from its homebase around the magnolia tree.

BOATLOADS of miterwort this year.

And this is why I have the macro lens. These flowers are maybe 1/8” across at best.

Starflower! Let’s hope it makes a flower this year. Only found one last year.

Later on, I took a walk on my lunch break at work and headed up into the woods.

Birch catkins. Nutty stuff.

Violet innards.

Beech bud explosion, in slow motion.

First, they just lengthen. You can see how the end of each scale is paler than its base – the darker base color is where it’s newly exposed from the bud lengthening.

At some point the leaves just want out. 

Yippee! Freedom! I did this same series last year. On May 9th. Yep, it’s an early spring.

Two points if you know what this is! I don’t! I thought at first it was a violet, but do they get spurs this long? Do I have photos of the leaves? I do not. Whoops. And no, it’s not a ladyslipper. I think.

There’s nothing ordinary about a dandelion.

 

I spotted this cutie in a stormwater retention pond. Happiness!

flowers in November, seed dissection, wrecked mushrooms: a good day

Attentive readers may have noticed that I’ve been a bit glum about the onset of fall this year – certain that the fun was over, there’s nothing to see here, move along, move along, see you next spring. Fortunately, the woods behind our house have been whispering to me over the past couple of weeks. “Pssssst.  Lady. Up here. Mushrooms. Mosses. Things you haven’t seen lately. Pssssst.”

(Am I the only one out there who perceives life this way?) (Oh, right: doesn’t matter. You’re in charge of your perceptions; I’m in charge of mine.)

Anyhoo, I wandered around today, some in the normal spots, and some up in the woods, attentive to those little whispers. Here’s the haul:

Pachysandra, invading the woods from its homebase around the magnolia tree. We last saw pachysandra on May 6th, when the flowers were forming and dare I say it, swelling.

Asters continue to delight with their fuzzballs.

The pieris bush. This is the one whose flowers look like spider-infested barnacles. And there is a bug, of some kind, right in the middle of the picture. Thank you, O Macro Lens, without thee this bush would just be a blob on the edge of the lawn.

Would somebody please tell the vinca that it’s friggin’ November already?

Screw you, says the vinca. I can do this all week. I’m not proud…or tired.

Spider sez, mind your own business. See that little thingy in the lower right? Stay tuned. Those things are EVERYWHERE.

I came across a lobelia, of the Indian Tobacco flavor (Lobelia inflata), on my way up into the woods.

Lovely inflated calyx, to use the verbiage in my flower guide.

No wait, really? You didn’t get the memo, either, huh? Wow. I’ll keep an eye on this, because I’m not sure if it’s just opening up, or just closing down. When open, the lobelia flowers I’ve seen around here look more like this.

Remember the mushrooms growing in a stump up the hill? Well, someone went to town on them. I am not sure if mushrooms spontaneously fall apart, or if critters are involved, but at any rate, check this out:

Carnage, either way.

I spent a fair amount of time sussing out the mystery of a tiny turkey-foot shaped object that I have noticed in the bazillions over recent weeks. They’re everywhere – on the deck, on leaves, on our shower mat…

Here’s one.

I have suspected the birch trees, just on general principle. But I’m not sure if it’s yellow, gray, or white birch. (We have all three. Plus there’s black birch generally around here, but not in my usual wanderings.)

Look, another one.

I finally figured out that that’s probably the conveyance part, and the actual seed is this thing:

(A double-duty photo. Please to admire the fantastic shroomage.)

I also discovered that if you take an innocent birch catkin…

…and rip it to shreds, you’ll see that my theory is more-or-less right.

Here we have the two bits still stuck together.

As exciting as this is (and isn’t it?) the best part was when I came across a stump I visited earlier in the summer. It’s completely covered in moss and canada mayflower. I realized that even though the mayflower has long since produced its flowers and berries, it’s still around, and once I knew what to look for, I saw the evidence everywhere.

 

Translucent white leaves are all that remain.

On the way back down to the house, I found the first gentian I ever saw – here’s what it looked like back on August 9th – it didn’t have flowers yet.

And here’s what that baby looks like now:

I’m not dead yet!

The running report: Achilles tendonitis notwithstanding, a girl’s got to run, and the next half marathon is coming up in a few months. Which reminds me, I should probably register for it before it’s too late. I knocked out what passes for a long run these days – 5.3 miles – and right around now, the cats are starting to pester me for dinner. So, sports fans, I’ll see you tomorrow.

the big picture and the small picture

I had a marathon conversation with my best friend today – I call her my wife, which gets confusing, since this blog is named “musings from dave” and there’s no Dave in sight and I’m a girl married to a guy named Kevin. (New here? Here’s who Dave is.) ANYHOW. Long conversation. With the camera in hand. This is what happened while we were having ourselves a good soul spring cleaning.

“I’m in jail!”

Oh, no I’m not.

(Actually, this is part of what we were talking about. How to get the screen out of the way. The human dilemma: we get to choose our own perceptions, which means, rats, we’re responsible for ourselves. You know, you can be the bug, you can be the windshield, something like that.)

Let’s be naughty and go out on the roof.

You get a lovely view from the point of no return. Or so Terry Pratchett says.

Ho hum. Back to ground level we go…

For the record: On May 7, 2010, the last of the magnolia blossoms was about to drop. This year, they’re just starting to open, still, after a couple of days hanging out like this:

I guess they’re savoring the sun. I should start a betting pool on when we get x (say, 50?) percent of them wide open. Any takers?

The aliens lilac flowers are coming along nicely. They appreciate the sun – it was rainy for two days before today.

OK, we’re entering the Woodland Mystery now.

‘Tis guarded by the venerable yellow birch, here seen with some of its retinue of admirers. Seriously, there’s a whole pile of wildflowers at the base of this tree, most of which appear on this blog somewhere or other.

The butternut (white walnut, Juglans cinerea) that skulks at the side of that birch. Is it just me, or do you see the main leaf in the middle having a conversation with the leaf on the right? “Well, I never!” Oh wow – see how much this has opened up just since yesterday?

Also in the retinue a the base of the yellow birch: I used to think this was a sessile-leaf bellwort before it it big enough for me to see the wee little buds forming in the axils with the leaves. Whoops! This makes it look like Solomon Seal (actual, not false), but it’s so tiny… (maybe three inches tall.) I guess a big plant has to start off tiny at some point, right? I guess I’m having a learning experience here.

Into the leaf litter and sea of vinca we go. I tried HARD to get a shot of a spent birch catkin that shows that the little bits are arranged in a spiral down the length of the catkin, but I just couldn’t capture it. So you’ll just have to believe me. It’s something I didn’t notice until I started playing with one that had fallen. It makes sense from a design point of view – it’s like a tightly coiled spring, a way to get a lot of materiel organized for rapid deployment.

Pretty sure this is starflower, so…where’s the flower? (There “should” be a stalk coming out of the center where the leaves meet…) (Maybe they’re like Canada mayflower and take two years to come to full throttle?)

Pachysandra, making inroads from its headquarters at the base of the magnolia, into the vinca-dominated woodland mystery. I almost didn’t take this picture, but I’m glad I did, because you can see the bases of the flower bits swelling up, compared to when I first saw them.

A shy vinca.

Charlie comes along for the ride. That bright green to the far right is the pachysandra’s base of operations.

In the meantime, on the west side of the house, the snail ferns plot their next move. Another spiral. Nature’s awfully sneaky.

We have a sea of vinca over there, as well. Hooray!

This is how a beech responds when you cut it down. A hell of stump sprouts. This will take several years of disciplined cutting back to starve out, I think. I know that sounds mean! But this tree was too close to the addition’s footprint – its branches would have overhung the roof. So down it came.

Oh hey, that’s where I stopped. Hope you’re having a lovely day, wherever you are!