Musings

Not to scale

Bean blossom

Are you into beans? Or…

Pea blossom

Peas?

Love the pink cast to the bean-blossom and the unexpected whiteness of the pea-bloom. I am a simple person. Or maybe I have simple aesthetics?

Mouth of the Manistique

Manistique light

Square steel lighthouse…built in 1915, automated in 1968 (if I remember correctly). Seagulls love it.

Bladder campion

And on the dunes on the way back, we saw these bladder campion blooms, incongruous on their skinny stems.

Marking the day

Apple tree dawn

I came downstairs to yawn and make coffee pretty early in city terms, but not at all early by northern summer country standards. I looked out into the orchard and the light was diffuse awaiting the sun. Then, poof, direct light came over the woods and lit the trees and grasses. Here’s a view through one of my favorite apple trees….

Vetch trio

In mid-afternoon I found this vetch climbing up the brome to get to the level of the elevated seed-heads. These flutter-bye are loving the blooms—a bunch had already departed in front of my fumbled camera, so these are the tolerant ones.

Fading specimens

Extinct bicycle hospital

Sign spotted in random post-boughten-breakfast stroll: Wallace Morley Bicycle Hospital. Charming.

Fading peony

Our peonies are fast-fading; I had hoped we’d catch them closer to their prime. A somethingorother butterfly adds aesthetics. However, the peonies down by the Stone House are perfect and gigantic. Latitudinal variation? 😉

The pulse of this land

Rest stop rhodo

I flapped my mouth about the season for rhododendron blooms, and, it turns, out, I was a bit off. We did find some rhodos abloom…at a rest area.

Removed landslide

Here’s where a recent landslide-that-became-a-road-block has been removed. The cement barriers along the pavement remain…maybe the job’s not quite finished.

Sun buffet

We caught the Sun Buffet in the process of becoming the Dusk Buffet….

Marking time

Orchard dusk dandies

Where were you a month ago?

I was elated at arriving Up North. The orchard-grass had no seed-heads and the dandelions had already reached the pouf stage, while the apple trees were finishing their blooming.

Friday mumble

Coneflower bumblebee

Commuter today means someone who commutes usually toward downtown from less-downtown, regularly, for economic reasons, usually employment. That is a slight change from its original meaning, which referred to someone who went back and forth (that part’s the same), and so bought a pass—multiple tickets for a reduced price. The commuting referred to a reduction in the per-ride price from buying multiple tickets up front—the combined payment was the “mut” part….

This may not make any sense. Commune with the bumblebee and it may become clear.

Rarities

Temp high 60s

These rarities are situational. Temps in the 60s, even the high 60s are unusual these days. Sooooo glad to have it to walk this morning. Temps will rise into the 90s the rest of the week (summer?), so overnight likely won’t get this cool again for a while.

Parsley umbel

When parsley blooms, this is what it looks like. Pretty, no? Usually it’s picked before this stage, or most of us don’t even bother to grow it, as it bolts so quickly.

What’s your choice?

Fern night
Caladium leaf detail

Flash or backlit? Fern or caladium?

Which tickles your stomata? [It’s theoretical; I do know that you don’t have them.]

Of shoots

Nascent bamboo forest

The panda house…workers cleared the yard of bamboo a month ago (we assume a new owner or hopes of a sale—but no for-sale sign), and festooned the slope with pine straw. I wondered. They did not remove the roots, and the bamboo flourishes.

Fennel flower

And the fennel by the front stoop is blooming.