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!

on showing up. (also, drunk chorus girl mushrooms.)

IT SNOWED!!!

please to note the green angel hovering in the space above the garage door. why wouldn’t angels take the form of optic glare and whatnot inside a camera? may as well show up somewhere, right?

ahhhh, the fog is burning off. nice.

thank god for goldenrod.


mmmmmm, MMMMM! oh hey: two more angels, one white, one amber. (yes, that was my brain you just heard, realizing that in the 3D, that orb of amber light must be between the leaves and the lens.)


gentian. you’ve seen gentian here before. I know this isn’t pretty, but hey: it’s a friend, and the process of turning all this stuff back into Basic Matrix Substance has to happen somehow, right? here it is.


the snow was melting this whole time – it was sunny, but sounded like it was raining.
I went back inside briefly.

some people know what it’s all about.


and back out we go. wish I knew what this guy is. grrrr.


same species. just not as tall.


could you be any more beautiful?
and now for a closer look at the flower stalks when there are more layers of them:


after this, I tried a series of head-on shots into the individual flowers. there was not enough light – I gave up, and went with a side portrait:

what do you think? pretty, no?


onwards to the intricacies of leaf decay.


happy moss, just after the winter solstice. so much green poking up.


jaunty little buggers.


moss, moss, everywhere.


I believe this is a fallen bird’s nest.
still with me? and now for an obsessive series about a shelf mushroom.



speaking of jaunty.


awww, a heart! these are all the same type of mushroom, I’m pretty sure, growing on a downed branch, that can’t make up their mind between standing up straight, as shown above…

…or sprawling flat like a lichen. This one’s doing both. “Bartender! Another beer!”


this one looks like it’s waking up from a nap.


others happily dangle upside down. there was a whole chorus line of this sort:

(I don’t know about you, but I keep hearing “New York, New York”.)


others engaged in competitive napping.


this makes me so happy.

While playing with these mushrooms, I came across a convocation of moss reproductive spores.

like so.
these guys are super-elusive to photograph close-up.

this is the best I could do. I’m not sure why: they’re tiny, to be sure, but a lot of stuff I photograph is tiny. I think part of it is the camera tends to be in love with all the texture that’s available in a perspective like this, and it wants to focus somewhere else.

like so: enticingly sparkly water on a rock.
but honestly, I think it’s the little beings themselves. they are willfully elusive. every time I see them I feel like I’ve stumbled across a convocation of forest fairies. (and as above, why wouldn’t fairies take the form of moss fruiting bodies? gotta show up somewhere, right?)
this is why I like spending time outside like this: the woods are a place where a lot of other beings are busy leading their lives, completely out of the awareness of most humans. Yes, you can travel to remote wilderness to experience nature’s majesty. or, you can also go out in your back yard.
it makes me start jonesing for more serious macro lens capability.

even five minutes is better than nothing

Jonesing for my outside time, I hauled myself out the door this morning before breakfast. Self, you have five minutes. Go.

The closed gentian, once so deliciously purple, is truly rocking the Miss Havisham look.


Bonus round: this one comes with a slug.  I wonder what the blobs of green goo are. Hm.


I am embarrassed to report I don’t know what this is.

I’m pretty sure this is a mullein, though. A blurry mullein. I think it was crisper in real life.

Common evening primrose. Fairies probably make pants out of these.
Need some color? The euonymous bush is happy to provide.


Five minutes. It hit the spot. I remembered who I am, why I am on the planet, etc. And then I went to work.  And when I came home from work, I was in need of another reminder of who I am, and why I am on the planet. So I did the next best thing: I went for a run.
In the rain.
I thought I hated running in the rain, but I may have discovered the secret to tolerating it: wear a baseball hat. Anything with a visor. Aha! Without the rain in my eyes, it became a pleasant journey through the landscape on a day I would otherwise have remained couch-bound. The sound of drizzle on the beaver pond was particularly delightful.
Endorphins: your friend.
What do you do when you’re in need of remembering who-you-really-are?

Now we are just haggling over the price.

Scrounging for floral color here.

Pale smartweed: it tiny.


Fall dandelion: arrives late to the party, but brings awesomeness. [Editor's note: I lied. It's Cat's Ear. Still awesome, though.]


Common evening primrose.


Ditto, having gone to seed.
Speaking of going to seed, remember the gentian that I was worried about earlier? No? Here, I’ll remind you. Here’s the time-lapse sequence:

August 20: delicious	August 31: sheer voluptuousness
September 16: going over the hill	September 24: yuck

I was worried about these because they seemed to be moldering away without having had a chance to open up. Turns out this is most likely Gentiana clausa – aka, “closed gentian”. How they manage to do their business is anyone’s guess. Presumably small intrepid insects are involved. At any rate, here’s what it looks like as of today:

Those flowers are PACKED with seeds; to wit:


Flowers that rely on windborne dispersal are going great gang-busters, which kinda makes sense, since a lot of birds have packed up and left for the season. Now, that’s the sort of reckless statement that deserves actual study to back it up. I’ll put it on the list for next year, I suppose. At any rate, here are a few of my favorites from today:

Tall anemone (thimbleweed). My head is exploding!


Rats, I’m not sure what this is.


Milkweed: proof that starting to lose your mind can be beautiful.
And now, for more milkweed pørn*.



*Yes, I just spent five minutes figuring out how to make a slashed zero, rather than spell it out, since that word generates a lot of blog traffic: users the world over end up here, looking for --- oh, nasty stuff. Imagine their surprise when they find me, instead. I could keep using That Word to up my ranking in Nature Blog Network, but that would make me a whore**.
**Ooops.