Friday, 13 August 2021
One (or more!) people at this house is seriously into gardening, with this and a large planting of white ginger flowering now. They smell lovely, and the scent cuts through the humidity.
In the UP, we were awash in the scent of blooming milkweeds. Too many, IMHO, as there were few monarchs feeding on the thousands of plants on our property. Thousands.
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.
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.
Tuesday, 27 July 2021
Bright this morning, but hazier as the day went on. I couldn’t tell if it was a “normal” weather pattern or the smoke.
Friday, 23 July 2021
Overnight rain. This honeysuckle (probably non-native) is already fruiting.
Another view of the odd skies the smoke is producing. More rain expected after midnight.
Thursday, 22 July 2021
The story here: I spotted many “black”birds congregated in the top branches of this dead elm. But. I took so long fumbling with the phone to get the camera on and pointed, that many flew off to the left. Another time.
Here I attempted to capture the visual contrast of the darkness under the trees, and the light in the distance in an open meadow(?). I like that dark under zone, which really isn’t well illustrated here.
Update: The haze I reported on Monday is Rocky Mountain fire smoke, even though I couldn’t smell smoke (too high? too dissipated?). It was even hazier today. Still no smoke smell.