Oh, What a Beautiful Morning

This morning I left home before sunrise (which is not unusual during the school year, especially as we get closer and closer to solstice) and I was rewarded with a lovely sunrise... of course, I watched the sun cast its glow on the bands of clouds from behind a car windshield, and with roads and powerlines in view... but there were these moments when I saw it across open agricultural fields, sprawling bur oaks peeking from the low hanging mist in the background... when it just seemed like proof that every ordinary day has extraordinary moments, and that mundane places are still kissed by the glory of nature.

By the time I got to work, the ever-changing colors of the sunrise had given way to the sideways morning light. (I suppose that happened during the approximately 30 seconds when I was driving east and looking straight into the orange orb in front of me, nearly being blinded despite sunglasses, and feeling lucky not to have crashed.) Anyhow, things were still lovely as the morning's frost accentuated the plants' shapes and forms, and played with the sunlight in a really beautiful way...

... and then melted (it got up to nearly 70 degrees today, at least a 25 degree difference between day and night)...

A short while later, we encountered deer -- one antlered fellow and seven companions. I kept thinking they would eventually get scared of us, given that we were hammering things into the ground, disturbing the peace and bird-song quite thoroughly, but they did not. In face, they got closer and closer, unafraid, challenging. (Well, we got not actual hoofing of the ground or anything...) These are clearly suburban deer, unfamiliar with gun and bow alike. (I took about 20 pictures, thinking each time that this surely would be the last, they would run away now, but eventually I gave up the photographing, and it was us that left before them. Smartly, they had left before we returned with students.)

And speaking of student-deer interactions... (Fivecrows, you may want to stop reading now. Consider yourself warned.) Later in the morning, one kid found a young deer's leg -- not just the bones, but flesh and all -- stuck in the fence that surrounds a property neighboring the one we were at. No photos, thanks. I actually was with a different group and didn't see it. But I can just imagine that animal's fate, tangled and suffering and waiting... although, the rest of it was no where to be found, so maybe it was quickly preyed upon. Happy thoughts (relatively speaking)!
I also took a picture of a big fat toad with a permanently grumpy facial expression.

Not photographed: wooly bear (sign of fall!)

ps -- Those of you who were wondering, in my yard the basil is still fine. The frost seemed to spare sheltered areas, and my yard has homes, trees, fences, etc. So we're still waiting on the "big one" in our garden.

First...

FROST. Well, sort of. We had a patchy frost last night that seemed to mostly affect rooftops and vehicles. The basil in my yard, which I think of as very sensitive and the first thing to brown up in a frost, was verdant. It got down to about 41 degrees last night...

Here's a phenological mystery for you all...

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.

Autumn Draws Near

Up North

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!

I think the eyelash cups are so cute, don't you?

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.

Damselfly

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.

Speaking of that... Recently, it has been cool in the mornings -- pleasantly so -- and warm during the day. The world is still green but it has the yellowed tinge of the end of summer. Goldenrods, false sunflowers, and grass tassles paint the prairie with barely a purple brush stroke anymore. They days are getting shorter while the shadows get longer... which makes me want to be terribly lazy although this is one of the busiest times of the year for me! Ah, well...

More Partial Pictures

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.