I saw this image on a Facebook page about gardening tips, and was heartsore for days. Not being able to get it out of my mind, I decided to share the image and message - lawn chemicals sprayed in the yard coat bugs that are food for birds and their young. Reconsider using chemicals to rid your lawn of messy "weeds" - you're inadvertently reducing bird populations, which keep bugs down. Is that perfect lawn worth the price?
Moths, butterflies and other insects rely on leafy plant material to complete their life cycles. Their larval stages, such as this woolly bear type of caterpillar of the giant leopard moth, need trees - please don't cut them down without a good reason.
This bristly little cherub was glistening with raindrops, showing off its little prolegs (little stumps in the central part of its body),
but it was only when I looked at the other side that the coloration helped determine the species. The reddish bands only show when its body is extended.
A delightfully understated native shrub, the American fly-honeysuckle, Lonicera canadensis has an exquisite scent. It attracts hummingbirds and butterflies - a long proboscis or beak helps in getting to the nectar.
I believe this is a false morel, but am not 100% sure since they're poorly known in N. America. I can't tell which of the Gyromitra/Discina species it is, but it seems to be related to the Giant's false morel or Snow mushroom. It might be Gyromitra amerigigas, or is it of the Hydrnotrya genus, related to the Gyromitras?
I can't help but admire the exquisitely unusual flowering structures of Skunk cabbages - they're fascinating!
The little yellow flowers cluster on a round spadix, which is enclosed in a protective spathe - quite magnificent! The odors it emits attract carrion-seeking flies and beetles, which do the job of pollinating its flowers.
This is how the entire plant presents; initially its large leaves are tightly coiled.
Red maple flowers breaking the water's surface create an amazingly beautiful effect:
I loved the shadowy spirals generated by their perturbations
I think the title of this post reflects just how strongly anti-Norway maple I am! A tad over the top, perhaps, but this little cornucopia of buds (in botanical terms, a corymb) is a prolific spreader that is intolerant of other trees and plants growing in its vicinity! It outcompetes natives for nutrients - such a selfish plant, not sharing resources and living graciously with others like natives do!
Look at this beautiful line of perfect leatherleaf (Chamaedaphne calyculata) blossoms, a thrilling spring sight indeed. It's an evergreen native that grows along shorelines and bogs. It can sometimes be referred to as cassandra.
I noticed some small, green, mossy-looking balls floating in the lake on my first paddle of the season, so brought them home to look at more closely. They looked pretty nondescript and I assumed they were either seeds that had dropped into the lake from an overhanging shrub, or might be algal balls.
I was curious when I heard the word 'strophe' used in a book I've been listening to recently (A Most Remarkable Creature by Jonathan Meiburg) as I'd never thought of it as a stand alone word before, only as a suffix, as in apostrophe and catastrophe.
I'd never considered the meaning of the word
on its own so I looked it up
- the word strophe
refers to
a stanza
or 'a turning',
"a group of verses that form
a distinct unit within a poem," (Britannica) or music.
And there is another word
made up of -strophe,
antistrophe,
which is to turn back.
Ooh, it was so much fun getting out in my kayak for the first time this year. This poor fella was slow enough to be netted and photographed - it's a musk turtle (Sternothaurus odoratus), also known as a stinkpot. He looked like an armored vehicle.
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| Photo: D Schultz |
On this special day, Earth day, it's important to consider ALL our living creatures, even those we cannot see. I'm talking about tardigrades, which are amazing microscopic creatures living in our soils, resilient enough to be able to survive radiation. They're micro-animals also known as water bears, though bears they are not. They're chubby little critters with telescoping legs that look as if they might have inspired sci-fi and fantasy monsters.
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| Popular Science Science Photo Library/Getty Images |
This 0.02 inch creature (about the size of the period at the end of this sentence) lives in mosses, lichens, as well as soil and leaf litter as a nutrient recycler. They can suspend their metabolism, so are not affected by extremes. I've never seen one, but there can be "as many as 300,000 per square metre" in soil, or "over 2 million per square metre" on mossy substrates! Wikipedia
We have to stop destroying them willy-nilly with our thoughtless land use upheaval practices - their capabilities to handle extremes may help us save our planet one day. They are already helping us learn how to counter the effects of radiation treatments. Though they are practically indestructible, they have one weakness - hot water, which can kill them.
On this Earth Day, resolve to give nature and all living things more than a passing thought on a regular basis.
The solution to yesterday's puzzle pic: droplets of squeezed lime juice that have my kitchen light reflected in them. I have to say, they looked like beautiful pearls on the indents in my glass juicer, so I thought I had to capture them. It's no wonder it takes me so long to prepare meals!
What a major contrast in 3 days!
From this gorgeously vibrant and colorful scene on April 9
I loved these lines from Nnedi Okorafor's "Death of the Author" a book of metafiction that was very intriguing, despite sci-fi not being my thing:
"Author, art and audience all adore one another. They create a tissue, a web, a network. No death is required for this form of life.
Creation flows both ways."
For gosh sakes! On April 10 we developed an icy crust on some parts of our cove before the sun spread some warmth. While it made for some beautiful, patterns, it wasn't appropriate for this time of year, in my opinion!
Woohoo, my first flower bud for 2025 ... a tiny bluet. At first I thought it might be an ice crystal
