Musings

I saw this out of the corner of my eye and had to back up to make sure what I was seeing. Yup, contact paper that looks like a brick wall. I agree with the idea; this is better than a grey metal box, especially for a spot you see near-daily—plus this is a big utility box!

This stump is losing its battle with the fungi. Their function in the wild is as part of the army of living things that breaks down dead things. I’m no specialist, but I counted five visually different fungi in the process of turning this oak into dust.

Posted at 5:15 PM | Comments Off on Disguises

Sending you a flower today, this time from a ginger plant. Lovely, subtle colors. Unknown function of the dangling parts.

Not sure why Tío Flaco is a good choice for a food brand. It means Uncle Skinny/Thin. Great colors, though….

Posted at 5:09 PM | Comments Off on Greens, of a sort

I can tell the sun angle is shifting—and the day length is…diminishing. Sigh.

I believe I’ve posted a similar photo before…apologies…but I find the decorative spider-work visually compelling, draped over these meticulously shaped fine-leaved bushes.

Posted at 9:26 PM | 1 Comment »

I thought of this scarred root that looks like it oozed above the surrounding blacktop when I heard a PRI story (this replayed?) about land disappearing into the sea near the mouth of the Mississippi and in coastal Virginia—I thought of it as rather the opposite…emerging from below. Many times this root, an underground branch of sorts, has suffered attacks, some maybe attempting to level it. And still it grows.

Posted at 5:33 PM | Comments Off on Plane edges

It was the Botanist’s position that when plants were bred to have variegated leaves, well, this was “frustrating the plant.” By reducing the chlorophyll (and not the leaf area or plant size).

No doubt I have already mentioned this. You get a redux because the other thing I was thinking about was retirement strategies and RMD*s.

* RMD = required minimum distribution. Applies to IRAs. You probably DO NOT want to know.

Posted at 9:11 PM | 2 Comments »

Plants called myrtle are generally evergreens; however, the crape myrtle is not. And it is not always crape; sometimes it is crepe. Lest you think that common names are the hotbed of nomenclatural disagreement, let me warn you that scientific taxonomists are almost as…scrappy. Then, there’s the issue of the natural trend to compile data as time continues.

Anyway, we are amidst the long season when the crape myrtles bloom. In our near-daily afternoon rain storms, some blooms…detach, then breezes cluster them in corners. This is the special JCB shady parking spot at our neighborhood TJs; I got that space today (yippee!) without the Guru even being in the vehicle! Usually I do not have such luck.

Posted at 7:18 PM | Comments Off on Crape/crepe blooms

I didn’t get the oregano buds cut off, so they are blooming and trying to attract pollinators.

The fennel, on the other hand, has moved past the blooming stage, and is curing its seeds.

Posted at 6:28 PM | Comments Off on Urban edibles

Yes, a ginger blossom cluster…. I’m feeling the ginger, with a new, shorter haircut—shorter in my terms, not by salon standards.

Posted at 5:54 PM | Comments Off on Gingerly

The moon is big tonight (but not full), and my day was full(!!) of many things, some delightful, some housekeeping, plenty of laughter and fun, too.

As a kid, I called these plants, lost in a stand of orchard grasses, “tiny pine trees” to myself. I knew they weren’t pines, but don’t they resemble them?

I do not know what they “really” are, and I’m not looking them up now….

These are raspberries, mmmmm, kindly picked this morning and delivered to us as a hostess gift by our evening-guests. The berries made an outstanding dessert with this fine (commercial, boughten) vanilla ice cream (with almost no crap added). Add a ration of PAMA, and we are all smiling, happy not-campers.

Posted at 11:28 PM | Comments Off on Moon notes

This is the kind of plant I’d look up starting with sedges. I think of sedges as funky marshy-land grass-like denizens. Maybe these cotton-top, stiff-stemmed plants?

I found out the other day that there are kinds of insects known as sedges—a new one on me. I got this from a fly-tying book on what the insects and the fishing-flies that imitate them look like—not actually how to tie them.

Later, I checked the big world of the internet, and found out that bug-sedges are what I have heard called caddis flies. Their wings fold into an inverted V making a lengthwise ridge above their backs.

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments Off on More vocab