Big Lake Excursion, Day 2

Such a hot day! The scheduled plant paddle by the Lake Stewards of Maine had a good community turnout, but the extreme heat forced us to adapt the program - we all got off the water at 11 am, and canceled all on-the-water surveying for the rest of the day, as we were melting in our kayaks! Standing around talking to people was taxing and required extra sun protection!

We enjoyed admiring this 'ballsy' tree (burls, actually) on our way to the community hall,

where we assembled to categorize and identify some of the plants we'd collected during our plant paddle.

We used the afternoon to plan our logistics and strategies for the following day (it was nice and cool with A/C), and we also teased out some plant samples (all the milfoils) left over from the morning's event.

Then, oh joy! We swam in the lake, reveling in the delicious feeling of having heat sucked from our overheated bodies.

We had a full program planned for the following day after a sticky night in a sun-baked bedroom ...

Big Lake Excursion, Day 1

Our first day on Big Lake was hot, and visibility was very, very poor as you can see from these photos - a floating midden of mayfly exoskeletons combined with swirling pollen grains coated the water's surface. These are not decaying fleshy bodies, so there was no odor.

It was quite a beautiful patterned effect,

and created an amazing textured surface that looked like a Monet! 

Dale had the best viewing of all of us since he was snorkeling (black shape protruding from the water) and didn't have to deal with the surface 'skin' of discarded insect sheaths.

 

Taking a break on the pontoon, with our patient captain and his assistant. They were the support crew who ferried us and our kayaks to remote locations so we could put more time and effort into surveying for invasives. It made a huge difference.

The wild expanses here are breathtaking - so much unspoiled shoreline, with tons of interesting plants and habitats, and very few boats to disturb the tranquility.

I love the patterns the floating, ribbony leaves of Sparganium fluctuans (floating bur-reed) make on the water's surface - different and intriguing every time.

They were flowering for us, too!

Shattering Heat

What a dramatic sight greeted us on our arrival home from Big Lake ... one of our interior, double paned glass "walls" had shattered in place whilst we were away!

It was bulging outwards into our sunroom, but the internal pane was still intact!

We can only presume it couldn't take the extreme heat - the heat index was between 100 and 110°F according to records for the area.

It took 2.5 hours to prep the area, break the glass, and clear it all up - it was quite a procedure as it broke outwards onto our enclosed sunroom which has open wood slats so glass had fallen through into the basement below.

Despite the inconvenience and energy it sucked up, the effect of shattered glass was quite beautiful, really.

Big and Beautiful

Wow, Big Lake in Washington county, Maine, you are B I G and beautiful!

We spent 5 days around its shore to help monitor the extent of invasive variable milfoil and we got to enrich our own outdoor experience at the same time. Isn't this exquisite?

Such gorgeous big skies!

Big Lake, big sky

The peacefulness is unmatched

Moth Admiration

I was quite taken by this beautifully patterned moth whilst clearing up after a cocktail party, during which I lost my less-than-a-week-old temporary crown!

Unlike other moths, this one kept still for me.

I love the swirls on its wings.

Oaks and Galls

I found this incredibly bright looking growth on an oak leaf in my yard in May and was very curious about what made it turn this color. I suspected aphids, since the underside had this white furry look to it.

One of the leaves had what looked like a mealybug nearby, which feed on plant juices.

I finally got help from our very helpful State Horticulturist, Gary Fish, and his colleagues, who agreed that it was likely to be a kind of gall that is not harmful to the tree. It is similar to Erineum (https://bygl.osu.edu/node/751)

June Mayflies

Mayflies in June? I guess that's allowed - the Wikipedia page states that mayflies emerge "from spring to autumn, not necessarily in May, in enormous numbers." This little critter caught my eye whilst taking laundry off the line because of its bulging yellow eyes - they were ... eye-catching.

The way it arches its body, and the protuberances of its eyes, wings and legs (not to mention the 20 mph winds), made it very difficult to get all parts of the body in focus, so I had to make many attempts at capturing it.

This is called a sub-imago stage - it still needs an additional molt until it reaches adulthood (the only insect that molts after sprouting wings).

It's hard to see the mayfly 'give-away' feature - its 2 threadlike tails (cerci) at the end of its abdomen. They appear faintly as a blur in this last pic.

They occur across eastern North America.

Being Ready to See

“The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend”

 — Henri Bergson, French philosopher

I found an imperfection in the glass of this window, which gives the plant beyond a strange form.

Patterns and Textures

Patterns and textures of the English countryside

Pollen Mantle

 

Pollen daubs the shore

Coating tree stumps, plants and rocks

Leaving a scum line

An Almost Disastrous Day

Why do some days seem disastrous, near disasters, and others seem totally uneventful, mild even? Last week I heard and watched a dead tree fall into the water where I had been in my kayak not five minutes before! That sure as heck felt like a close shave.

Then, once home, I couldn't find my wallet after my solo kayak excursion, and searched for almost 2 hours, both in and around the house, as well as driving back to my kayak launching spot and combing the area, to no avail. There was absolutely no sign of it having dropped out at the beach, and I had walked the beach path twice after exiting the lake anyway, so it couldn't have been there. So, was it time to cancel credit cards before someone else found it, and begin reapplying for a driver's license?

I recalled pulling my wallet from my pocketbook before I set off that morning, but I had no memory of it after that. I got so tired of searching through the same locations over and over again without any luck, as I retraced my steps through the house, scouring the same spots as if I might suddenly find it, that I was really beginning to lose my cool. I'd NEVER misplaced a wallet before, so didn't know what to do! So I finally decided to start on one side of the house and work my way around it systematically, from right to left, whether I recalled having been there or not that morning. I came across it sitting innocently on my sideboard, next to the fruit bowl where I'd placed it when I removed a banana from the bunch to take with me. I took the banana but not my wallet. Argh! It was 2 hours of perplexing worry.

Then at dinnertime, I managed to spill a crock of sauerkraut all over the table in a disastrous carambolage of spills - what a smelly mess it made! The towels I used to wipe it up stank out the laundry room with a smell of methane until I got round to washing them.

Oh, and that wasn't the end of the day - I was soaking my fingernails in a bowl of warm water while I watched TV to try and relieve the discomfort from a sliver up my nail, when I nodded off and spilt water all over myself. It was a shocking way to wake up, that's for sure!

Honestly! How can so many near-disasters happen in one day?

A Solemn Reminder, June 19

It took 135 years for the U.S. to acknowledge and recognize a SECOND day of Independence for some people in our country, who became independent (emancipated, freed) citizens a full 100 years after the rest!

Let's not go backwards ...

Spider Mystery

These spidery remains were floating on the surface of the water, making the creature look a lot more scary than a live one! I suspect its body has been opened up and folded open, making it look a lot longer.

Here is what a live one looks like - the amazing dimples each leg makes was a joy to see. I was impressed at how beautifully these surface perturbations were captured by my phone.

New Oak

This beautifully dangling inflorescence is a shrub oak (Quercus ilicifolia), which I think would make the most amazingly delicate and elegant earrings, made in silver of course!

This shrub is also known as bear oak, as it seems that only bears will eat its bitter acorns.

Its leaves are pretty oak-y, it grows to the height of a shrub, not a tree, usually in disturbed sites. This one was growing along the road edge.

Spring Bells

Virginia bluebells

Emerge from pleated pink buds

Carillon of bells

Breakfast at Dale's

Okay, so it's not Tiffany's, but where else can you get 2 red squirrels dining with you? So touching ...

We missed these sweet visitors while we were away, though a kind neighbor came to feed them regularly.  We've only had one at a time since we returned.