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.
Thursday, 5 August 2021
We continued our haze survey in Tennessee. Have I made it clear (haha) that the haze is smoke from the northwestern US and Cali fires?
And into Georgia. Haze continues, with clouds. And humidity. The normal humidity, seems to me. But heavy traffic on I-75, including many semis…we mused that this suggests a busy national economy. Mere speculation, however.
Wednesday, 4 August 2021
Our morning air began with haze and pre-sun-fog, then the sun burned off the fog and we were left with…
…haze, giving a strange quality to the bridge crossing despite the Great Lakes breezes.
Still hazy into the nothern Lower…my, how green the plants are…it has not been a dry summer. Dry here and there in the spring, but not in the summer. [So far.]
Finally, pretty darned clear in northern Ohio. Good old flat northern Ohio.
And southern Ohio…the red sun is from the haze, and we can see some in the oblique, low-angle rays. Yet, it seems far clearer than in the Upper Peninsula.
Wonder what we’ll see tomorrow as we continue south….
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.
Monday, 2 August 2021
I’ve been waiting for one of these misty mornings, when all is still and it seems like I am looking at another version of this world. I keep thinking that the air is different, perhaps holding more secrets.
I had been thinking about cutting this dead branch, but, now, how can I? It is such a fine place for the spiders to catch meals.
Sunday, 1 August 2021
Our fine socially active day included a lovely beach- and fire-side evening with lots of laughs and even a yellow-blooming plant identification (I’ve already forgotten the name—oops!). Bonus, we saw this sunset glow on our walk back to our place.
Saturday, 31 July 2021
Long before the present owners bought the place, this was the driveway to Hope’s cottage. It was white inside and out, with a long south-facing porch, and there was a closet in the back that had many puzzles we were allowed to select from on rainy days. The living room had a shelf with all the Wizard of Oz books in hardback, each with a different color cover; I was quite surprised later to find out that most people didn’t know there was more than one Oz book—the one I liked best was pale lilac…yes, I liked it for the special color rather than the contents. Anyway, much of the interior had beadboard for paneling, and it was the first building I remember noticing it. Hope taught me to make potato salad in the kitchen. One potato and one hard boiled egg per person, and one of each “for the pot.” Still a good ratio. Hope’s husband was in a wheelchair from mid-life (polio? dunno), and she needed to support the family, so she began a diaper cleaning service called what sounded to me like Di-Dee Wash that catered to households in the wealthier suburbs of Detroit. She did very well. Hope was a friend of my grandmother’s from college days, and that’s why she had the cottage on the hill and across the road from my grandparents’ property. I recall hearing that part of the original building had been a chicken house, thoroughly cleaned and moved and painted to become part of the meandering layout of the cottage.
Friday, 30 July 2021
I never heard of “the twisties,” a term commonly used by gymnasts and in the news after Simone Biles used it. She meant that despite all her practice and experience, her brain no longer knew where she was in space as she did a vault or other maneuver. The potential penalty for a gymnast can be serious injury; SB managed to land safely, thankfully. The twisties are difficult to banish, to overcome, and to conquer. As Emily Giambalvo put it in a WaPo story, “Simone Biles said she got the ‘twisties.’ Gymnasts immediately understood” (28 July)
And after experiencing the twisties once, it’s very difficult to forget. Instinct gets replaced by thought. Thought quickly leads to worry. Worry is difficult to escape.
I’m wondering if it has a faint relationship to when I mistype a (common) word, and my fingers/brain repeat this error until I super concentrate and somehow return once again to the correct letter order.
Or perhaps more likely, this finger-blip is nothing like the twisties.