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!

luscious berries and amorous bugs

Every body ripens at their own pace. And what looks like “ripe” to some, looks like “unripe” to others. ‘Tis true of people, tis true of our buddies who live along the driveway. To wit, some berries are red when ripe…others are blue, or even black. Let’s have a look, shall we?

This is the last of the jack-in-the-pulpit. The flower stalk has given up the ghost and fallen over. The berries, once bright green, are presumably done ripening now that they’re this color. Good luck!


These honeysuckle berries started off green, went to honey yellow, visited orange for a while, luxuriated in red for a bit, and are now succulently black. Few of these remain, actually – somebody came right along and ate ‘em. I’m not (yet) a birder, so I can’t tell you who.


The False Solomon’s Seal berries do something unusual: they ripen unevenly. They’re the only mottled-while-cooking berry that I am aware of. I’ve noticed lately that the non-red bits are white these days – earlier on, those parts were a gold-green color, making the berries look like mottled gold from a distance.


Blue cohosh berries have been blue for a while, but are now starting to look sad that nobody’s eaten them. Pick me, pick me!
No thanks. I’ll take this one, instead:

Yum. Berries are sweeter when you’ve tracked every stage of flower development, plus the fertilization, and ripening parts. Don’t you agree? Hey. You. Reader. Go click on those links, unless you’re my sister (in which case, happy birthday again!) and can be counted upon to have already seen them. I swear, you’ll never look at a raspberry the same again.
When I came in from work this afternoon, I couldn’t cross over the bridge. There was a huge pile of dirt in the way, and our neighbor was out with his tractor getting ready to spread it around to repair the damage caused by That Bitch Irene which taunted the brook into jumping its banks and looting the meadow. I parked in said meadow and went up to the house on foot, and returned later for my car.

Much better. Even the wee Civic, with the clearance of a pregnant pot-bellied pig, can deal with this.


A cause for celebration, evidently.

must have been the dismount

Had my dream again where I'm making love, and the Olympic judges are watching. I'd nailed the compulsories, so this is it, the finals. I got a 9.8 from the Canadians, a perfect 10 from the Americans, and my mother, disguised as an East German judge, gave me a 5.6. Must have been the dismount.

Billy Crystal as Harry in “When Harry Met Sally”

The Japanese beetles are at it. Some of them are working on synchronized eating…

And LIFT the right hind leg…

…while others are engaged in more elaborate pursuits. I found myself watching two pairs of amorous beetles located just a few inches from each other on the same plant. One couple was right-side up.


The other was upside down.

Both were busy, busy, busy.

The right-side up couple got adventurous. The male started to lift off from the female…who, by the way, looks like she could care less – it appears she’s having a snack:


up, up, and away…


Until he toppled over.


He’s still hanging on with his front legs, though.


Also on the day’s adventure, I found this beautiful Syrphid fly just landing on the petal of a black-eyed susan:


Oh, to be able to scratch your back with your leg…must be convenient.


He took off and immediate landed on the stem.

A jaunty little spaceman wearing his jaunty little spaceman helmet!


So freakin’ beautiful.

time-lapse of bittersweet nightshade, magnolia monstrosity, and a beetle orgy

Hello! Happy Friday. To kick things off, let’s admire the ripening berries of the bittersweet nightshade flower.

This was flower cluster #2 on a plant that had four flower clusters.


#1, closest to the stalk, started the earliest: all but one of the berries have gone red:

Cluster #2 are the rainbow berries I started with – all stages of ripeness are represented. Farther out toward the end of the stalk, cluster #3’s berries are still green, and at the very end of the stalk we have cluster #4, still flowering:

Who invents this stuff?


Day lily stamens. I’m reminded for some reason of Beaker. 


Tiny orange whale? Or a jewel weed flower still wet with placental goo?
I am a bit preoccupied with various things, among them the debatable wisdom of running a half marathon tomorrow when I clearly have plantar fasciitis. It’s not that bad, overall, but it still hurts at times. I have been doing various stretching exercises – toe dips and raises off stairs, pulling my foot back to get at the back of my heel, rolling my foot over a frozen bottle of water (thanks, Katie!), and others it would be easier to demonstrate than try to describe. I’m experimenting with naproxen sodium (generic Aleve) instead of ibuprofen, just for the hell of it. The upside is, one pill lasts 8 or 12 hours. The downside is, it seems to take 1.5 hours to kick in. And, finally, I have an appointment with a podiatrist the week after next.
Who am I kidding. After training all summer, I’m not going to NOT run tomorrow.
Today’s other discoveries include:
A mystery plant I first saw out by the mailboxes a week or so ago turns out to be making inroads into our lawn. Once again, I tout the virtues of not mowing the lawn.

Here I am peering up under the little flower capsules. Each little green capsule is about 1/8” across, maybe? So those creamy-colored not-yet-open flowers thingys are truly teensy.
It was good that I spotted it in the lawn, because the stash that was down by the mailboxes has been destroyed. The town came through and mowed about five feet on either side of the entrance to our private drive – they’re entitled to and all, since they stash a couple of fire engines at the substation there – but boy, what a shame. Utter devastation. For anyone else, “oh, it’s just weeds”. But these plants are my buddies – the St Johnswort and fringed loosestrife, the Queen Anne’s Lace, all the not-quite-identified-yet grasses, wild rose, goldenrod, pineapple weed…fortunately, the cattails were spared. And there’s still plenty of stuff left. Still though…sigh.
A new flower sprung up in the side yard – a kind of phlox.

Cheerful little guys, no?
From the side, they’re trumpets:


The magnolia tree is growing an alien:

You can’t tell me that’s normal.
Here’s that milkweed pod that used to be the size of my pinky’s nail – it’s nearly two inches long now, and what are those white blobs? At first I thought, “it’s leaking whatever that stuff is that’s in milkweed!” but then I looked at this picture all blown up on the laptop and…

…is that a momma bug next to the egg sacs?

I tried and failed to get a picture of the tadpoles out in the ditch.

This was my consolation prize.

And now for the orgy. Avert your eyes if you’re sensitive to these things…

Once again, who am I kidding. This blog is all about the naughty bits. Bugs, flowers, it’s all good.

no use crying over spilled milk(weed)

Howdy devoted readers! Hot enough for ya? Here’s an idea: let’s drive down into New Jersey in the middle of a massive heat wave, to spend time with extended family. This time we were smart: we took the car with the more-or-less functional air conditioner.
We spent the day at the beach with a thousand of our closest friends.

The waves were big, the lifeguards vigilantly blowing their whistles from atop their throne to herd the throngs inside the tiny official swimming area. I successfully avoided the beach cops patrolling the crowds to enforce the $5/day beach pass rule. I just admitted to being a scofflaw, I realize that. But hey: as far as I’m concerned the beach is for everyone, not just the folks with five bucks. Besides, I spent that five bucks a couple times over on most excellent Jersey Shore PIZZA. Pizza for lunch…pizza for dinner… Please, someone, hand me a vegetable.
Now for the nature bits. MILKWEED! Right along the driveway of the house my brother-in-law and his wife have rented for the week was a whole row of milkweed – and they’ve already formed lovely gigantic pods.
Well, some are little.


And some are big.


Some were covered with Aphis nerii – Oleander aphids (thanks, bugguide.net!).

Some were ALSO covered by – get this, what a great name - Large Milkweed Bug (Oncopeltus fasciatus). When they’re fully grown, they look like this:

Actual conversation between a certain unnamed next-generation member of the family – aged 9 – and myself and his mother. “They’re mating,” says he. “Yep,” we agree. “How do they stay stuck together? Glue?” “Nope,” says his mother. End of conversation.
The Large Milkweed Bug is not the only creature having fun on the milkweed.

A Monarch butterfly in the caterpillar stage. My niece asked a great question: how do you tell where the head is?
Because this is one end…


…and this is the other end.

If it had been resting, and not chewing vigorously, I’m not sure I would have been able to tell!
We’re back home in Vermont now. I plan on learning just how those milkweed pods form, as I have never seen the process from the beginning.