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Solstice and a beetle
Jun. 22nd, 2014 08:49 amSummer solstice came at the end of a long, busy week for me, and I barely had a chance to mark it. The morning after -- this morning, quite early -- I was awakened by a semi-regular clicking coming from the floor around the dog crate. I dragged myself over, moved the crate, and confirmed what I had suspected: an Elateridae or "click" beetle. (Maybe Sylvanelater cylindriformis?) These tiny fellows can snap their bodies between the abdomen and thorax, which enables them to flip up or right themselves when they're turned upside down. In this case, he was stuck between the carpet and the plastic tray of the dog crate, so his "click" was even louder. Amazing, the creatures you can discover right in your own house.
I went back to sleep for awhile, and when I woke again, the sun was higher, the sky a hazy light blue with a few small white clouds scattered across the north. A hawk was circling in my view. Very hot, very alive. Very summer.
I went back to sleep for awhile, and when I woke again, the sun was higher, the sky a hazy light blue with a few small white clouds scattered across the north. A hawk was circling in my view. Very hot, very alive. Very summer.
Summer solstice
Jun. 30th, 2013 12:02 amA bit late, but merry Solstice! I went to the river to watch the sunset and as well as having a few lovely moments with the sky and water, I discovered buttonbush (Cephalanthus occidentalis), which has really interesting spherical clusters of blooms.
( Sunset under the cut )
It was even before that day that I picked and ate my first wild blackberries. I have to check my records, but I know that last year, the blackberries were ripe a lot earlier. We had an early spring that year and a late one this year.
( Sunset under the cut )
It was even before that day that I picked and ate my first wild blackberries. I have to check my records, but I know that last year, the blackberries were ripe a lot earlier. We had an early spring that year and a late one this year.
On Saturday, we had strong thunderstorms early in the morning, then gentle rain most of the day. It was such a blessing, so pleasant and so rare, I wanted to remember it with pictures.
( More wet images )
( More wet images )
Some say in fire
Jul. 9th, 2012 11:10 pmThe drought and heat are worse this year than last. My state is categorized as suffering from severe drought (and in some counties it's "extreme," which is apparently worse). The fire danger is also much worse. Last year I wasn't really worried, but with the grass withered and brown so much earlier in the summer, the shrubs and vines dying, and even the trees that are succumbing to the stress of two years drought, for the first time in my memory we are dealing with a lot of wildfires. Double the usual number of fires in June, and they burned four times the number of acres that burned last year. It's nothing like the scale of the fires out West, but there have been evacuations. I'm worried about the forest. Driving from farm to city, I pass patches of charred grass, the branches of the nearby trees brown and dead from the heat of the flames.
This weekend I went on a brief roadtrip one state to the north, and it's clear this situation is regional, not local. (In fact, at least where the heat is concerned, it's been a record-breaking year continent-wide.) After driving 600 miles, we came to an area where there were some tall weeds that looked a lot like grass, and they were GREEN. I was surprised at what a shock it was to see a green hillside after so many miles of brown. With the dark green trees dotting the yellow-brown fields and hills, it looks almost like California out there. We also saw one pasture that actually had green grass when everything around was dead, so clearly this one farmer had found a way to water his field.
Grasshoppers are abundant and are eating things they normally leave alone. We found piles of droppings on our front porch where they had a convention chomping on a schefflera. Other animals change their behavior to get access to water or food, including poisonous snakes like the large copperhead my dad killed right outside the back door. I've been afraid to go down and look at the pond, but I'll report on that eventually.
This weekend I went on a brief roadtrip one state to the north, and it's clear this situation is regional, not local. (In fact, at least where the heat is concerned, it's been a record-breaking year continent-wide.) After driving 600 miles, we came to an area where there were some tall weeds that looked a lot like grass, and they were GREEN. I was surprised at what a shock it was to see a green hillside after so many miles of brown. With the dark green trees dotting the yellow-brown fields and hills, it looks almost like California out there. We also saw one pasture that actually had green grass when everything around was dead, so clearly this one farmer had found a way to water his field.
Grasshoppers are abundant and are eating things they normally leave alone. We found piles of droppings on our front porch where they had a convention chomping on a schefflera. Other animals change their behavior to get access to water or food, including poisonous snakes like the large copperhead my dad killed right outside the back door. I've been afraid to go down and look at the pond, but I'll report on that eventually.
Birds; drought
Jun. 29th, 2012 12:08 amLots of Nature to share! But so little time, alas. I recently started filling the birdfeeder on my balcony again, and the usual suspects didn't waste time returning: house finches, tufted titmice, cardinals. They seem to have an excellent appetite. I don't know if their energy needs are particularly high for some summer related reason (like raising chicks) or there are simply more of them around. It was 105F Monday and 107F today, so I know they don't need the food energy to keep warm! Despite all the sprinkler-watering that happens in the city, there's probably less natural food around for them. I've put a pan of water on my balcony for the birds and squirrels, and I hope they're using it while I'm away.
The drought has been worse this year than last: it started earlier in the year, was not preceded by floods like last year's, and it's following a bad year already. Most of the state has been declared in severe or extreme drought. A few cities have already postponed their July fireworks until New Year's because of the wildfire danger.
This mourning dove didn't seem too worried though...
<
It was just checking me out as I stood inside with my telephoto lens.
The drought has been worse this year than last: it started earlier in the year, was not preceded by floods like last year's, and it's following a bad year already. Most of the state has been declared in severe or extreme drought. A few cities have already postponed their July fireworks until New Year's because of the wildfire danger.
This mourning dove didn't seem too worried though...
<It was just checking me out as I stood inside with my telephoto lens.
For me, when the mimosas are blooming and there are ripe blackberries in the brambles, Summer has unquestionably arrived. And here we are. I picked another handful of blackberries this morning. I think the ones I had last week were some escaped, recently domestic blackberries, but these were definitely wild -- tiny but very sweet, as sweet as the scent hanging in the mimosas around the corner.
The Case of the Missing Apples
Oct. 13th, 2011 11:08 pmAccording to a meteorologist or climatologist on the local radio news recently, "It looks like the drought will continue through the winter months and into next year." Not good news for the trees that were stressed by this summer. Sometimes with trees, it takes a couple of years to tell if they're going to survive.
Two weeks ago when I was at the farm, I went out to the apple tree hoping to find enough good apples for a couple of pies. I'd checked at the end of August, and there were a lot of apples but they weren't really ripe enough yet. A few weeks later they still seemed like they could use a little more time, and besides, there weren't any on the ground. The way I've always been able to tell they're good and ripe is when they start falling off the tree on their own. If we don't keep up with the tree and pick them by the bucket (and we usually can't get all of them), we end up with a fermenting, cidery slick of apples on the ground, with wasps and beetles having a feast. It's been that way every summer/fall, as long as I can remember.
But this last time when I went to check, there weren't any at all. I asked my dad about it — maybe he had let someone pick them? — but he had no clue. Not a single apple left on the tree nor a trace of one on the ground. We talked about it, and our theory is that the deer must have come for them. They've got so little to eat in the woods, and it's hard for them to find water as well, so they're approaching civilization and trying foods they usually don't bother.
We agreed that if the deer are that hard up, we don't mind that they took the apples this year.
Two weeks ago when I was at the farm, I went out to the apple tree hoping to find enough good apples for a couple of pies. I'd checked at the end of August, and there were a lot of apples but they weren't really ripe enough yet. A few weeks later they still seemed like they could use a little more time, and besides, there weren't any on the ground. The way I've always been able to tell they're good and ripe is when they start falling off the tree on their own. If we don't keep up with the tree and pick them by the bucket (and we usually can't get all of them), we end up with a fermenting, cidery slick of apples on the ground, with wasps and beetles having a feast. It's been that way every summer/fall, as long as I can remember.
But this last time when I went to check, there weren't any at all. I asked my dad about it — maybe he had let someone pick them? — but he had no clue. Not a single apple left on the tree nor a trace of one on the ground. We talked about it, and our theory is that the deer must have come for them. They've got so little to eat in the woods, and it's hard for them to find water as well, so they're approaching civilization and trying foods they usually don't bother.
We agreed that if the deer are that hard up, we don't mind that they took the apples this year.
Drought scenes: Pond
Aug. 7th, 2011 06:26 pmI'm back at the farm. I knew the drought in this part of the state was becoming severe, but driving here through the hills almost made me gasp with how obviously bad things have become. I'll probably write more on the general situation later, but this morning I walked down to the pond and saw something I've never witnessed before: our spring-fed pond is almost completely dried up. The spring bubbles out of the ground nearby and flows into the pond, oxygenating and cycling the water before it flows out into a little creek at the other side. Or it has done with basically no human interference for the 29 years we've lived on this place, but now the spring has disappeared. The sight of the cracked mud and stranded lilies and the pathetic, murky pool that remain were a bit of a shock, even though I was prepared.
It's nothing like this lake in Texas or this one in Florida, but the condition of our little pond is a very personal illustration for me of how this disaster affects natural systems.
( Images of a dry pond )
Even though it was an unpleasant surprise to see how things have changed so quickly, it was interesting how some things are still hanging on and taking advantage as well as they can. Bless the frogs and dragonflies and raccoons and birds and waterbugs and anything that can live in green mud.
It's nothing like this lake in Texas or this one in Florida, but the condition of our little pond is a very personal illustration for me of how this disaster affects natural systems.
( Images of a dry pond )
Even though it was an unpleasant surprise to see how things have changed so quickly, it was interesting how some things are still hanging on and taking advantage as well as they can. Bless the frogs and dragonflies and raccoons and birds and waterbugs and anything that can live in green mud.
Over at the farm, they've had even less rain than we've had in the city. Normally this time of year, you have to start making choices: which annual plants are worth saving because they'll come out of dormancy in the fall and produce more flowers or vegetables? The tomatoes, maybe the cucumbers, certainly the cockscombs and a few other flowers. But this year, it's been so hot and dry for so long already, it's crisis point. No thought of saving the annuals anymore. All efforts must be made to save the perennials: the hostas, rosemallow bushes, the zinnias and sunflowers which will re-seed themselves, the lilac, the young fruit trees. The shock is that even some of the older trees seem to be suffering. I planted an oak sapling in the front yard at least four years ago; it's well-established, bushy and a couple of feet taller than me now, but it half looks like we could lose it. Even worse, my dad showed me a photo of our pond, down in the lower pasture: it's almost dried up. Never before in our 29 years of living there has this happened because the pond is fed by an underground spring. But I guess the spring has stopped now. My dad is watering the horses using a plastic kiddie swimming pool as a trough.
Meanwhile, in the city, people have sprinkler systems buried underground, and there's no telling how much water they're using to keep their grass and bushes alive. Where there's water, there are still a few flowers. The only thing that's blooming unassisted is the crepe myrtle trees. I'd swear they like this weather. They're just covered in blooms: white, lavender, fuschia. Amazing.
( Cut for several large images )
Meanwhile, in the city, people have sprinkler systems buried underground, and there's no telling how much water they're using to keep their grass and bushes alive. Where there's water, there are still a few flowers. The only thing that's blooming unassisted is the crepe myrtle trees. I'd swear they like this weather. They're just covered in blooms: white, lavender, fuschia. Amazing.
( Cut for several large images )
Reconnecting with rosemary
Jul. 28th, 2011 12:07 amIt's been an insanely busy month for me, with barely time to think let alone rest or do anything superfluous to requirements, but on Monday I needed a sprig of rosemary for a recipe. Somehow, most of my balcony plants are still alive despite being a bit neglected, so I went out with a knife to harvest.
It was dusk, on the verge of dark, but I could see the pots and the plants all right. There were trailing, leggy, tough stalks of grass growing from the rosemary pots, probably sprouted from pieces of birdseed scattered a couple of months ago. I found myself weeding until I could see the rosemary the way it really was, then searching with my fingers and eyes to find just the right places to prune. It was so satisfying. Going inside with dirt under my fingernails and fragrant sprigs cupped against my shirt, I felt cleaner and more relaxed. I hadn't even known I was missing my plants, but I was. I wonder if they miss me.
It was dusk, on the verge of dark, but I could see the pots and the plants all right. There were trailing, leggy, tough stalks of grass growing from the rosemary pots, probably sprouted from pieces of birdseed scattered a couple of months ago. I found myself weeding until I could see the rosemary the way it really was, then searching with my fingers and eyes to find just the right places to prune. It was so satisfying. Going inside with dirt under my fingernails and fragrant sprigs cupped against my shirt, I felt cleaner and more relaxed. I hadn't even known I was missing my plants, but I was. I wonder if they miss me.
Ancient and wise
Jul. 18th, 2011 12:36 amThe summer I turned seven years old, I caught a large brown grasshopper and kept him in a jar under my bed for awhile. His appearance and demeanor struck me as being wise and ancient, so I named him King of my "animal kingdom," which consisted of stuffed toys. Eventually I released King Grasshopper into the yard he'd come from, and the stuffed animals reverted from monarchy back to their former peaceful anarchy.
It's grasshopper days again — searing hot, dry, dusty; and they're everywhere, leaping with a buzz in long, graceful half-flights to a distant patch of grass, dozens scattering when you walk by. I still think they look like dinosaur contemporaries with inscrutable faces.
It's grasshopper days again — searing hot, dry, dusty; and they're everywhere, leaping with a buzz in long, graceful half-flights to a distant patch of grass, dozens scattering when you walk by. I still think they look like dinosaur contemporaries with inscrutable faces.
Evening scene
Jul. 16th, 2011 09:08 amHere's a deep summer thing: a lawn, a little wild with the grass gone to seed; the sun low and red-orange, trees casting long heavy shadows, and the spaces between flooded with syrupy pink-amber light; these tanks of light populated with a thousand dragonflies, their transparent wings glowing as they buzz across the lawn.
When the heat gets this bad... I can't even dislike it anymore. It's beyond any normal conditions and somehow that gives it a kind of purity. It's not a thunderstorm, it's a tornado; it's not a creek overflowing, it's a 50-year flood. It's the white flame. It's Extreme Weather. It slams into you when you leave a building, makes you weak as a baby, cooks your eyeballs, creeps under your clothes and into your muscles and organs. It doesn't just wilt the flowers, it wilts the trees.
110F is all the rage in heat indexes this year
The state of my balcony garden is about average for the time of year, I suppose: barely surviving. I've been so busy, it's been hard to water as consistently as I should, especially since I have to do it by hauling bucket after bucket from the bathtub tap out to the plant pots. But somehow, nothing has died of heat yet. The cosmos and mixed wildflowers were past prime already; one tomato plant, the marigolds, the tops of my daisies and half of the flat-leaved parsley have been denuded not by the drought but by an invisible insect. (I looked for the Horned Worm, but could not find the beast; it may be something else.) Nothing is actually growing; it's the mid-summer dormancy. I almost gave up on my cucumber vine, but then I remembered how my tomatoes recovered last fall and started producing again all the way into December, and I decided to try to keep the cucumber alive. Gardeners live in hope.
I have picked a couple of decent tomatoes from my plants, but my father's big garden on the farm is producing bushels. I've had a number of mouth-watering fresh tomato sandwiches. It's my all-time favorite sandwich, probably because it is only available for a very limited time and in specific conditions. The rarity makes it valuable. The only thing my sandwiches this year were missing was a couple of fresh basil leaves. I regretted not planting any basil. Then yesterday I went out to water yesterday and... discovered two tall, leggy basil plants growing alongside a tomato! They'd been neglected so long, they'd gone to flower, which was actually kind of pretty and reminds me that basil is in the same family as mint (Lamiaceae). I had forgotten them and neglected to pinch them because, I think, they were disguised by the lush, taller foliage of the tomato plant. But now that that plant is sadly leafless, the basil was able to catch my attention.
110F is all the rage in heat indexes this year
The state of my balcony garden is about average for the time of year, I suppose: barely surviving. I've been so busy, it's been hard to water as consistently as I should, especially since I have to do it by hauling bucket after bucket from the bathtub tap out to the plant pots. But somehow, nothing has died of heat yet. The cosmos and mixed wildflowers were past prime already; one tomato plant, the marigolds, the tops of my daisies and half of the flat-leaved parsley have been denuded not by the drought but by an invisible insect. (I looked for the Horned Worm, but could not find the beast; it may be something else.) Nothing is actually growing; it's the mid-summer dormancy. I almost gave up on my cucumber vine, but then I remembered how my tomatoes recovered last fall and started producing again all the way into December, and I decided to try to keep the cucumber alive. Gardeners live in hope.
I have picked a couple of decent tomatoes from my plants, but my father's big garden on the farm is producing bushels. I've had a number of mouth-watering fresh tomato sandwiches. It's my all-time favorite sandwich, probably because it is only available for a very limited time and in specific conditions. The rarity makes it valuable. The only thing my sandwiches this year were missing was a couple of fresh basil leaves. I regretted not planting any basil. Then yesterday I went out to water yesterday and... discovered two tall, leggy basil plants growing alongside a tomato! They'd been neglected so long, they'd gone to flower, which was actually kind of pretty and reminds me that basil is in the same family as mint (Lamiaceae). I had forgotten them and neglected to pinch them because, I think, they were disguised by the lush, taller foliage of the tomato plant. But now that that plant is sadly leafless, the basil was able to catch my attention.
Morning, mid-drought; flying insects
Jul. 3rd, 2011 11:25 pmI'm at the farm, and this morning I was out early. The sun is too bright before it even clears the trees on the horizon, but its color is honey gold, the shadows are still long, and the air pleasant. The birds enjoy it; I could hear a mourning dove crying as well as maybe ten other kinds of birds, busily singing at whatever tasks of sex or territory or homemaking they were engaged in. It was all very lively.
But by ten in the morning, the heat had descended like a wave from an oven. The birds had dropped out and it was almost eerily quiet. It was the sound of merely surviving. A dog in the distance. Two squirrels crashing through some huge oak trees. A single crow. ...And the insects. Dozens of grasshoppers flying with every step you make through the grass, a cicada in a tree, and of course the bumblebees and dragonflies and butterflies. They're not bothered, even when the grass is withered, the pasture is full of dried weeds, and even the honeysuckle is wilting.
But by ten in the morning, the heat had descended like a wave from an oven. The birds had dropped out and it was almost eerily quiet. It was the sound of merely surviving. A dog in the distance. Two squirrels crashing through some huge oak trees. A single crow. ...And the insects. Dozens of grasshoppers flying with every step you make through the grass, a cicada in a tree, and of course the bumblebees and dragonflies and butterflies. They're not bothered, even when the grass is withered, the pasture is full of dried weeds, and even the honeysuckle is wilting.
Summer night sounds
Jun. 21st, 2011 11:31 pmI was out very late in the evening Saturday watering my mom's lilac bush, and I just sat down for a few minutes and listened. There are so many sounds on a summer night, you have to concentrate to hear them all.
The prettiest one was the chuck-will's widow, off in the hollow across the road. It's not a constant sound, so it's easy to pick out. The main thing, the sound that basically covers them all, is the cicadas. I could hear some in a black walnut tree ahead of me and some in the oak off to my left, almost alternating. Then they dropped out completely and only when that happened did I realize that it had only been two individual cicadas. It's amazing the decibels they reach.
Once the cicadas were quiet, I found I'd been hearing something else all along, the higher singing hum of the crickets. And every once in awhile, a puff of breeze rustling the trees.
Happy Summer!
The prettiest one was the chuck-will's widow, off in the hollow across the road. It's not a constant sound, so it's easy to pick out. The main thing, the sound that basically covers them all, is the cicadas. I could hear some in a black walnut tree ahead of me and some in the oak off to my left, almost alternating. Then they dropped out completely and only when that happened did I realize that it had only been two individual cicadas. It's amazing the decibels they reach.
Once the cicadas were quiet, I found I'd been hearing something else all along, the higher singing hum of the crickets. And every once in awhile, a puff of breeze rustling the trees.
Happy Summer!
June cumulus
Jun. 16th, 2011 09:05 amAh, the towering midsummer cumulus. They seem feed on the humidity like great puffy monsters, piling up and up every day and almost never bringing rain. When you have a good view of them, of course, it means that if it's raining, it's raining somewhere else. Yesterday there were a lot of severe, hail-bringing storms... everywhere but here. I saw the entire anvil cloud at sunset, pink and bluegray. Amazing.
It's summer.
Jun. 14th, 2011 11:47 pmTonight while I was out walking, I heard a few annual cicadas. It's such a familiar sound of late summer, I feel like summer is really started now.
Later, I snapped some green* beans my mom sent back with me from the farm. I realized if I stuck my face into the little bowl of snapped-off ends and breathed deep of the fresh, planty smell, I was 13 again, snapping buckets of beans in the middle of a long, bright, lazy afternoon, no school, lots of garden chores, and old movies on the VCR.
(*They're actually a variety that's a beautiful purple on the outside and green inside, and when they're cooked they turn green just like any other pole bean.)
Later, I snapped some green* beans my mom sent back with me from the farm. I realized if I stuck my face into the little bowl of snapped-off ends and breathed deep of the fresh, planty smell, I was 13 again, snapping buckets of beans in the middle of a long, bright, lazy afternoon, no school, lots of garden chores, and old movies on the VCR.
(*They're actually a variety that's a beautiful purple on the outside and green inside, and when they're cooked they turn green just like any other pole bean.)
June crepe myrtles
Jun. 8th, 2011 07:22 amCrepe myrtles are in full bloom now. The only color I haven't seen is fuschia. Some of the white blooming trees are really covered, prettier than usual, it seems to me.
October 27: Seasons overlap
Oct. 27th, 2010 05:20 pmI realized today that if things keep going the way they have been, I may have blooming coleus, blooming mums, and a ripe tomato in my garden all at the same time.
