Friday, 4 August 2017
Ms Becky came by today. She got a steel knee several months back, and is in the pushing rehab phase. We discussed the sensations and mental pictures associated with having metal in your body. She has named her knee Fred, to indicate her acceptance of it.
So now I’m working on a name for my plate-and-pins-whatever-is-in-there.
Sunday, 23 July 2017
I think there’s a stealth insect on the stem just below the second set of flower branchings, with its back to us.
Thursday, 13 July 2017
We’ve had so much rain lately that the foxglove (Digitalis purpurea) has become horizontal. Not hard rain, mostly, but precipitation just keeps oozing from the sky. The branches on the trees and more downturned and the grasses are a bit smooshed in some places, in part from the wind—lodged.
Wednesday, 12 July 2017
Big birds. A pair of sandhill cranes inspect wavy railroad tracks.
Small bird. Pretty sure it’s a spruce grouse. Eat many pine needles. Interesting choice.
Here’s the east side of West Bay, which I call Grand Marais Bay in my head. From ground level.
Here’s approximately the same direction/angle from Droney. In spite of some serious wind. Tough drone!
On the ground, the water-topping flowers are in full display.
And we found a swan family—four cygnets!—browsing.
And a solo loon…posing…or watching us back.
Tuesday, 11 July 2017
We’re getting toward the end of the lupine, with many fully in seed pods. A few are still opening at the tips, however.
Farm news: ML and DL have installed a new dock! It’s a beaut! Smells like fresh lumber.
I channeled Diana the Huntress (21st century version) and stalked the shallows for the lithe and limber lacustrine annelids, finding eight in about ten minutes and removing them from the breeding pool. And the lake. It may have been the perfect stick I found for catching them and tossing them into the brush that brought me luck. But not them.
The late afternoon became overcast and waves of drippy rain, straight down, so the windows all could remain open.
Monday, 10 July 2017
On warm days like this, we are taking advantage of the insulation that this cottage now has that it didn’t when I was a youngster. By that I mean that we close the windows late morning and “keep the cool in” until late afternoon. The temperature on the porch, with the lovely new ceiling fan (last summer?, I think), does drift with the day, being cooler than the house in the early morning, and much warmer by late afternoon, when the sun streams in. Today’s popup storms brought the temps down for a while in the mid-afternoon, but the skies cleared and all was soon toasty as normal.
BTW, I’m pretty sure this is feverfew; it’s not from our place.
Sunday, 9 July 2017
The black edges and blotches on the basil plants seem to have retreated, I think due to the slacking of the daily rainstorms. Almost time to make some tomato sauce! [And I have a stash of canned San Marzano tomatoes for delectable flavor, too!]
The sun catches the ferns by the back door just so in the mornings….
And by the time mid-afternoon arrived, so had cloud cover, and by cocktail hour the rain arrived. Not a hard rain, mind you, and perhaps not enough to set the basil back.
Thursday, 6 July 2017
This fawn sighting is from yesterday, overlooked due to poor monitoring by yours truly or it would have appeared (ahem) then. The photo is by the Guru. The fawn was nowhere near this close when I saw (spotted? hahaha) him/her. Kudos to the Guru for this digital capture.
These potentilla blossoms were not mewling and strolling away (like the Odocoileus virginianus of yesterday), so I managed to capture them in all their glory. What gutsy insect is eating the petals?
Turns out that Potentilla is now Dasiphora…geeze, can’t those taxonomists settle on genus/species???? huh????
Wednesday, 5 July 2017
Here’s the best of the now-blown peonies. Peonies trigger thoughts of this place, and my grandmother’s flower garden. She had a special pair of scissors/trimmers that she used to cut flowers to make bouquets in the house. They were decorated, clearly a lady’s tool.
I think of these yarrow as wild flowers, but I read that there are domesticated varieties. These look like the wild ones. I thought these were moths on the blossoms, but maybe they’re something else.
Tuesday, 4 July 2017
I made a big rice salad for our contribution to the potluck Fourth celebration across the way. I used these garlic scapes among the many veggies I added.
Our hosts always supply brats and weiners grilled to full tastiness. And home-baked beans. Guests bring the rest. Extra yummy this year, I thought.
Great company, too. Always great fun to catch up with people we see just once a year.
No sparklers even, and we saw the fireworks on Sunday night…but I still thought about this being the anniversary of the founding of our nation while I chopped veggies…I find these strange times, and tried to be buoyed by the tendency of institutions to perpetuate themselves in much the same form.
On the way back to our place the moon seemed to reign over the orchard and the lake.