Bugs on Flowers

Hey, you know what's super hard, and also involves looking at really creepy close-ups? Identifying a spider.  I knew this was a crab spider, so I had a place to start, and I'm fairly confident its in the genus Misumessus, possibly a female green beauty?  Right or wrong, this is a lovely spider I found on a Canada anenome.  (I have a much higher tolerance of creepy crawly critters than most people, but still... I rarely describe spiders in terms like lovely or beautiful, but honestly?  Look at her... she's just striking.)  Note: Canada anenomes are still blooming, but past peak. 

The insect was sort of incidental to this picture, for me.  I was actually aiming to photograph the coreopsis, which have just started blooming.  I just love them, love their frilly petals but mostly I love their color.  It's by absolute favorite shade -- those who know me will recognize it as the color of my car, my office walls, several of my running shirts, and close to the color of my spring/fall jacket that I wear for like 6 months a year.  And these flowers have such a pure color.  Some petals look like the color is watercolored onto white petals (indeed, some flowers, if you rip a petal, you will see white under the color).  But these, these look like a pool of pure color, you could dive into it... 

I have no idea what this guy is.  Some sort of orthoptera, I guess.  A young one, maybe.  Anyhow, he was hanging out on an impatient at my parents' house yesterday, and I thought he was cute.  

Little Ray of Sunshine

In the language of flowers, coreopsis means always cheerful.  When you look at that color, you understand why!  Who could be glum in the face of such vibrancy and brightness?  

Weekend Update

Tall Coreopsis

These are among the many lovely yellow composites in the prairie right now.  

Also notable -- it's acorn-falling time.  I've been noticing them on the ground for a while, but I figure it's not really truly acorn season until one falls through the air and hits me.  That happened while I was running this weekend (a bur oak, too... those aren't small).  

We're Back

We're safely back from the UK with loads of pictures... so many that the task of choosing them and blogging them seems terribly daunting. I will get around to it soon, though!

Here, coreopsis and spiderwort are still blooming, and a few foxglove beardtongues, but the primroses seemed to have finished while we were gone. Bergamot is at "almost" and butterfly week and queen of the prairie are just about to get started, too... Puple coneflowers are also flowering.

It's Good to be Back Home Again!

I have, like, a million... well, that's a slight exaggeration, but many photos to share from the final camping trip of the 2010 spring school trip season, but I haven't the time or energy to share them at this moment. Instead, I'll briefly share a few things from my return. First, the school is wearing its yellow outfit in honor of the last day... while we were gone, coreopsis bloomed and they are everywhere! (Also, some evening primrose bloomed).

And... in an ironic twist... this was my breakfast this morning, harvested from my garden. So delicious. The thing was, we had decided to take out strawberries this year because they really didn't produce a lot last year and it seemed like a waste of space. This haul was probably, in one day, about as much as I got all last year, and from a smaller space (some were already removed), and I did nothing to keep the birds at bay this year. I guess the birds, or the berries, heard my plans and decided to show me what they could really do! (Look at June 12, 2009's entry to read about the strawberry wars of last summer...)

Coreopsis, campion and clover, oh my!

These coreopsises (which is an interesting word to make plural... coreopses?) are in full bloom, their bright yellow cheering up another grey day. They are another one of those flowers with color so pure it looks like you could just jump right in to a pool of it, and it's about my favorite color.

Rushes and sedges of many varieties are currently bearing seedheads. I can't even pretend I'm good at IDing them -- other than being able to categorize a plant as a rush, a sedge or a grass... using, of course, the old sing-song mnemonic that botany students everywhere learn: Sedges have edges, rushes are round, and grasses have asses [nodes] down low to the ground.

Note: I would love to be able to differentiate them accurately; I have a book but it isn't great. Any suggestions welcome!

Anyhow, here is a rush to represent them all.

Bladder campion (and also daisies) are lining roadsides everywhere. Despite their weediness and the fact that they aren't native, I quite like the bladder -- really an inflated, purple-veined calyx sac -- for which they are commonly named.

And this is the almost-blooming blanket flower that grows all over at school, though it is technically native to slightly more western prairie areas.

In the world of weeds (which sometimes seems to be the entire world), here are 4 that are in full bloom: orchard grass, yellow sweet clover, vetch, and red and white clovers intermingling together.