Musings

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 »

More evidence that autumn is flirting.

I was poking about on the wee old internet for more info on Foeniculum vulgare, as I’m relatively uninformed. It has a “diverse pharmacological spectrum,” and you can find extended rabbit-holes on that chemistry. Not really my thing.

In Spanish, fennel’s common name is hinojo. It’s even better in Italian: finocchio. However, neither is as excellent as Dutch: venkel. There; is that enough? I so enjoy linguistic diversity!

Posted at 8:47 PM | Comments Off on Fennel-izing

When I was a pre-literate tot and my dad identified these types of ’shrooms to me I heard “shell fungi.” It made sense to me because the tops looked rather like the Shell gas shells.

I felt let down when I found out they were really shelf fungi. Of course, that name makes sense, too.

Title from star-crossed Juliet who may never have seen such fungi by any name.

Posted at 9:19 PM | Comments Off on What’s in a name?

Last night, we had more rain, or more rain at once, than I noticed zzzzzz. Look at the line of detritus the water left behind. Not a wrack line, and neither flotsam nor jetsam. Just organic material without an ocean or tide.

BTW, that’s plastic not grass beneath the…Stuff.

Posted at 6:47 PM | Comments Off on Evidence

I think I’ve done this before in this “space”: my hypothesized taxonomy, this time for fungi.

The first would be “wet” fungi, and this would be “dry” fungi. Although it looks like there are a few “wet” fungi encroaching on the decorative, “dry” fungi.

Okay, hypothesis is muddy, and therefore: nope.

Posted at 9:05 PM | Comments Off on Observation “science”

Hoy: caliente y húmeda incluso antes de las 8 de la mañana.

And we’re getting the third overhead rain cell right NOW, for an extra boost of humidity! Oh, yay!

Posted at 7:12 PM | Comments Off on My life in Spanish

Almost everything that catches my eye when I’m out “taking my exercise” is what you’d expect…sidewalks and streets, traffic, parked vehicles, road signs, mailboxes, plants and lawns, dog-walkers, joggers, kid’s toys, puddles, organic matter that the rain last night downed, wandering cats, stray chipmunks, assorted flags—all that you’d expect in a neighborhood-with-a-small-business-area. Special today: garbage containers.

This I didn’t anticipate: juse…written in white paint on an industrial electrical conduit box. Still trying to decode “juse.”

Posted at 6:57 PM | 1 Comment »

I checked my fave weather app at 7am (ish) and it said to expect rain (and lightning) by 11am. I checked later, and it indicated not until 1pm. It was 11:20 by the time I hit the street and…looking up, hmm, weather-y, but not so bad. Then, a few drops. I wisely had stayed close enough to the house that I looped myself in the back door and acquired a big umbrella, thanks to a hand-off from the Guru.

Twenty minutes later, I figured I was in the clear, but within two more minutes, the drizzle was kicking in. Mr. Personal-Putting-Green (see entry perhaps a month ago) had his flag out. In the rain. Got my blood pressure up. I took a photo and kept going.

Of course, by the time I was in the final stretch the weather had clinched the deal and I was super-glad I had the umbrella. Or my walk would have been gloobered up. (See Kayakwoman for this vocabulary.)

Posted at 7:41 PM | Comments Off on In which I became glooberificated

Growing up a few miles from Oldsmobile central, and several counties away from Ford central (and others), car talk, uncapitalized, was almost as frequent a topic as the weather. I remember hearing four-door and two-door much more commonly than their equivalents, sedan and coupe. The latter sound waaaay too “uptown” and worldly for my neighborhood.

This lot used to be full of shade-making vegetation. I miss it. If the doors are from the house or the pool-house, why are they on the sidewalk?

Posted at 9:06 PM | Comments Off on Four-door

Bench for the tired. Or tired bench.

Legal limit. Boundary issue.

A rose is a rose….

Posted at 6:32 PM | 3 Comments »