Wednesday, 11 August 2021
Yesterday I mentioned urban gathering. Here’s some straight-up urban agriculture. Cukes on the left, and maize, tomatoes, and okra on the right. [A neighbor garden.]
On the other hand, I have “regular” basil, Thai basil, and a scrappy mint plant. Only herbs…no veg. Too much shade for the sun-demanding species….
Tuesday, 10 August 2021
Sunday morning early. Quiet. I’m passing by the Middle School, which opened last week. I see a ladder and a pair of legs, knees down, in a leaf-dense bush…shrub.
I keep walking, and I see it’s a woman. In a fig tree. It’s fig season, I think. This is my second picking, she says. Gleefully.
[Photos no relation to the story. Hibiscus and glinting sun. Today. No figs.]
Monday, 9 August 2021
That would be floral and fungal.
Floral is prettier, but fungal has perhaps the more interesting story. My guess is it grows on wood, yet here it is emerging from a sidewalk crack. The universe is upside-down. Perhaps. Or I’m missing a few facts.
Sunday, 8 August 2021
Tis the season for crape myrtles to bloom. Scientifically, they’re Lagerstroemia spp., and in the loosestrife family. Didn’t know that. That family also includes pomegranate. Botanical taxonomy is complex, especially now genetic info is one type of evidence.
Crape myrtles also played a role in the day I met the Guru. But that’s for another day.
Saturday, 7 August 2021
We went to Athens, visited family, laughed, and ate. They kindly watched our pictures, and we got to see this lovely ginger bloom.
Friday, 6 August 2021
The smoke-haze and the dawning sun made the buildings copper and gold. I’m in the city again.
Scale switch. Bumble bee on Joe-Pye weed. Capitalization of the plant name varies. Use of hyphens varies. Or just call it Eutrochium purpureum. Native to eastern North America, from Lousiana/Florida to Ontario.
Thursday, 5 August 2021
We continued our haze survey in Tennessee. Have I made it clear (haha) that the haze is smoke from the northwestern US and Cali fires?
And into Georgia. Haze continues, with clouds. And humidity. The normal humidity, seems to me. But heavy traffic on I-75, including many semis…we mused that this suggests a busy national economy. Mere speculation, however.
Wednesday, 4 August 2021
Our morning air began with haze and pre-sun-fog, then the sun burned off the fog and we were left with…
…haze, giving a strange quality to the bridge crossing despite the Great Lakes breezes.
Still hazy into the nothern Lower…my, how green the plants are…it has not been a dry summer. Dry here and there in the spring, but not in the summer. [So far.]
Finally, pretty darned clear in northern Ohio. Good old flat northern Ohio.
And southern Ohio…the red sun is from the haze, and we can see some in the oblique, low-angle rays. Yet, it seems far clearer than in the Upper Peninsula.
Wonder what we’ll see tomorrow as we continue south….
Tuesday, 3 August 2021
I saw this photo and thought I could identify funky cauliflower shapes in the unopened buds. I didn’t have that reaction to the actual flower (what does that say about me?). So, I checked out scientific names, and it turns out that they (Daucus carota and Brassica oleracea)are not closely related at all. Ancestral populations suggest origins in temperate Europe and southwest Asia vs very southern and western Europe, so no huge spatial overlap.
End economic botany discussion.
Monday, 2 August 2021
I’ve been waiting for one of these misty mornings, when all is still and it seems like I am looking at another version of this world. I keep thinking that the air is different, perhaps holding more secrets.
I had been thinking about cutting this dead branch, but, now, how can I? It is such a fine place for the spiders to catch meals.