Bugging Me

The box elder bugs? Are everywhere. And? They're mating. And the little baby non-flying ones are all over in the leaves, too. At least in my box-elder-filled yard.

Actually, it was rather a good insect day. Saw several odonates, including an Eastern Forktail, which I did not photo, monarchs, swallowtails, sulphurs and whites; grasshoppers are everywhere leaping out of the way as you walk through the plants. A leafhopper landed on me, and some sort of leaf-camouflaging insect. Bugs galore out there.

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.

Not Only Bluestem

Big bluestem, at this time of year, inspires me to do something I almost never do -- add color to my sketches. One skinny stalk of grass can contain every color of the rainbow. The purple seedheads have tiny yellow flowers dangling from them; and orange pollen. The stems get bluish and reddish and yellowish, all blendy and rainbowey. The leaves (and part of the stem) retain the green color that you would normally associate with grass.

The Dock Is In.

Prairie dock, compass plant's more popular (probably) sibling, blooms above the prairie. With its huge -- often well over a foot in length and width -- leaves, this plant distinguishes itself from the typical prairie dwellers. Living in bright sun, wind, and in dry soils, many plants in the prairie have small, narrow leaves. This makes sense, right? Big leaves are necessary to get a lot of sun, but this isn't a problem in the prairie -- sun is plentiful. And big leaves require hydration -- but water isn't as available. The silphium species break that rule, but are well-adapted to do so. The leaves tend to orient themselves in a north-south way to avoid getting the direct sunlight. (This is how compass plant gets its common name, but dock does the same thing). And prairie dock has a natural coolant. On a hot summer day, if you touch the leaves -- after you get over how thick and scratchy they are -- you'll notice that their coolth. I have heard that pioneers would pick a leaf on hot days and put it under their hats as a sort of personal air conditioning! And of course, they have long roots, with a thick sturdy taproot that penetrates the depths of the soil.
These pictures were taken at school. In my yard, I have 3 or 4 prairie dock plants, which come back every year for the past few years, and some have the full sized leaves that one would expect on a prairie dock... but I have never gotten a flowerstalk (which is too bad because they're smooth and reddish and pretty even before they yellow flowers open). I must have an area that's too good to kill them, but not good enough for them to be truly happy. Oh, well.

New Blooms

Big Bluestem flowers.

Switchgrass flowers.

Goldenrod flowers. (Don't ask me what kind...)

Meadowhawk on Joe Pyeweed flowers.

Onion flowers. (The real bloomin' onion.)

Endings

Crickets chirp in the still, humid night air, welcoming the darkness that comes earlier as the days march on. The air is heavy with heat and the weight of the world.

In phenological recordings, people generally note firsts, peaks, and lasts... as in, the purple coneflower first bloomed on June XX; peak bloom was July XX, and the last bloom was August XX. Loyal readers may have noticed that I am diligent about recording firsts. They are exciting and new! Who wouldn't record a first? Peaks I sometimes mention, because they do tend to be pretty. But lasts? I am not so good at making mention of the lasts. Besides lacking the excitement of a first, they are often harder to record with certainty. How do you know that monarch is the last? What if I see another tomorrow? In fact, I falsely reported the last strawberry this June, and ended up getting quite a large handful a few days later. So lasts... not my thing.

But coming home from England, I have noticed some lasts. Queen of the Prairie no longer rules the "wet prairie" located at the end of my drain spout. Spiderwort is completely finished flowering (and probably was before we left). Bergamot is looking pretty sad. While some things are just getting started -- Joe Pye bloomed while we were gone; my sweet brown-eyed susans, much later bloomers than their black-eyed friends, are finally in full bloom; big bluestem and Indian grass are flowering; and better late than never, my compass plant finally got itself a flower -- but anyhow... while these things are starting, summer for some things is winding down.

Perhaps I am taking note of this especially because summer is also winding down for me. Hard to believe, what with the fact that I am practically melting (A/C malfunction, that's another story); the fact that I just today made my first, small batch of tomato sauce; and the fact that the summer solstice is like a month and a half away... but summer for us officially ends as we go back to work this week. Pfffft. It's been a fun, but short, ride. How depressing.

Welcome Home.

Well, we're back. And, the worst has happened. We have tomato blossom end rot. This is bad. It has, so far, attacked only the heirloom tomatoes I got from my aunt, which are separate from the other tomatoes and potatoes. (And which were, btw, the healthiest looking of all our tomatoes before the fruits turned up with black, moldy ends.) We have sprayed them with copper, but chances are... these plants are goners. Won't get one single fruit out of them. I just hope it doesn't spread to the others.

Regarding our trip, I could go on for a while. We took a million or so photos, which I have yet to sort through; we saw some lovely natural areas and gardens and parks. I may or may not get around to describing or posting photos from any individual locations. But for now, some overall (tongue in cheek) impressions.

I love the American landscape. The ruggedness of it, the expansiveness. The harshness. I am enamoured with, and remorseful for, the history of this young nation; I can't imagine (and don't want to) a world without cowboy and Indian lore, Lewis and Clark adventures, the wild wild west, the rolling prairie that seems to stretch on like an ocean. But visiting England, I can't help but think... that religious persecution must have been really bad, because it would have to be to make you leave an ancestral home such as that. Mosquitoes? Not so much. In private residences and hotels alike, windows didn't have screens. They just open them. Ticks? Don't think so. Strawberry season? Still going on. Although. Tomato season? Not yet, likely due to the not at all how weather. A striking difference from the three-digit (F) temperatures we're supposed to have here tomorrow. Irrigation? Hardly ever necessary, I'd guess, because it seemed like it sprinkled pleasantly a lot. (And occasionally, not so pleasantly). Snow? Pretty rare, I'm told. Which is actually a negative point, in my book. I like snow. But I know that the moderate climate (this despite the high latitude, mind you) would be a positive point to many out there.

And I totally get where our whole completely unnatural fetish with green-grass lawns came from. It's not so totally unnatural and hard to maintain over there. We did note an interesting garden phenomena, though... When you visit the grand estates with spectacular gardens, many of them have plant stores there, so that you look at the gardens, feel inspired, and spend a lot of money buying plants, thinking you can do the same thing on your home on a smaller scale. Forgetting, of course, that the grand estates hire full time gardeners. And that's not plural because there are multiple estates, but because each one, I'm certain, has multiple gardeners. Anyhow, I have gotten away from the main point, which is that the most popular plant to purchase? Is the purple coneflower. Which is native to the North American prairies. So there you have it, folks.

Another cool thing about said estates is that at most of them, there is a restaurant. And these restaurants feature food grown on that estate or in the county. I'm not going to try and say that English folks are all into local foods; besides being a gross generalization, I only spent 8 days there and really didn't get that much data. But it seems to be a wee bit more important there than here. And Charles (as in Prince) is really big on local foods and sustainable agriculture, so that was exciting to learn about. At any rate. You know that when you travel to Italy or Morocco, to Mexico or Thailand, you are going to notice how much the USA lacks a food culture. Beyond the fast/convenience. But I certainly didn't expect to to be that evident from a trip to England.

OK. I have now been awake for about 21 hours, and travelling for much of that. So I'm tired (but I WILL stay awake til normal bed time) and probably not being that coherent and will sign off now.