What a yummy lunch I was fortunate in having at home today. Too much fruit, maybe, but there's nothing artificial or processed here - it's all roughage, and no artificial sugar either. No wonder I'm overweight - I put too much on my plate, healthy food or not!
Look at the beautiful soft fuzz on these hazelnuts - they're growing so well in my woods this year. These are the beaked hazelnuts we spotted blooming earlier in the spring.
I wasn't quite sure what these hatchlings were, on the underside of my beaked hazelnut. Google lens pegged them as aphids, but closer delving steered us to the spined soldier bug, a kind of stink bug. There appear to be eggs, little round ladybug-like creatures, and spidery looking creatures as well, each being a different stage of development.
I love being a nature sleuth-nerd - it's so satisfying!
The potent quote that Sadiqua Johnson has included at the beginning of her book "The Yellow Wife" underscores her story perfectly - it hovered in my mind throughout the unfolding of events. To me, it succinctly encapsulated the thread of her novel, and resounded constantly and powerfully as I read.
The narrative is commanding, intense and tragic. It's difficult to read about the nitty gritty of man's inhumanity to man, but shockingly, is a necessary evil in order to KNOW and feel what is right, lest we forget and become blasé. I felt pretty raw after reading it, but highly recommend it for its grounding and humbling experience.
This brilliantly colored yellow 'bloom' appeared overnight on a decomposing tree stump in my yard, catching my eye with its bold appearance. It used to be known as a slime mold, but it's now considered to be a ... plastid (not a fungus, plant, animal or bacteria), which consumes fungi and bacteria. Intriguing.
This particular plastid is called Fuligo septica (ergh! shudder) and has a worldwide distribution. Interestingly, the common names from different cultures all seem to describe it as something icky:
dog vomit slime mold
scrambled egg slime
witch's butter (Dutch, heksenboter)
witch's spit (Latvian)
vomit of troll cats (Scandinavian)
When you look at it up close, it also looks a bit like yellow cauliflower, which I think is much more complimentary! Also, the French botanist who first discovered it in 1727 referred to it as 'fleur de tan' which is basically 'flower of the bark' which is much more respectful!
Believe it or not, these organisms tend to 'move' in an amoeba-like fashion (about a millimeter per hour) as they gravitate towards more microorganisms they can break down.
This is how it looked the next day:
I found the interesting info about it on these pages
These incredibly bold blotches on a red maple leaf turned me into a sleuth - what were they? What had made them? They look like eyes staring at me!
I had the good fortune to have front row seats to a pair of mallards coupling in the water, as I lay in my hammock last week. It was a hot, steamy day, and any movement, even sitting on the lawn weeding, seemed to bring on a sweat! I decided to lie in my cool new hammock in the shade instead, listening to an audiobook. I felt completely enclosed in a cocoon of green (trees and fabric), and decided to peep out over the side when I heard a lonesome 'quack.'
A male, with his deep green iridescent head, and a female, were swimming towards each other, as if at a pre-arranged time and location - in front of me! She lowered her head, elongating her neck just along the surface of the water, in a very suggestive pose (for a mallard, I guess). He knew exactly how to respond, stretching his neck out in the same way. She was still, almost as if stalking something, when he climbed onto her back and waggled his tail back and forth a few times. I think her lowering her head and extending her neck stretched her body out and down to an easy height for him to mount. It wasn't ungainly at all, and it didn't look as if he was trying to drown her either!
They swam off together into the shade on the other side of the cove. The male got out and rested on the earth bank while the female continued swimming and foraging in the water. They stayed together for quite some time, as a couple relaxing together.
A few days later, we watched a mallard pair waddle like stiff wooden floats up our lawn, surveying 'their' domain, when a mother duck came onto the scene with her 7 ducklings. The male and female stopped moving, watching and waiting while the family did their exploration, unchallenged. The male had gone down low into the grass, resting on his body, while the female stood upright, her legs visible, but still. They only moved again when the mom and her babies had returned to the water's edge. I imagined it was a little like the "women and children first," code of conduct.
I like the look of this leaf - a bigtoothed aspen - so thought I'd share it. The frilly edges and light glowing through it attracted me to it. The Latin name is Populus grandidentata, but its common names are many and varied:
American Aspen
According to Wikipedia, the tree only begins making seeds for reproduction when it's about 10 years old, and then the seeds are only viable for approximately 2 weeks. To make up for these shortcomings, the tree produces huge numbers of seeds (over 1 million) in a season.
Oh dear! My heels! They've been getting more and more exposure to the earth and sun lately, without socks, and have started getting velcro-y. I notice it when I pull my polyester gym pants off at the end of the day - they hook and scrape on my heels making it sound and feel as if I'm undoing a velcro closing. (shiver ... maybe it's not too discreet or genteel to talk about these bodily things that we all try to hide, but I say "let's get real"!)
I was starting off on a short walk around the block, when I noticed this dragonfly attached to my wild columbine. It was so intent on what it was doing that I was able to get up really close for these photos. It was fascinating to see this level of concentration and focus.
It had disappeared by the time I returned from my walk.
I was very excited to have the opportunity of watching our resident muskrat bring vegetation to its nest in our cove from a close vantage point. I have a glider bench reasonably close to the water's edge, and the pair have been swimming back and forth from there, diving right under the twigs and branches collected previously by a beaver.
I was intrigued to see that it also gathered floating milfoil fragments that were near the nest, and took them inside, too. I had previously only watched it harvest grass from my shoreline.
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That brown 'log' is a muskrat with milfoil in front of its mouth |
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| The dark brown blob with coarse hair and tail laying on the leaves is a muskrat |
There's always something new to discover, I've found, when you sit down quietly and spend time BEING. I was able to notice a small, mostly white caterpillar in the grass today, and though it seemed intent to keep moving, I was able to take a few photos. It wasn't in my field guide (😒), but Google lens was able to help narrow it down. It's a caterpillar of the Canadian owlet moth (Calyptra canadensis), which feeds exclusively on meadow rues, which I have in my NATIVE yard (Yay, me, I have loads of those!).
Frothy, fluffy wafts
Of floating cottonwood seeds
A coating of 'snow'!
Accumulating
Like a fungal growth 'round plants
Incredibly soft.
Blue heron struts by
Regal and graceful hunter
Cruising the shoreline.
Muskrat comes to shore
Harvests grass to line its nest
Swims off, greens aloft.
Eerie shrieks, high pitched
Incessant, make my skin crawl
Broad winged hawks mating.
Aquilegia canadensis, an exquisite native beauty, seen here coated with cottonwood fluff
Tiarella cordifolia is an amazing native: it grows easily and spreads voluntarily, creating a fantastic, full display of tiny, foamy fireworks.
