Friday, 10 June 2016
Pair-seating rocks. Here’s a bench, peeling a bit but classic.
Or consider these new plastic (recycled, I suspect) Adirondack chairs, flagrant in turquoise. Of course, the plastic material is also flagrant; the carpenters who made the originals may well be rolling in their graves.
Thursday, 9 June 2016
Neighborhood landmark. [Good to be home.]
Blackbird art.
Hibiscus silhouetted against the sky, and backlit.
Wednesday, 8 June 2016
Spent a lot of time today trundling down the highways and byways. Stopped on a rural stretch at a truck stop without logos and national affiliations. No big shopping area. No hallway of showers. Just a friendly café and a giant parking lot. That strange open sign to the right has a mean-faced bulldog above wearing a chef’s hat and holding a stirring spoon and rolling pin…only mildly strange….
I am compelled to photograph flowers. Often a side effect is that I discover insects. Not today.
Tuesday, 7 June 2016
I said goodbye to the lilacs for this year…well, to the blooms. I am leaving them to MaNachur.
We crossed the bridge to troll-land. Thankfully, we didn’t drive straight into a wave of summer heat.
We stopped for what you do at a rest stop…stretch legs and toilet activities. Here’s a euphemism for the same for our canine companions.
After quite some time, we drove by the country mosque—which is overlooking a construction zone at present.
Our next distinctive architectural find: sugar silos.
And we saw some glorious day-end light.
Monday, 6 June 2016
Over at the Refuge, where we went to dodge chores in the damp of the morning, we saw nesting swans…also flying and floating and feeding swans. Not many Canada geese. A beaver.
Several sandhill cranes. And a red-wing blackbird to the left.
Some kind of viburnum. I thought it was a hobblebush (there’s a name), but if these are the leaves, they don’t match those in my ID book….
I saw just one specimen of this vine, with leaves that wrapped around the stem almost completely, and this showy bloom. I cannot find it in my book…. I call it the mystery vine.
Across our orchard and field, the deep blue lupine are variable, but most are dark across the entire bloom part. Of course, there are also some in pink and white, and some…blended versions, too.
So, for our collection, this is an unusual coloration, this bicolor presentation. Pretty though, especially with the dark lines. Interestingly, this is the version in my wildflower guide.
This is sure the lupine-time. They are taller than the orchard grasses that will eclipse them within weeks, and their delightful colors sure make them pop against the green-green background.
Sunday, 5 June 2016
Turns out the electricity came back sometime after midnight and before 1AM. I slept through the signal, but the Guru heard the radio playing dance music. We forgot it was on when the power…went.
So, in the interests of recognized continuity, these are the chives I remember from my deep childhood, probably escaped from great-grandmother’s garden maybe shortly before WWII. Maybe. Without a doubt, they have been here a while. Baked potatoes anyone?
Today’s big excitement was picking the 2016 crop of rhubarb and making a simple compote with a bit of water and more sugar than I expected. No photos of the deep crimson compote…none of that greenish, grayish stuff, just a deep red sauce extracted from these jewel-tones…. The fine genes of our rhubarb are from careful husbandry a decade ago (and more) by the Botanist. [Tomorrow’s chore is to weed the (surviving) five rhubarb crowns and give them the gazinta to get through another summer/winter.]
Okay, an artsy shot. The gate has sentinel white lupines. And outside, to the left where you cannot see, is a robust group of lilacs I do not remember from times past. Clearly, my memory is from years ago, and not from, well, last year.
Sometimes, anyway.
Saturday, 4 June 2016
The apples are showing the inexorable march of time…the petals are almost entirely gone (bits of withered brown tissue remains), and the apples are just beginning to form.
We cheated and purchased some sets yesterday, and put them out today. Just planting is easy. The prepping can be considerable. Today it was. We had to remove all the weeds from the Botanist’s garden mound, and otherwise make it habitable. The plants are a patio cherry tomato, a plum tomato, and two pots of multiple plants of Genovese basil. We got the plants in and watered them in a bit. Then we added the squirrel cage (to keep them plus rabbits, deer, chipmunks, skunks…OUT) and another screen overlay to protect the second tomato and give it a larger space to grow.
Just as we were gathering the tools to go in, it began to lightly sprinkle. Just in time, we said, like we’re weather sages, hah!
Soon after we ate, while the Guru was slogging through kitchen-cleanup, the lights flickered once, then stayed off. Still some daylight outside, despite the now-rain overcast. We figure it was about 7:45P.
Maybe a quarter hour later, we decided we should call the electric company, and had to punch through to the “report a power outage” option, and finally get to a recorded message, which indicated an outage in our general area by mailing address. Hmmm.
So, we decided to take a drive, and see if…well, just be a bit nosy. We made a half-hour loop, including through McMillan (where we found the old county garage with an elegant sign), and never found houses with the lights on. Lots of people have security lights over their driveways, and zippo, no light. That made it easy to gauge.
Our theory by the time we returned to our place was that a good-sized area had lost power…. Another call the the Electric Co after 10P, and a new recording indicated that the outage area was north of “our” lake and south of “the” swamp, plus to the west. That’s a lot of customers.
There was a flicker of on maybe around 9:45P, but no sustained on. So, we lit tea lights and made us each a drink. Great plan!
I COULD have posted on time—that is, on the day of, avoiding a “10:22P” post, by using battery power, but wondering when the electricity would come back was distracting. So, a delayed post, marked as usual by the “10:22P” time-stamp.
Friday, 3 June 2016
Backlit photo number one: an apple tree this morning.
Here’s a high bridge view…freighter entering locks. Nope, didn’t look up the name. Lame me.
Here’s proof we left the country to visit our northern neighbor for a bit.
They are curious/nosy in Sault Mich. All doors must be labeled, even if the label is only slightly helpful.
Backlit photo number two: a fern frond this evening.
Thursday, 2 June 2016
How does it get to be JUNE so quickly? This is a tiny, emerging maize plant, less than an inch tall. Very early for sweet corn here…relatively warm plus enough moisture equals stimulated seeds.
I learned this as pussytoes, but it looks slightly different from the one in my wildflower book. A different species, I suppose. Tried to photo them the other day and failed as the wind kept wobbling the stems.
I love the lake when it’s glassy like this, such a mirror for the sky. Later I could count the mallard’s ducklings: seven; that’s quite a brood.
Wednesday, 1 June 2016
I mean this two ways…
Here’s a sign from our woods trek yesterday. The way we went there was no bridge out. Mystery signage….
We found this lovely sign today. I don’t remember ever seeing one like this. It is very correct. We speculated that it was to inform fisherfolk and canoeists/kayakers who didn’t know much about the out-of-doors, although the fact that it was situated for people on the road suggests our hypothesis is bunk.
It was windy last night and all day. This morning it rained, but the sun came out by mid-afternoon. The waves are a sign of the windiness, roight?