a random sampling of roadside pleasures

July already? 

Gone are the days when I could while away the hours on a mere trip to the mailbox a quarter mile away, and get 200 shots in. For lo, I am gainfully employed and whatnot, and damn if it doesn't eat in to the esoteric pursuits. Translation: oh right, the Mighty Lumix! Let's go out into the world with it, shall we?

The milkweed is just starting to pop.

This summer, I've let a handful of milkweed get established in the lawn because, why not? We got mouths to feed. Specifically, this one:



I spotted this monarch caterpillar a couple of days ago but couldn't find him (her?) (it?) today. Must be around somewhere.

Grass is always good for a close-up. I don't know what kind. The tall kind. Sorta like timothy grass, but we have that, and it hasn't gotten this far along yet.

Purple-flowering raspberry. I'm just going to go on a binge here, don't mind me. We'll start with the beginning:

Some say beauty fades with youth, but I'm not so sure...the petals may be gone, but this is life unfolding before your very eyes...

Ah, wasn't that fun? Soon that'll ripen into the the sweetest little open-cupped raspberry you can imagine. Yum.

Here, have a fly.

And now, a final dose of purple, courtesy of the bittersweet nightshade flower...

OK, time to call it a night.

random scenes from recent days.

It’s been a whirl of travel and work since my last post. Visits with lots of old friends. Followed by a ton of work. Today I delivered mass of permit applications I’d been immersed in for weeks on end to state offices (for my job), and then handed out samples of yogurt to college freshmen (also my job) for a few hours, and drove a total of six hours to make all this happen. I’m so tired, I’m in my PJ’s…at 7:20 pm on a Friday. YESSS!!!

Here’s that weird day lily leaf-stamen thingy again. This was our last day lily. Tis a shriveled mess by now.

 

A purple-flowering raspberry. As tasty as it looks. Let’s not forget that fruit…is fruit. By which I mean, that stuff we eat? That’s flower-bits. In this case, you can see the original burry bud that originally held the flower…and an unripe fruit to the right.

 

A chipmunk carrying something up an ash tree. It was so alarmed at our presence that it rushed up and up and up, and dropped its payload. Turned out to be a chunk of mushroom. Sorry, little buddy! I’m sure you’ll retrieve it later when I’m not looking…

Indian tobacco, aka lobelia.

Pale smartweed. Tiny guy. You probably have some of this in your lawn.

Ah, the mysterious Closed Gentian. Mysterious, because it demurely never opens those flowers. Lord only knows how it gets pollinated. Well, I’m sure botanists know, which means the google borg knows. But let’s leave it as a Great Unknown for now. Hey: I’m in my PJ’s. You can’t expect me to work.

Hog peanut, how kinky thou lookest this fine eve.

Yawn. Yay, weekend!

gap-toothed innocence, gratuitous purple, and an orgy

I’ve been pretty busy lately, and I haven’t gone as far afoot as I might like, but geez, there’s still plenty going on within sight of the house. There’s the brown-eyed susan update, for one:

june 16

Two days later. Someone’s been chomping on a petal. This shot reminds me of a six-year old who’s just lost her two front teeth, but gives you just as big a grin as ever.

One day later and our six-year old is a lanky adolescent.

Little sis, the next one up, gazes up with envy at her glamorous sister.

Plenty more where that came from.

Spiderwort buds are really…I don’t know…

…decadent, I think. So floppy! Although the one on the right looks ambitious.

And then they do this:

gaaahhhh.

it’s hard not to develop a passing interest in bugs when you stare into flowers’ naughty bits.

since that’s what the bugs are interested in, too. this here is probably some type of syrphid fly.

An orgy of god-knows-who all is getting down inside the newest, still-coming-up leaves of a milkweed plant:

“who are you lookin’ at?”

 

nearby, this guy shows off his derriere.

…and a leafhopper causes general amazement. Those colors! Who knew? The nice people at bugguide,net, apparently, who ID’d this for me.

I saw some queen anne’s lace for the first time today:

spiky bracts = a definitive characteristic.

I’ll leave you with a mystery.

who’s this? first person with the right answer gets points!

things just keep unfolding

Just what you’ve been waiting for: four days in the lives of two brown-eyed susans (june 11 – june 14). We’ll start with Baby.

now watch this – sun! the petals suddenly get a little glow to them.

 

and now, for Big Sis:

 

nearby, a gigantic moth was visiting a Cat’s Ear (Hypochoeris radicata).

 

and now, for some half-baked anemone:

spiderworts barfing purple

bluets: so ethereal. they just can’t help themselves.

 

purple-flowering raspberry

Use these in a sentence: ragweed, question mark, bathtub

All my life, I’ve heard about ragweed. Haven’t you? If you grew up with someone with allergies, as I did; if you grew up hearing the whole house resonate with the sound of explosive sneezes all summer, as I did; if you married a guy allergic to everything that produces pollen, as I did, then you’ve heard of ragweed.
Do you have any idea what ragweed looks like?
Neither did I, until today. Welcome to common ragweed: Ambrosia artemisiifolia. Isn’t that a beautiful name? My otherwise enchanting flower guide – Newcomb’s – describes this as an “unattractive weed”.
Excuse me?

This fruit fly begs to differ. I’m cheating a little here – this photo is from late July, when I first discovered this plant growing out by the mailboxes.  Here’s a whole mass of ‘em from back then:


Some of them were flowering at the time:


By now, they’ve gone to seed:

Mystery solved!
Here is one of the last flower on a purple-flowering raspberry we’re likely to see this season. Soak it up while you can.


The False Solomon’s Seal berries are seriously turning red by now.


And the lily-of-the-valley berries aren’t far behind. I can’t remember if they go all the way to red or not. I guess I’ll find out.


When the brook jumped its banks and flooded the meadow, thanks to That Bitch Irene, it brought a lot of the unpaved shared driveway with it (to wit, all that gravel).


See all the branches it dumped along the edge of the un-mowed part of the meadow?


Here’s something else the floodwaters carried:

The bathtub. What a bathtub was doing in the burn pile, I don’t know.
Onwards. A single cattail has decided to sing Allelujah.



My first question mark. No, really, this is a kind of butterfly, called a question mark – Polygonia interrogationis .


And, to wrap up, a late-blooming black-eyed susan, with its requisite tiny white spider, as yet unidentified.