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!

I advise against breaking your nose

Hey, guess what? Broken noses kinda hurt! Who knew? The swelling’s gone way down. My appointment with the “what now” surgeon was rescheduled for next week because – get this – he hurt his leg so badly that another surgeon advised him to go home today, thereby missing my appointment. So I won’t meet with him til Tuesday, 10 days after I broke it. That’s the outside limit for seeing someone and having it fixed on-the-spot. Not that I necessarily want it fixed on the spot, as I understand it involves chopsticks. I wanna be sedated.

I was advised by the doc in the ER not to lie down – to keep my torso at least 45 degrees upright. I don’t know for how long, but given how tender things still feel, and given how I typically sleep on my stomach, I’ve been sleeping in a big-ass chaise we have in our bedroom. This has cut into my Spooning with Best Beloved Regimen. My morning yoga routine – which involves a lot of attempting to touch my toes and downward-facing-dogs – violates the Stay Upright rule, and I have yet to use my brain power to devise another routine. So, no yoga in days. Running feels like it would be too jouncy, so I haven’t been doing that.  In short, I have gone from Super Duper Toughest Mudder of Them All, to Mildly Depressed Couch Potato, all inside a week. How’s that for accomplishment? And what do couch potatoes do? They hang out on the couch. Well, actually, they hang out in their their home office and work work work, and forget to Go Outside and Visit the Flowers.

Can you imagine the spiral of doom that is developing here? Pain + no exercise + no flower visiting = glum = why bother  = oh good lord, Sarah, just go outside already.

Recognize this? It’s a tiny baby milkweed pod! With the petals and stuff still attached!

Sumac flowers. Yeah, I had no idea, either.

Lobelia – Indian tobacco (Lobelia inflata)

Big Sis, the first black-eyed susan to open up this summer, is getting to be an old lady now.

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.

not shown: charlie eating the grasshopper

Busy, busy, busy, busy, busy day. Also? Exhausting. Apparently you can’t change your schedule to get up two hours earlier in the morning, without also adjusting your bedtime. Who knew?  Need a frog to cheer you up? I sure do.

A spring peeper. Hi, buddy!
Here’s lobelia – Indian tobacco (Lobelia inflata)

…and here’s what it looks like when it goes to seed.

Those seed pods just get fatter and fatter! Oh, that’s one of the kayaks in the background.
One more shot of color:

That’s Dianthus sp.
Yawn.

on the relative merits of clif bars vs power bars

Yesterday, I ran 4.25 miles, and then mowed the lawn out at my dad’s for two and a half hours. With a push mower. Naturally, this was followed by the inhalation of a cheeseburger and fries. Then, exhausted, and let’s face it, sticky, we went kayaking.
My dinner consisted of two pints of strawberries, half a pound of cherries, a white peach, and a Clif bar. Kevin had a quarter of a watermelon, some deli turkey, and a Power Bar. My Clif Bar looked like desiccated bear poop, and if I’d remembered to take a picture, I could prove this to you, as there was, in fact, desiccated bear poop in the driveway. Kevin’s Power Bar looked like congealed cat vomit.
We went to bed at 7:39 pm. No kidding.
Today I lounged around in celebration of the fact that I only have one week of pure freedom before this thing called “paid employment” starts up for me. That’s right, sports fans, I got a job. But don’t worry, I’ll still find the time to “entertain” you with pictures of flowers’ naughty bits and whatnot.
Speaking of which, the Queen Anne’s Lace seeds start off green, but apparently turn brown.

Like…

…so.
The Lobelia inflata, aka Indian Tobacco, is going to seed, and the seeds are surprising little fatties, considering the tininess of the flowers that produce them.
I hardly left the house today. Oh, so not true, I ran errands, I learned that I need not only all new snow tires, but all new regular tires as well (yay, job! it will help pay for the tires that I need in order to drive to … my job!), but as far as visiting with the natural world, the lobelia is about as wild and crazy as I got.
Other people were more productive.

One down, two to go.

indian tobacco and enchanter’s nightshade

New species, new species!  Today’s catch is a type of lobelia. I’m fairly sure it’s Indian Tobacco – Lobelia inflata – which would be cool, if only because it’s psychoactive. That sounds like fun, doesn’t it? Who wouldn’t want to get high off random lawn weeds?

It’s used to treat asthma, as well. By the way, if you stumbled across this blog hoping for Truthiness, as far as the medicinal properties of plants go, you’re in the wrong place. I just repeat what the interwebs tell me. There may come a time when I get serious about understanding the medicinal and edible qualities of my plant neighbors, but for now, I’m content just to watch them unfold.
And what’s not to love about these lovely, irregular flowers?

Right next door to our druggie little friend above, we have a stalk of mullein. It’s a wee plant now, just a couple of feet tall, but at some point it will easily tower over me.

Let’s take advantage of its shrimpy size to peer into its naughty bits.


I found another stash of Enchanter’s Nightshade over by the double-ruffled day lilies.

A couple of years ago, I probably would not have even noticed this plant’s existence. Or if I had, I would have assumed it was the same thing as the lobelia we just saw: similar height, stalk of little more-or-less white flowers, there, done. But the more I pay attention, the more I notice. These aren’t the same plant at all.

Enchanter’s Nightshade Circaea lutetiana	Lobelia – “Indian Tobacco” Lobelia inflata
opposite leaves	alternate leaves
regular petals, not stalked. This one’s already forming a seed.	irregular, stalked flowers

And I also saw the cutest ever black-eyed susan.

I should be able to monitor the whole fabulous unfolding tubular petals, as this was just steps from the front door. Remind me to continue avoiding mowing the lawn.
I got busy with the hammer and nails today, hanging up more prints of my photos.



Don’t you wished you lived in my house? You can do this for yourself at home, if I ever get organized and figure out how to market these prints off this website.