Happy Solstice!

Charlie and I went for a walk this morning.

He led the way.


He posed while I played with the “burst” setting on my camera, getting multiple shots off in quick succession. He quickly realized it was too cold for a cat, even a solar-warmed black cat. He retreated to the deck, while I checked out the usual things I check out.

Orange leaves on the Umm…Barberry? bush.


Scads of buds on the pieris bush. 2012 is going to be a banner year for this one.


Plenty of goldenrod seeds? wait. Aster? Help. Plenty remain, whatever they are. I think goldenrod, but I must confess – a ton of asters and golden rod went to seed during a two week span in October when we were out of town, so I am not 100% confident here.
Remember the deformed magnolia buds? They’re still around.


It looks like some of the bulges burst open and seeds started to come out, but perhaps the wet weather this fall caused them to rot in place.

A whole tree full of ‘em.
I know I said I’d tell you alllll about my weekend, but that feels like a long, long time ago.  Time has been moving slowly for me lately, the way it did when I was a kid. I think it’s because ever since the full moon on the 10th, I’ve been extremely tuned in to where we are in the year – exactly when and where the moon will rise over the ridge each night, flooding our bedroom like god’s own flashlight in my eyes. The exact placement of Orion in the night sky over our garage. And so on. The winter solstice this year is Thursday morning, 12:31 am, GMT. For us East Coast people, that’s 7:31 pm tomorrow, Wednesday. YIPPEEE!!! Bring it!
So the weekend. We went out and visited my dad’s house for maybe the second-to-last-time (it is under contract, for a song, I might add, and we’ll be closing soon on it. Cross your fingers.) We went to a holiday party and had a good time visiting friends old and new. Sunday, my week’s long run was only four miles, and then I went to a winter solstice ritual I’ve been going to for years now. More visiting with friends old and new. Leaving the house several times like that on a weekend is unusual for me. It’s fun, but it takes a lot out of me.
Apparently I’ve transitioned from being an extrovert to being an introvert. I’m not sure that’s “possible” but my experience certainly suggests it’s the case.
Or, as Charlie put it this morning,

Are we done yet? Can we go back inside?

Even the plants are better organized than I am

Take the lilac: it’s made and released seeds…

“Laaaaaah!”


…and they’ve already made their buds for next year.

Rhododendron: same story. As for me? I haven’t even put away my summer T-shirts yet.
I get complimented occasionally by my slavishly devoted blog fans for how Observant I am, How Great that I Notice All the Beauty in the Ordinary World Around Me.  Explain to me then how I managed to miss this entire huge shrub, right next to the Maybe Arrowwood Maybe Hydrangea shrub.

Huhhhh...? Anybody have any suggestions? It’s a shrub with opposite leaves. That’s all I got.


Deformed magnolia buds are turning red. Did you see the one where I dissected these in the hopes that they were insect galls? Turns out they were growing seeds. Ooops. Sorry.
And now for the wildflower report.

Starflower. The evergreen leaves are vinca – which, incidentally, are still throwing off purple flowers.

Miterwort. 
Yeah, I know, not as beautiful as you were hoping for, huh? It’s fall, people! Here’s what miterwort looks like when it’s flowering. And here are its positively cute-alicious seeds.
OK, one last bit of news. The other day’s fall dandelion is actually Cat’s Ear (Hypochoeris radicata). Thanks, Arianna, for figuring that out for me!

Mmmm, sweet. Relish this color, cause it’s all gonna fade soon…
The tie-breaking indicator? Fuzzy leaves.


Charlie greets his namesake flower.

destruction in the name of science; beauty as antidote to tragedy

Part I: Innocuous Preface.
I went out into the woods this afternoon in the fading light and found the following:

Wha’? Are those the petals?! They look like mini-leaves. Maybe it’s already flowered and those are the sepals.

The one above seems to have gone almost to seed (see how it’s bulgy under the petal-like thingys?) so maybe those are indeed sepals. In which case, good luck identifying it. The leaves are so shiny…Here’s the plant as a whole:

Is it vinca on steroids? Hm. I dunno.
Meanwhile, here’s a helleborine (Epipactis helloborine) in shade…

…and going to seed.

I saw a ton of jack-in-the-pulpits as well, a couple of which had gotten lucky in the reproduction game:

See how this plant has been forming its seeds in kind of an uneven way? Some berries never really got going…others are squashed and small, and only one is really booming? This seems to happen here and there across different species. To wit: remember the anemone?

How it’s supposed to happen

Versus how it sometimes happens

Hold that thought. We’re coming back to it in a minute.
Part 2: destruction in the name of science
In the meantime, do you remember the deranged magnolia alien madness from the other day? Thinking possibly a gall was involved, yesterday I snapped off one of the weirdo growths and put it in a jar to see if anyone (midges, perhaps, was the thought) would eventually emerge.

I was advised by the friend of a friend, a bug dude who co-authored a whole book on tracking insects (who knew that was even possible?), to do either that, or to cut it open and see if any larvae were inside.
Today, I saw that there are plenty of others on the tree:
So I picked another one, and performed surgery on it on the balcony railing with a kitchen knife:

Um. Those look like…seeds. Then I googled “magnolia fruit” images and realized that all these weird things are, are unevenly developed magnolia fruit. I don’t know if I have the terminology right or not, but once I thought over the jack-in-the-pulpit and the anemone, I’m fairly sure that’s what’s going on here.
I wish I hadn’t had to destroy two instances of fruiting activity to reach this conclusion. I normally don’t mess with anything I photograph – this was a rare exception. Sigh.
Part 3: beauty as antidote
In other news, there was a terrible tragedy in Bratt today – a shooting, at the food coop; one employee shot another employee and killed him. I should be correct and say “allegedly”, but apparently the shooter turned himself in to the police, so… Anyway. The coop is one of my personal touchstones around here, and I feel just…sick to my stomach about it. This is why I headed outside as soon as I got home from work this afternoon (that’s correct; “work” – I started a new job today) – I needed to find some beauty as an antidote.



It’s worth being here, right? Right.

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.