Updates

The sun is back out and I traipsed around for a short while to see what was happening:

• Grebes are here, tiny ducks on the lake looking strikingly different from the typical mallard.
• Northern Sea oats are growing (actually I noticed this a few days ago).
• Bellwort has sprouted and is about 2 inches tall.
• Also genitan has sprouted and is about 3 inches tall.
• Some thing I thought were done for are popping up... I got a Dutchman's breeches, and a new mayapple, over a week after the others were already umbrella-ing, even though their conditions are the same. Hmm.

Also... a wild ginger flower.

I am quite taken with these flowers. We focus all our attention on the showy flowers. This week, with my students, we are learning about pollination and we focus on the idea that brightly colored petals attract pollinating insects, which often see them differently than us due to their eyes. The petals are the insect version of the Golden Arches or the neon "Eat at Joe's" sign. But not all flowers are using brightly colored flowers to attract their pollinators. Some, of course, are pollinated by wind -- these tend to be green... why waste pigment on something that can't see? They also tend to be long and hangy. Some flowers smell nasty to attract insects that might normally go for rotting flesh. These have the same demographic of pollinator. Flesh-colored flowers right along the ground where something creepy-crawling could happen right into them. But they're really quite striking... deep brown-red, fuzzy all over, with three twisty triangle petals like a jester's cap. They have white insides that make it seem as though a bug is "heading toward the bright light." A treat for the lucky folks that bother to look in the leaf litter for flowers instead of waiting for the bright colors to hit you in the head!

"Winter" Wildflowers VIII

Northern Sea Oats, Unfinished. I actually think this woodland grass is at its best in its winter form, with its flat seeds waving and flickering in the wind.

I was surprised to learn that at my parents house, just 15 miles south (and, admittedly, closer to the lake) they had no dusting of snow yesterday morning. Today is sunny and crisp (one might even say cold).

Seeing Sea Oats

Northern sea oats, growing nowhere near the sea. The flat seeds flap around in the wind, making them lovely both now -- as the seeds are nearing their full size -- and through the winter as they turn brown.

Other observations...
Hazels are getting nutty!
Vervains are in full bloom.

ps -- we seem to have beaten blossom end rot due to the application of calcium-rich things to the soil. Yea! We will have to be careful with potted tomatoes in the future to make sure that the soil is properly amended.

Happy 4th!

Independence Day was mostly cloudy, temperature pleasant, and the sky teased of needed rain or most of the morning. It spitted a few times in the morning, but I stayed outside with a book through it all, so no real water. Finally, this afternoon, a steady, pitter-patter of rain fell, refreshing. It felt good to stand out in it. But I don't actually think it gave us a substantial amount of water. Finally, it got sunny in the early evening -- good luck, I guess, for all the fireworks watchers out there.

Flowers on a linden tree, nearly spent.

Big red-orange lilies blooming in my yard.

The first butterflyweed bloomed in my yard this morning (although most is a few days behind, and at school it is in full bloom. And I cannot figure out the pattern, really, because this flower is in a shadier spot than the other stand in my yard...)
Seedheads beginning to form on the northern sea oats.