I spent the week in the north woods, where a first frost -- presumably weeks ahead of ours -- has already started turning the maples red and orange and yellow. On cloudy days, their brightness popped against the grey of rain, and on sunny days the blue of the sky contrasted starkly with the autumnal oranges... it really was beautiful. I wrote in my nature journal, during one of our reflection times, that I think I must have nature
ADHD... this after a sentence about mergansers, then one about autumn colors, one about the sound of the lapping of the water on the shore, and one about the shape of the dead log, already harboring a small oasis of new life, jutting into the water. But upon looking at my photographs, I have determined that I am surprisingly mycology-minded.
And, if you think that this is overkill with the fungus photos, I would like to state, for the record, that a) I edited a lot out of these, and b) I would have taken a LOT more pictures of fungi if I hadn't had 58 lbs of canoe on my head for a lot of the time, which seriously diminishes the ease of... and desire to... take pictures.
We saw mushrooms in every color but blue and green. The first one here, though the photo doesn't capture it that well, was light purple!
That last one was very crazy... about 4 inches in diameter, covered in dark purple-grey powder above and below, and curved up. Students noted that it looked like the empty paper of a Reese's peanut butter cup.
You made it this far? Here were a few non-fungal discoveries...
a brightly-colored leopard frog
This moth LOVED me, sat on my hand and probed my skin with its proboscis, and came back several times even after I got tired of not being able to write and brushed it off. It landed on my head for a while, where its wings buzzed by my ears like a tiny helicopter, and spent time on both of my hands. Eventually, it tired of me and decided that a yellow flower was more to its liking.
Such pretty colors in this
hawkweed.
I know this isn't a lovely picture, but that's not the point. The point is that I took it this morning. And it's a crabapple. Which flowered in the spring, and fruited, and is still bearing its fruit. And now, a few of its limbs have decided to flower again, for some reason unknown to me. I don't know what's going on, and Google didn't help me figure it out... see? A mystery.
I spent the week in the north woods, where a first frost -- presumably weeks ahead of ours -- has already started turning the maples red and orange and yellow. On cloudy days, their brightness popped against the grey of rain, and on sunny days the blue of the sky contrasted starkly with the autumnal oranges... it really was beautiful. I wrote in my nature journal, during one of our reflection times, that I think I must have nature ADHD... this after a sentence about mergansers, then one about autumn colors, one about the sound of the lapping of the water on the shore, and one about the shape of the dead log, already harboring a small oasis of new life, jutting into the water. But upon looking at my photographs, I have determined that I am surprisingly mycology-minded.
a brightly-colored leopard frog
This moth LOVED me, sat on my hand and probed my skin with its proboscis, and came back several times even after I got tired of not being able to write and brushed it off. It landed on my head for a while, where its wings buzzed by my ears like a tiny helicopter, and spent time on both of my hands. Eventually, it tired of me and decided that a yellow flower was more to its liking. 
This male spotted spreadwing had striking blue -almost purple- eyes that didn't quite come across in this photograph. He's a late-season odonate, but as far as I'm concerned, while dragon- and damselflies are still on the wing, summer hasn't lost the fight yet. 
Maidenhair fern, which I could have spent hours drawing, but even getting this far I felt like I was doing the same thing over and over. It was neat, though, because it was wort of backlit by a setting sun so all the shadows were somewhat reversed of what they would normally be.
We have TONS of gentian this year, which is excellent, it's so pretty. Rather a scribble picture, not my normal style, but I kind of like how it came out.
For the past few days, I have had these gorgeous, green-and-yellow centered sunflowers on my desk at work. They were brought for me by a co-worker who grew them for our wedding, as several friends did... but they chose to bloom quite a bit late. So I got some now. And they are so lovely, I just wanted to draw one. But I didn't have a lot of time, so... but I actually kind of like the picture this way. 
