life = plasmic goo

On a run this morning, I noticed one last batch of a lovely purple-blue flower at the top of a hill about a half mile from the house. I’ve never photographed it before, so this afternoon I went for a walk to investigate. Much to my consternation, when I got to the spot where I was sure I’d seen it…it was gone. Vanished! Vamoose! Maybe it’s like my neighbor’s morning glories, which are, in fact, glorious, in the morning, and less so, in the afternoon. I don’t know. I plan on a drive-by tomorrow morning, if only to prove to myself that I did, in fact, see something there.

In the meantime, there were other consolations in the late afternoon sun.

This, for instance. And…

My first ever (around here) monarch caterpillar! Munching away happily on a milkweed leaf.

It’s hard to imagine how this creature will turn into…

 

…this creature.

But we can all hope, can’t we? To be transformed? It’s that mushy part in the middle that’s the tricky bit, isn’t it. The part where the caterpillar is ensconced in its cocoon, and literally dissolving into plasmic goo.

In other news, the white baneberry, or Martian Eyeballs, as Kevin calls it, is turning fire-engine red:

…while the lily of the valley berries ripen.

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.

we have a wood turtle! we have a wood turtle!

Today was mostly about “ooops”. As in

• “Oops, I spent so long wandering around with the camera this morning that I’m 45 minutes later than I intended to be getting over to the hospital to do Reiki”. “
• “Oops, my phone battery is dead.”
• “Oops, I left my lights on and my car battery’s dead.”
• “Oops, I missed my dentist appointment because my car battery died.”
• “Ooops, I’m four days late putting Toxic Death Gel on the cat and as a result, I have a tick. On my back. Where I can’t reach it.”

On many a day, all this would have freaked me out, but all I can think is, “WE HAVE A WOOD TURTLE! WE HAVE A WOOD TURTLE!” and all is well in my world! All batteries have since been recharged, my own included. The tick’s been removed and flushed to its greater reward.
To rewind, this is how my day started:
The very first thing I did this morning, before even making coffee, was, I went outside to see if the turtle was still there. It wasn’t. Rats. As I turned around to head back inside, I froze in surprise as I saw it was ten feet away from me, staring at the garage door. I tiptoed inside and grabbed the camera…and the compost bucket, which was full.

I headed back out. I apologized to the turtle, dumped the compost, and invited him (her?) to check it out.


I think I’m in love.
Turtle headed toward the compost, but changed his (her?) mind, and then over the the course of a half hour or so, wandered toward the pole barn and up into the woods.

The journey begins.
Since I was already outside with the camera, I went a-visitin’…

Bluets are still going strong, mostly because I spared them the wrath of the lawnmower the other day.

Lily-of-the-valley.

A hosta has taken over a spot formerly inhabited by spring beauties and trillium, at the base of the yellow birch tree.

Foamflower, aka false miterwort, is still going strong.

So’s the actual miterwort. I love how each flower is connected by spiderwebs.

The azalea over by the garden shed is the current noisy thing in the yard.
Speaking of noisy, since the Handel concert last Sunday was a smash success, standing ovation, etc. woo hoo! – we’ve now got five, count ‘em five, rehearsals to figure out the chorale in Movement 4 of Beethoven’s 9th symphony. For some idiotic reason I’ll be singing the soprano part. The one that has a whoooooole lot of over-the-staff singing. Super, super high. A whole page of high “A”, as a f’rinstance.
I can easily nail a high A in the shower, in the car, while minding my own business. But put a score in front of me? And the words in German? I won’t be able to hit anything above a D (a D, for cryin’ out loud!) until I’m pretty comfortable with the music. I’m like a fair-weather soprano, I guess. But the choir director is overloaded with altos on this one, and wants me to stay with the sopranos on this one. Gulp.

compare and contrast; also, bug sex

Oh, I have such a feast for you! Remember how I just discovered we have lilies-of-the-valley in the yard? I zipped out in between rain showers and got a peek at them.

Lily-of-the-valley (Convallaria majalis)

The other day, I was visiting with a friend who wanted to show me what he thought was a whole boatload of these in their lawn. Turns out what his lawn is blessed with is Canada mayflower – the cuties, seen first around here on April 29 and periodically since then. They usually live in the woods, not on people’s lawns, but as The Dude pointed out, until recently their lawn was woods, so there you have it.

This one’s little flower buds are finally opening up!

And now for compare and contrast #2: dandelion, and coltsfoot. From a distance, they both look like puffballs, but when you go in closer, you see that they’re structured differently

dandelion (Taraxacum officinale)

coltsfoot (Tussilago farfara)

In other news, I caught some bugs having sex on the white baneberry flowers. See how nature is full of delights?

I also witnessed an unusual pollinator:

I guess he’s probably eating the dandelion, huh. Isn’t it beautiful, close-up?

Last but not least, the daffodils are pregnant.