Now, That Was Embarassing

I always hate those awkward moments, like yesterday, when we embarrassed someone changing their clothes. 

He/she made a mad dash for shady cover the minute we reached down behind them for the skin which they had left...almost, and which felt very oddly alive still! 

Watered-down

While we have had days of sun, we have had many days of rain. Thus, I have decided to post some digitally watered-down photos. 

Bachelor

Centaurea cyanus is also known as cornflower, basketflower, bluebottle, hurtsickcle and more commonly, perhaps, a bachelor button.   It is hard to understand how this was considered a weed that filled the fields and thus got the name cornflower, like a grain.  Then with agriculture growth and herbicides used to control weeds, it became endangered.   It can be found in only 3 sites in England where it used to be in over 250 areas.  Yet again, since it "sneaks" into grain seeds that are sent around the world, it is also known as an invasive weed or naturalized flower in other areas around the world!

In the United States they are popular in "grandma's garden."  The name bachelor button came about as bachelors wore them in their lapels when they were sweet on someone they wanted to date.  The longer the flower lasted, the stronger that the love was true love.  If the flower died fairly soon, than the bachelor had to find another true love.

The flowers are edible and look nice in salads.  They are also used in Lady Gray teas.  When picked, it should be in the early morning while still in bud and they will last longer in the flower arrangements.

My plant came out of a package of "wildflower" seeds that I scattered in a small bed.  I have only two little plants, but I do love that true blue color.  

Welcome to the Jungle

These are the weird and wild days. "Global warming?" the skeptics decry, "WTF?" This spring has been extensive in days that are very cool---temperature wise.  I am not complaining.  I understand that this is an example of global warming, folks.  Usually our springs last a week or two and then we are into hot and humid summer where birds and frogs can barely breath the thick air, much less sing or croak.  

The forest has become a jungle with trees growing inches each day and letting their heavy branches drape like green shawls almost to the ground.  Even the volunteer jack-in-the-pulpit which grows beneath the blackberry bushes has out grown them by inches already!  And it has "pupped."

 
This year I could be standing on some planescape in a more Northern clime watching gauzy mist and ethereal clouds rolling in across gray green planes of wet vegetation.  I feel like that wanderlust lass in a romance novel waiting for her lover's ship to come in.   Then as the fog or mist lifts, ever so rarely, there are jewels of flowers with over-washed faces and limp hair-dos wondering what happened to the sun. 

It seems unfair that such rain makes everything so rich in growth and yet so beaten down with water.   I am not complaining, because I do not look forward to hot and humid.  But being of the Mediterranean gene pool, I do like to see the sun once in a while!

 

 

Almost Missed These

Yes, it is a gorgeous and long spring this year. Thought I would share some newcomers to the world. Below are Wood Ducks in a nearby marsh. 

Stalking the Songbird

That sun, which has been hidden behind dark and stormy clouds for days and weeks, is given free reign today.  He is already changing the lime greens to emerald.  He is warming up the throats of birds.

I sat under my sugar maple (planted a few years ago) and played a recording of a Tanager because my husband had seen and heard one the day before.  I was very patient and actually feeling more comfortable in the shade than the bright sun.  I waited and listened.  I waited some more.  I watched my self-seeded larkspur stand tall and feathery in the flower bed and shine with its own quiet song.

My Centranthus - Jupiter's Beard, which I saw on the TV show Doc Martin covering all of their walls, does very well in my garden including transplants.  In a while I may see the humming birds visit it.  It will re-bloom lightly later in the summer if I cut it back. 

Still I replay one of the Summer Tanager's recordings and wait.  I take a photo of that prodigal sun through the perfect leaves of my sugar maple.  No bugs have come to eat holes through the green skin and wind has not torn the edges yet.

The trunk is riddled with necklaces of holes that were drilled by the sapsucker a few weeks ago.  But the tree provides perfect shade.

Nearby a vireo does acrobatics swinging from branches and eating insects in the red bud tree.  He even hangs upside down and then does a flip and lands on the edge of a lower branch just for fun!

Then out of the corner of my eye in the distant tulip tree I see movement.  It looks like a dark medium bird.  I grab my binoculars and smile.  It is the tanager trying to see who has invaded its territory.  I am patient more minutes as it darts into the green canopy of our woods and then I can hear him mimicking the song of my recording.  I wait some more and his mate who is not the brilliant red, but a more golden, green, red, joins him in their search for the singing interloper.  I hope they stay and have a nest somewhere.  I turn the recording off and just sit and rest under my tree.

No bird photos because I had only the small camera and I was so enjoying myself just sitting and hiding.  Spring!

Greens

This week I went on a road trip to look for paw paw trees.   Actually Husband was looking for the trees and I was looking for Virginia scenery. We had time to visit the home of James Monroe, our fifth president, and the last of the founding fathers to serve in the White House.   We were treated to a most interesting tour of his restored home, told about some new archeological findings and toured the grounds.  Below are some pictures to show you how wet and green our spring has been.  How many colors of green do you see?  Click on photos for a closer experience.

 

May Jewels

April showers bring the flowers that bloom in May. 
May showers beat the hell out of those flowers or...
bedeck the foliage with jewels...
if you are a glass half full person

Weather or Not

There is always some beauty in those huge ugly storms.  We have been spared the cloud shears and the impressive tornadoes.  But we have our share of dark skies being chased back by the sun at the end of the day.  This was yesterday's capture down by the osprey nest.  There was a double rainbow, but that might be hard to see in the photos.

Ring Out the Bells

 

My yard is filled with birdsong and bells ringing.

Iris Poem

 

The creeping rhizome is not your best feature

Perhaps the knife-like blades that are the first to pierce the air

Or, perhaps, the tall yoga poise saluting the sun that catches my eye 

Maybe it is your honey colored beard that is so nicely trimmed

Or the fragrant smell of fresh grapes which reminds one of wine

Certainly not the silky flags that you wave in the breeze

Like a spring fairy luring us into slumber?

Breathe, Just Breath

Today is the last big push day for a while.  I have tasks in the early morning--voting.  Mid-morning shopping for some food for a meeting tonight.   Mid-afternoon prepping for my math class and then prepping for a short talk I have to give in the evening at the meeting.  I have promised myself to keep the next two days open and free and careless, even if it kills me.  For you, my readers, some of the pretties that have raised their breathtaking heads in my yard because I know you have time to smell the flowers.

Clematis

Columbine variety

Iris

Cinquefoil

 

 

Aquilegia canadensis (columbine)

 

Half Full

Yes, everything ends for those in the world where the cup is half empty. 

 But in the spring the cup is always half full.

The Purples Have Started

These beauties self-seed across my garden, but they are lovely and easy to control. I have them in reds, blues, purples and pinks! (Columbine)

Daffy for Them

You know that lady that gets down on her knees in the damp muddy lawn in her pajamas with nary a brush through her bedhead hair?  Yep, that is me.  Please be forgiving.  At least I am drunk on something healthy...spring.  My daffodils are finally all over the place in my yard this year.  Below are just a few of these golden jewels that shine in the early morning sun.

Yes, my back deck is cluttered with various seedling flats, but those daffodils still take center stage.  They are a bit confused as I was trying to turn the pots so that they were more upright into the sun and clearly that have not a clue where the sun is!

Curtains

Trees are beginning to crochet their lacy curtains that will hide some of my magnificent sunsets.

Winging In

It is not even the middle of April and I have already come across these Lepidoptera visiting what few flowers are blooming.  I do not remember a spring when they have visited so early.  Is it because our winter was mild?  It is due to climate change?  It is because my yard has now grown into a good habitat?  There were two others, smaller and dancing in the air much faster, that I could not capture with my camera.

There was another Zebra Swallowtail that visited earlier and even went to the persimmon tree waiting for its blossoms.  The one above has one of the fuzziest coats of hairs and I wonder if these get shed as weather warms.

There are at least seven families of butterflies on the globe.  They have a life history that is most complicated as they reproduce on only certain plants, some use chastity belts for their female partners after they mate, some mate for HOURS(!).  Most have four life stages but one actually has the mother die when the young emerge from her abdomen.

These visitors were in pretty good shape.  I had taken a photo of an even earlier butterfly whose wings were so shredded I wondered how he/she could still fly.

Some lay eggs in batches and some singly.  Some eggs are attached with a special glue to the leaf of a specific plant and others have eggs that fall to the base of the plant.  Some eggs have a symbiotic relationship with ants that protect them.  And as most of us know the pupa stage can be the most fascinating.  That transition time when a caterpillar evolves into a winged beast.  The process involves hormones and various types of cells and is extremely complex, in my view.

The redbud, the daffodil and the apple tree all seem to be able to provide some sustenance for my visitors.  I guess spring has finally arrived.

Future Abundance

While the dogwoods will produce bright red berries in the fall for the birds

Other flowers such as these cherry blossoms will provide something for jams

And the daffodils need only show off during the month of April since our eyes are starved for beauty and we forgive them for doing their reproduction below the earth where we cannot see.

On the Green

According to science our rods and cones (those in our eyes, not the garage) see greens and greenish yellow the best even though we see thousands or perhaps millions of colors overall. It has been suggested that it is because of our need to eat greens as primates.  According to one website: "A "standard" eye can distinguish about 200 nuances per color. The human eye sees therefore approximately: 200 x 200 x 200 = 8.000.000 colors ! (Note that we are far from the billions of colors that some monitors or televisions are talking about)."  Scientists say that the eye has a more extended sensitivity towards greens than towards the other two primary colors red and blue, and perhaps, that's why digital cameras sensors have two green pixels for a red and a blue pixel when you look at it with a magnifier!

I think that green is a very peaceful and restorative color. When spring comes, all it takes is a glimpse of a lime green field of new growth or the green flags of spring leaves waving at us against the blue sky to restore us to a more peaceful mood.  

So I went outside to absorb some greens.

Sweet peas in the garden.

Hosta

Spring mosses

Just the Edges

Took the afternoon off yesterday and with camera in hand strolled around my front yard. Told myself to ignore the chickweed and other seeds in their emerging splendor and not feel guilty about not weeding. Forced myself to just look for some good photos representative of the peaceful day. The wind was starting to gust and so most of the photos were blurred, but the wind did not erase the color of spring, just the edges.