Philosophical query
Wednesday, 11 November 2015
How appropriate is it that a bumblebee’s deathbed is a flower?
Musings
Table tableau
Saturday, 7 November 2015
Been a while since anyone lunched here. I’ve been seeing leaf arrangements on Instagram lately, but this is MaNachur’s version, aided by Mme. Gravity.
Meanwhile, here’s proof the squirrels do not get all the nuts. Feet on the sidewalk mashed some of the pecans under this tree….
Pretty sure
Friday, 6 November 2015
We had sun for a while…in the morning and again in the afternoon…with rain in between. This is from sunny-interlude-number-two. KW, it’s a clematis, right?
Just wanna note that the Egyptian burial pyramids are mostly solid, with very little open space inside (chambers and a few passages); not at all likely to be grain silo-pyramids.
Arcs
Thursday, 29 October 2015
During a break in the weather (more wind than rain, but none of it particularly pleasant), we went down to the beach. This dark green arc indicates a fairy ring, and the fungi’s special tenticles makes the grass darker (although some types kill the grass). I love the red of the apples and the gold and brown of the leaves superimposed on the green, both light and dark.
Panos require a lot of work by the processor, and even more so when moving water is involved. Still, this image looks both normal and spooky to me.
Colors that catch the eye
Friday, 23 October 2015
The Guru guruized at the neighbors’…they do some tech stuff…but they specialize in hands-on activities. I think these are decorative lures…and the tiniest trap I’ve ever seen…a charm? Forgot to ask. Anyway, the Guru helped decommission an old PC, stripping it of personal info so it can be put on CraigsList.
In the garden, despite a light-heavy frost last night (the year’s hardest frost so far), we found peppers of many kinds, cabbage, cilantro, some barely surviving cakes, and a few flowers. I think this is a decorative sunflower, not a seed-sunflower…. I even found a violet (!!) in a protected spot (not the garden).
I forgot to ask about these leaves…a brilliant red kale? Not sure….
We arrived
Saturday, 17 October 2015
The last two-hundred-some miles we went through alternating bands of bright sun and snow/rain. The deepest accumulations of snow amounted to about three inches, but that for less than ten miles.
Here, it was the same pattern before dark. During a sunny phase, we went to the beach. Glorious.
Coming back, looping around the long way, we found this giant puffball, past its prime, so we won’t try to harvest it. It’s also not ready for kicking (I think), aka spore distribution…so the shoe-toe is just for scale (it’s not a threat).
Activity cycles
Thursday, 15 October 2015
My today had a stretch of busy-busy-busy that burned up a LOT of time. And then…just buzzing up the highway, all quiet, with the biggest activity looking out the window. Did listen to a Rachel Maddow show…do enjoy hearing what she does!
Leaf theme
Wednesday, 14 October 2015
Leaf, I say, and not the car kind—the plant kind. Here’s a fine backlit-fern frond, and you can see all the sori/sporangia (what’s in a name?—those dark dots).
I think needles are leaves. Maybe they aren’t to a plant-dissector, but similar function…. I see these soft needles and their grey-green color and I think: tamarack…but maybe it’s another kind of larch. (Enough fussing on this ID for me for tonight.) Love the sweet gum (?) leaf caught in the needles.
Interesting that most of our trees are mostly green (or late-season green), but a few have already given up for the year, and have few leaves left.
Fiction based on fact
Saturday, 10 October 2015
I did get out for a neighborhood stroll-adventure, and about half-way along, I walked into spitty, light rain that came and went. Fine, I thought, I can deal.
Then it got just a bit more rain-like, and I sent a text…raising my rescue crew. Nice. I wrote, not bad enough yet, but thanks for standing by. I kept going. The rain level returned to almost nothing…then spitty again.
With a minimum of ten minutes to go (tyranny of the Fitbit), I thought, yippee! I can make it, and I did, scooting in the door just before the rain commenced. It must have been a victory lap (anthropomorphizing here), as a minute later it went back to spitting.
Explorations, incl Bronx River
Thursday, 8 October 2015
I do love fountains. And HDR means they can look stupendous in digital images. This one’s in Bryant Park.
On north, way beyond Yankee Stadium and the Harlem River…the longest subway ride I’ve ever taken (below ground, not just urban train)…to the New York Botanical Garden…some 250-ac of plants—trees, flowers, grass, even a few stray weeds on land straddling the Bronx River.
And, indoors, a Frida Kahlo exhibition (no photos allowed of her displayed works), emphasizing the natural world, especially plants, in her paintings. With examples of the plants highlighted in the conservatory.