midweek splendor; beech explosion; ferns are weird

Here’s what’s going on in the mystery woodland next to the house. Ferns are coming up!

Let’s take a closer look.

They are apparently made of tiny blobs welded together.

Plus a bunch of fuzz.

Let the records show that we have a flowering trout lily on our own property. It hasn’t turned inside out in ecstasy, the way we saw the other day:

Back to our woods: we have a bunch of these things:

I’m guessing sessile-leaved bellwort. Seeing a flower would be helpful, but so far, none seem to be even on the horizon.

You’re not tired of blue cohosh yet, are you? 

This is pachysandra, which has been sneaking into the vinca’s territory from its homebase around the magnolia tree.

BOATLOADS of miterwort this year.

And this is why I have the macro lens. These flowers are maybe 1/8” across at best.

Starflower! Let’s hope it makes a flower this year. Only found one last year.

Later on, I took a walk on my lunch break at work and headed up into the woods.

Birch catkins. Nutty stuff.

Violet innards.

Beech bud explosion, in slow motion.

First, they just lengthen. You can see how the end of each scale is paler than its base – the darker base color is where it’s newly exposed from the bud lengthening.

At some point the leaves just want out. 

Yippee! Freedom! I did this same series last year. On May 9th. Yep, it’s an early spring.

Two points if you know what this is! I don’t! I thought at first it was a violet, but do they get spurs this long? Do I have photos of the leaves? I do not. Whoops. And no, it’s not a ladyslipper. I think.

There’s nothing ordinary about a dandelion.

 

I spotted this cutie in a stormwater retention pond. Happiness!

words fail me

I went for a three hour walk with a friend in some nearby woods that are famed for their wildflowers.

The stream in this bed was sometimes above ground, and sometimes below ground. A mystery for another day.

That green haze on the forest floor is a veritable carpet of flowers. Without further ado:


Dutchman’s breeches.

Squirrel corn.

In the above shot alone, there is dutchman’s breeches (lacy leaves at far left, and all over), squirrel corn (flowers at lower right), blue cohosh (tall stem on the left), trillium (self-evident, right?), wild ramp (fat narrow leaves), spring beauty (one eensy flower, right).
There was so much blue cohosh, I didn’t even bother to try to do it justice. The ones here were much further along than those at home, and I’ve found trying to capture cohosh is hard – the lightest, slightest breeze sets them to dancing.

But here’s a nice shot at a cool stage – the structure of the plant is opened up, but the leaves have yet to fully unfold.


The trillium were simply epic. A ton of them. And huge. Oh, and there’s trout lily in the background, and blue cohosh. Sick.

Gaaaaggghhhhh!

Jack-in-the-pulpit – these are the only ones we saw, perched on a rock ledge.

Weep-inducing Columbine.

Heart-stopping wild bleeding heart.

Crowfoot, a miniature early variety. As you can see, this is going to seed at a decent clip.

Trout lily up the wazoo. And a token spring beauty.

False ginseng.

Early saxifrage.

Miterwort.

Wild ginger’s freaky flower – I’ve always pegged this for a carnivore.

Red baneberry.

Multiple flavors of violet. You know you’re on system overload when you can’t even manage to take down enough detail to key out your violet species.
I was wearing chaco sandals, and after having done my 13 mile run yesterday, I’m not sure who got tired first: the soles of my feet, or my wonder-intake-capacity valve. I may need to eat an entire garlic pizza and soak up five episodes of “Eureka” just to recalibrate back to something approaching normal.

laughter through tears

My sweetie pie comes from a largish family – I believe he has something like thirty-and-a-few first cousins – and they’re all loud and crazy enough to have kept in touch over a couple of generations, such that at family reunions, second cousins show up as well. They’re a lot of fun. In my family, when we vacation together, we typically like to ignore each other amiably while we each read, or go for walks on the beach, coming together at meals. We have fun too – just in a more subdued way. In his family, everybody’s in the same room, generally all talking at the same time.
Sadly, the most spirited and ebullient of Kevin’s cousins passed away unexpectedly last week. Paul was only a handful of months older than Kevin, so it gives one pause. Over the weekend, we went down to Lawn Guyland for the wake and funeral: alas, the fourth such occasion in the past five years. We have the routine down. On Friday, the last of the visiting hours at the funeral home were held. It was pretty festive on the whole, with moments here and there throughout the evening of tears and hugs. Afterwards, some of us gathered at a diner for a very late dinner, yakking, carrying on, stealing food from one another’s plates, and generally behaving just shy of badly enough to avoid getting tossed to the curb by our friendly, but clearly world-weary, waitress.
On Saturday, we gathered again at the funeral home. The presiding attendant asked friends and neighbors to prepare to pay respect to Paul one last time. Then he asked aunts, uncles, and cousins to do the same. About half the room stood up. Giggling ensued. Eventually we made our way over to the church for Mass. Paul’s brother Bob gave a fantastic eulogy. As Kevin put it, when he placed the can of Budweiser on the lectern, he had us in the palm of his hand.
After the graveside services, we toasted Paul with more Budweiser, and then repaired to a restaurant where we stuffed ourselves silly. Once we got to the part where the kids were running laps around the room, it was time to go. The consensus is that Paul’s up in Heaven, firing up the grill, putting the beer on ice, and generally doing what he does best: creating a great party for friends and family, with a lot of food. And a lot of beer.
And then Kevin and I came home.
I finally.finally.finally. got outside with the camera after a lull of rainy weather last week, plus the weekend travel. Charlie was glad to see me, and hopped up on my lap as I attempted to capture the process by which beech leaves go brown.

Self-portrait with cat.

Beech. A rainbow of green all the way to brown on a single sapling.


Goldenrod.


Yellow foxtail: seeds formed and released.


Miss Lady, aka Maggie, poses for her portrait.


Wild rose. My buddies. Still hanging on to their desiccated stamens.


Drying fern fronds. Notice the dots?


They’re the spores.


Whoa…trippy.
Out in the field, a few brave souls are ignoring the memos.

“October, schmoctober”, says the violet.

Black-eyed Susan: “I got it going on.”


One last goldenrod puts on a show.


While the rest pump out seeds.
Meanwhile, in other news, last week a utility truck clipped the end of the bridge.

Ooops.
Someone came around to fix it on Friday, when we were heading out of town.

Much better.