Musings

Previous summers I have had multiple opportunites to take foggy morning photos. This year I suspect it’s been just too darned dry for the fog to form. So, I was excited this morning to see the fog thicken as the sun rose, and went to to capture images. Since I now have a clear path from my activities with The Beast, I headed out into the field for a different perspective than I usually get from near the cottage. After this shot, and a few more steps, I scared up a sleeping deer, which huffed-snorted at me for the indignity.

Also, the day stayed cool longer in the morning, which made my almost-an-hour with The Beast easier to endure. Still humid, though….

Posted at 8:46 PM | Comments Off on Morn adventure

Golden-lit potentilla.

My morning fun…exercising The Beast.

The Beast…waiting.

Last summer, we bought The Beast to frustrate, and hopefully to ultimately remove, an invasive grass that has very strong stems and out-competes the “normal” pasture grasses. Of course, this is no longer a pasture, nor doesn’t anyone hay it, or otherwise manage it for agriculture. Just. Too. Much. Effort. [Yes, more than operating the beast on hot, humid, hazy days. Long story.]

Posted at 8:45 PM | Comments Off on Finished before noon

This is what I think of as the standard, even ubiquitous milkweed leaf shape on this property.

Lately, I’ve noticed that a minority have this narrower leaf shape. Without a doubt still a milkweed….

I haven’t seen enough monarch action to see if they notice a difference.

After poking around in details online, I think the first one may be Asclepias syriaca, and the second Asclepias meadii, but that’s an off-the-cuff assessment.

And I thought a milkweed is just a milkweed. My ignorance.

Yeah, I know the light is totally different. The colors of the two are slightly different, with the broader leaf plants “greener,” and the narrower leaved ones, slightly more blue-green. IMHO

Posted at 9:28 PM | Comments Off on Morphology mystery

We did a wee bit of time travelling this evening and watched “Yellow Submarine.” I’m sure I never saw it before. Great music; I sang along with all the songs!

Posted at 7:16 PM | Comments Off on Rainy day

This yesterday-photo better illustrates the lake level than one from today would. Today has been breezy and variable, with 8-inch rain—as in drops eight inches apart…meaning enough to note but not enough to make any difference to the vegetation or even a measuring device. Note that there is beach, or enough sand exposed to be called beach, for the first time in, what?, two decades or more? I forget.

In my youth (yes…), the beach at the point (this view; this point) was sometimes twenty feet wide. You might be thinking “climate change” and that probably is not wrong, but more, it is the result of the lake outflow being far more heavily restricted, which has the effect of raising the lake levels. For years, it has been much higher, like on the order or two feet, than in the past. This means increased erosion, among other things.

Our lake is shallow, historically usually less than eight-to-ten feet across much of the basin (which is on the order of three by six miles), so people with their big speed boats, that is: MUCH bigger than the rowboats that we used to use, have been much happier with the greater depth, while…blah blah blah. I’m for the historic levels, but I’m probably in the minority of landowners with lakefront property.

Posted at 8:33 PM | Comments Off on Rant about water, various

Ya leave for two nights and the critters and varmints and infestations set in. Aphids are sucking the juices out of (a minority, I admit) the lupines. Arrgh; it’s tough to be a human molding the world. [Hello, Anthropocene.]

Posted at 8:43 PM | Comments Off on Just that fast

Saw lots of green growing plants outside the car windows today, row crops to forests, with several kettle moraines for good measure. Here’s a yucca from the garden we ended up in.

Posted at 11:07 PM | Comments Off on Ate too much Chinese food

I’m still enjoying the lupine lusciousness in the orchard…and I’m “sharing” it with you.

Posted at 8:58 PM | Comments Off on Apologies for the repeats

I know of Impressionist paintings. This looks like an Impressionist photo…same vibe anyway.

Posted at 8:32 PM | Comments Off on Not my field…oops, my field

Chives! And blooming! So…delicate. And once snipped, they are a great contribution to salads…veggie sides…chili…and so many more dishes.

Rhubarb! I transplanted these two autumns ago, and the collective wisdom of the internet indicated that I should wait two years before picking. It is time! And these are exceptionally fine stalks…time to pick a new batch…cautiously, so as not to over-harvest. [Restraint!]

In product-to-come news, these are “wild”flowers from a gift seed packet from the baby shower last month…day three since first observed germination…. Not edible, but beauty and aesthetics are also important…. [The sand grains look huge!]

Posted at 10:19 PM | Comments Off on Growth curves