Musings

I remember that when our mayor established Covid-restrictions for the city that playgrounds were closed. And this one indeed had something like crime scene tape around it, around the legs of the swing set and the like. No sign of that now. And attendance has soared.

Burgundy tinted fuchsia. If you squint, it looks almost velvety. I do not know what this flower is, although I assume its seeds and genes have been wrenched from far away, perhaps from a tropical source. A hypothesis, anyway. [I admit: title doesn’t fit this photo.]

Posted at 9:27 PM | Comments Off on Beware

Over the last few days we’ve south-shifted our latitude, driving mile after mile, leaving winter-is-pending. This means we’ve moved back to late summer.

And the evidence suggests it’s been a bit rainy. Fungi loves a bit of moisture. And some warmth…saw a prediction of 81°F high today On My New Watch. From Wea-Channel data/sponsor.

That’s a big change from frost on the pumpkins, roof, grass, and possibly deer napping overnight curled up in the orchard at our previous latitude. High of 75°F predicted for tomorrow…guess I should walk earlier rather than later, no?…for more temperate exercise conditions.

Posted at 8:53 PM | Comments Off on Mushroom mountain-ettes

Among non-traditional/atypical/unexpected plant morphologies, I present Brussels sprout trees. Go brassicas!

Posted at 6:09 PM | Comments Off on Otherworldly

Early on, we had sun and plenty of blue in the skies. [I had hope.]

Not for long.

Indeed, when I walked mid-day, I experienced wan sunshine, constant wind, a few droplets now and then—constant changeup. In a further mystery, I had wind in my face going west and going north…pleasant (relatively speaking) that the return leg was southbound.

First photo: normal lens; second: wide (aka very wide).

Posted at 6:14 PM | Comments Off on Leaf color lovely, despite weather

Today was all over the place, in weather and in activities.

Taking advantage of the morning’s relative wonderfulness, I knocked back some of the weeds/grass encroaching on the rhubarb (red stem; has mostly died back for the winter), and in the process discovered many small hollyhocks…that didn’t flower. I can’t remember, but this may be it for these…hopefully there are more seeds in the soil. These plants have been nurtured first by my great-grandmother, then my father, then my cousin, then my neighbor. I’m the one who is doing a poor job of keeping them going….

Perhaps, given my track record, I shouldn’t be undertaking this experiment. We have feral mint all over the place, but it isn’t the mint I like (spearmint, I think). I took two small sprigs off a plant in someone’s yard in ATL, then brought them up here without smashing the life out of them in transit. Then, neighbor mentioned above kept them while we were between visits (got them to root, then potted them—she’s a sweetheart!), and got them large and healthy. Finally, they are in the ground. The tops’ll die back over the winter, and hopefully re-sprout come spring warmth. Fingers crossed. Mint is pretty darned hardy.

In the afternoon, came the rain. Rain on the new-planted mint!

We made a brief escape during the worst of the rain, and picked up the weekly paper (comes out Wednesdays), then drove the driving tour at the Refuge as the rain quit. Saw swans, geese, ducks, perhaps grebes, not sure about loons. And colorful leaves. And gorgeous skies.

Posted at 6:07 PM | Comments Off on It was a day!

Another super-variable day (gauged by the weather). Began rather clear. Love the water-barrel view of the pending dawn.

Midday, I walked the swamp. The clouds look more threatening than they were.

And later, lots of blue. This view is up the trunk of a maple, showing the still green interior leaves, with a hint of the coating colors on the exterior.

I found this a disjointed day, feeling mostly either like a Friday or a Sunday, although it did feel like a Saturday for a bit, too.

Posted at 9:18 PM | Comments Off on Sky watch

Walking around the orchard these days, there’s an uneven chorus of dull, rather quiet thuds. Apples falling.

I don’t remember Dad telling me about this tree, but since the deer are avoiding the drops, I’m guessing this is a pollinator—so: for the pollen and not the apples. I guess the pollinator trees are somewhat like the drones in an ant colony. Somewhat.

There’s a poetically named Lake of the Clouds west of here; this is Lake under the Clouds. There wasn’t much sunshine today, but we had constant cloud-cover (shown here), and even some rain.

Posted at 10:02 PM | Comments Off on Nearby

Today’s photo tour of my day begins with these tracks, fresh-made as it rained into the wee hours. There are a couple of shoe-wearing horse-tracks in the lower left, and continuing across. But the rest are deer. I cannot come up with a scenario in which the long drag “prints” were created.

Also on my walk, a slight detour onto a bridge, perhaps installed by a fisher-person or birdwatcher, that crosses the ditch in the swamp. I learned about duckweed when I had Biology I in HS, back in the Middle Ages. It’s the floating green.

Kinda looks like funky soybeans in this shot. One leaf per plant, I just read.

Much later, I walked down to the lake…. Offshore breeze today (after days and nights on onshore winds). That means we have a beach! Water’s still way too high, though, IMHO.

Quick stop to check out the low-ground plants on the bluff-top. Sphagnum moss. Always thought “sphagnum” was lovely to hear, almost melodic, and no fun to spell.

Posted at 5:43 PM | 2 Comments »

Wishing to give the new fitness device (misleadingly called a watch, which is accurate in that it does tell time, yet has a fuzziness similar to a smartphone—which is far more smart than phone) a tryout, I got out pretty darned early, and paced myself, ending up with a mostly sunny three miles. One darned gorgeous fencerow maple.

And a tree skeleton—an elm, I’m guessing. Rain most of the overnight hours, hence intermittent puddles and mud.

I worked very hard to turn this into moose tracks, but the overwhelming evidence of an adjacent cattle pasture and a vague recollection that moose tracks look like giant deer tracks, and thus are much narrower…forced me to accept the domestic nature of this evidence.

Although clouds were coming in, we went over to the refuge to drive the loop. We did see a few ducks, geese, and swans at a distance, but this dirty great blue heron (?) was the most interesting specimen we spotted. A quiet day for critters.

Dramatic maroon leaves on this small tree.

And the autumn mushrooms are about…or at least they strike me as a different assortment of species from the springtime crop. Or my dataset is skewed and, most likely of all, my observations are based on ignorance.

Posted at 5:03 PM | Comments Off on Fall colors, shapes

I’ve worried about her health for years. Goodbye, Ruth.

Posted at 8:28 PM | 1 Comment »