Fog and Hoarfrost, December 5, 2015

It was foggy and 27 degrees Farenheit  when Jeanne and  I set out on our morning walk.

Jeanne noticed this sapling looked as though it was hung with icecyles like the ones we sometimes hang on Christmas trees.  When I gently touched my index finger to the bottom of an "icecyle" it vanished.

A few steps later, we saw this.

Clearly, it was an orb weaver's spiderweb covered with hoarfrost.  It looked like the crocheted doilies my grandmother made.

At the falls, the park staff had draped a swag along the protective barrier.

Trees, rocks and the water pouring over the falls were obscured by the fog.

As we walked along, we saw webs made by spiders other than the orb weavers.  The spider who made this web makes it close to the ground.  Then it sits in the hole close to the center and waits for dinner to drop in.

This spider is more of a three-dimensional artist or maybe a spider interested in architecture.  The web has walls and a floor.

We saw webs drop and disappear before we could take photos of them.  We saw web lines drop and turn into miniature icecyles.

We were walking in a wonderland.

On the hill top of the prairie between the creek and the pond, the Monument Plant (American Columbo or Swertia caolinensis)  seeds were edged with frost.

Other seedheads covered with hoarfrost....

  

To really get a good look at these beautiful works of nature, click on the photos and enlarge them.

October's Bright Blue Weather

October 17, 2015, Charleston Falls  Photo by Pauline

October 17, 2015, Charleston Falls  Photo by Pauline

"O suns and skies and clouds of June,
And flowers of June together,
Ye cannot rival for one hour
October's bright blue weather."

First stanza of October's Bright Blue Weather by Helen Hunt Jackson.

My dad often recited this in October.  I'm sure it must have been one of the recital pieces he learned as a child.  Learning such poems was common when  he was in elementary school and schools presented programs for the parents.  There are eight stanzas in the poem, all of which paint pictures of October.

Below are some other photos of October.

The three photos above were taken by Tom in our backyard.

This was taken by Phil at Brukner Nature Center while walking the Brukner Butterfly Transit.

Postscript

I mowed and mulched after posting this blog.  That's when I noticed the sky was truly bright blue today.  I stopped mowing and mulching long enough to get my camera and take the photo above.

The last stanza of  Helen Hunt Jackson's poem...

O sun and skies and flowers of June,
  Count all your boasts together,
Love loveth best of all the year
  October's bright blue weather.

June 6, 2015... Never Expected to See This at Charleston Falls...An American Columbo

Jeanne and I were looking for flowers on our morning walk at Charleston Falls and not finding many.  It's past the ephemeral flowers season and not yet the showy prairie flowers season.

But then we found this on the prairie.

Photo by Tom Persing

The plant that came to my mind was American Columbo ( Frasera caroliniensis)  but I had never seen one at Charleston Falls and didn't expect to see one.  The only one I had ever seen was years ago on a high ridge in a wooded area at Brukner Nature Center.  I didn't have a wildflower book with me so I wasn't about to name it.

Back home, I looked in three wildflower field guides and found American Columbo or Monument Plant  in the third one, Newcomb's Wildflower Guide. There was no mistaking the identification.  The size was right and the leaf arrangement was right.  It is found in open woods and meadows, the two places where I had seen it.

Now that I knew the name, I looked it up on the Internet.  There were good photos of the flowers which are distinctive.

I persuaded Tom to come see the plant the next day.

Photo by Tom Persing

Photo by Tom Persing

The heavily fringed lumps in the middle of each petal are called nectar pads.  I have never seen another flower with these pads.

I called a friend who I knew was interested in wildflowers.  She said she had seen American Columbo on farmland in the area.  Another flower lover told me she knew people who had it on property in Adams County. A third friend says that it blooms some years at Aullwood Audubon Center and Farm.  

Maybe American Columbo isn't as rare as I thought it was.  Still, the sighting was exciting to me.

One of the reasons I have seen it only  twice is that it lives as a rosette of leaves for five to fifteen years or more before finally flowering. According to one Internet source, it may live as a rosette for as many as thirty years before sending up its three to eight foot stalk.

Sources seem convinced that after it blooms, it dies.  So any flowering American Columbo that shows up in that same vicinity years down the road is a "new" plant.

Tom took this photo to show the height.

Photo by Tom Persing

An interesting note on one website was that American Columbos in the same area tend to bloom in the same year.  The supposition is that it must have exactly the right conditions to bloom and that if all of the plants bloom the same year there is a better chance that they will cross-pollinate.

This photo shows the thick red stem of the plant. When Tom and I returned the next day, the stem had turned a deeper red, almost magenta, but that color didn't show up well in the photos we took.

Photo by Pauline Persing

St. Valentine's Weekend, A Good Weekend to Stay Inside

We've are going through a spell of cold weather.  It started on Valentine's Day, February 14.  The early morning was pleasant.  When I met Jeanne for breakfast, it was 30 degrees F (1.11 C.)  I wondered if the forecast for cold temperatures was a false alarm.  If we had known how warm the morning was going to be we would have walked at Charleston Falls.  Abby, Jeanne's dog, would have been delighted, not mourning because she was left at home.

I had errands to run after breakfast so when Jeanne left to prepare for a visit from grandchildren, I set off.  It was still nice when I walked over and returned some library books.  But by the time, I had finished grocery shopping at Foodtown, the wind had kicked up and fine snowflakes were blowing horizontally.  Temperatures began dipping.  The fifteen to twenty-five  mile an hour wind made the air feel even colder.

By afternoon, blowing snow had covered our patio.

The snow blurred the view of the backyard.  The bows of the Douglas Firs bounced and waved about.

By the next morning, we had beautiful sunshine.

The birds were glad we had filled the feeders.  So were the squirrels.  The temperature was 3 degrees F (-16.11 C).
The high for the day was 15 degrees F (-9.44 C).  Because there was no wind, the day was quite pleasant as long as we were dressed for it.

No sun on Monday morning when I looked out.  The entire day was overcast with snow flurries at times, and steady snow at other times.  There wasn't much accumulation.  Schools were closed for Presidents' Day, the day we remember all our presidents.

I didn't see the cardinals sitting in the fir tree until I looked at the photo I took.

I spent most of the day playing with polymer clay.  Monday was a holiday for me as well as the children.

This morning, we were back to 3 degrees F (-16.11 C).  I ignored the report from the airport a few miles away.  Their  thermometer read -2 degrees F (-18.88 C).  The sun was bright and there was very little breeze.  I even took a short walk to Charleston Falls...just to the falls and back.  It was 10 degrees (-12.22 C) by then.

  The maintenance staffer apologized because he hadn't yet blown all the snow off the trail clear to the falls. He told me they like to blow off this fine light snow before the day warms up enough to create icy spots.

This afternoon the temperatures climbed up to 25 degrees F (3.88 C ).  How nice to have it "warm".

Tomorrow?

Walk at Charleston Falls, June 10, 2014

It is now June 15 and I am just getting around to posting.  I have a new small camera, a Canon, which has different features than my Fuji which I dropped once too often.  I am frustrated with learning how it works but I'll be fine once I understand a few more things.

I was pleased to see Smooth Ruellia (Ruellia strepens).  I usually think of it as Wild Petunia.  I never find more than one here and there.  The flower looks a lot like a garden petunia.  But I discovered by way of the wonderful Internet that it isn't in the same family.  Ohio's wild petunia is an Acanthaceae  and garden petunias are Solaneceae.  The garden petunias were introduced from South America.

In Maryland, what we call wild or smooth petunia , is called rustling wild petunia.  It is on their endangered list.  It is threatened in Michigan where it is called smooth ruellia and also threatened in Pennsylvania where people call it limestone petunia.

This flower  is found as far north as Lake Erie, as far west as Kansas and as far east as New Jersey as well as throughout the southeast.

The picture below was taken at Cedar Pond.  It is one of the two Red-winged blackbird nests found by friends from the UK on Saturday, June 7.

2014 Hug the Earth Festival with the The Banana Slug String Band and the Students of Miami County, Ohio

This is the sixteenth year that I have helped in some way with the Hug the Earth Festival.  It has grown from a one day event with about seven hundred students participating to a four day event with over three thousand students participating.  In addition, there is now a Saturday Festival open to the public.

Because Stillwater Prairie Reserve was waterlogged from the rains of the previous week, the students' festivals were held at the Miami County Fairgrounds.

There were limp antennae on the Banana Slug mascot who met the children as they began their day on Tuesday but by Thursday his antennae were stiff and perky.  He must have found some starch somewhere.

The band members from Santa Cruz, California, "Solar" Steve Van Zandt,

 "Marine" Mark Nolan,

 Doug "Dirt" Greenfield,

 and "Airy" Larry Graff

have been together  for nearly thirty years.  They entertain children and adults with songs about our wonderful earth and encourage everyone to care for it.  For quite a few years "Gaea" Gary has come with them to play drums.  I don't have a recent photo of him.

During the school year the students learn a special earth song, make costumes related to the song and come out to a Miami County Park for a day of exploring and learning more about their special earth song.  The festival is the culminating  event. This year, some of the students were superheros with superhero capes they decorated themselves.

Here is a superhero of Ohio's prairies.

Here is another Habitat Superhero.  Looks like the habitat is a river.  Beside him is the bucket with the rocks he dug out of the sand and gravel pile deposited in one of the Miami County Fair grounds open sided buildings.  All of the rocks in the pile are mined in Ohio.

The older students panned for their rocks.  The rocks they found were from many areas of the world.

In the trough are the pans the the students will use.  Standing around it, getting last minute instructions are the staff who will help them if they need it.  Notice that most of the staff are wearing slug antennae.

Here the students are comparing the rocks they found with samples enclosed in this box.

The Columbus, Ohio Zoo brought unusual animals like this two-toed sloth and talked to the younger students about the animals'  habits.

The older children were treated to a High Ropes Adventure which included a fast ride down a zipline.  There was also a climbing tower.  These were set up behind the stadium.  I took this before the event was completely set up.

On Saturday, tree climbing using ropes was also set up at Stillwater Reserve.

Rain, Sun, Sleet or Snow, the Hug the Earth Festival goes on and brings smiles to hundreds of people.