A Walk at Charleston Falls with Tom...July 23, 2019

Tom and I loaded up Tom's old power chair and headed off to look at flowers.  His new chair is   wonderful but it is not as powerful as the old one.  Since Charleston Falls has hills, power is important.

We saw butterflies at the new entrance to the trail. Tom took photos.  Our first thought was that they were Pearl Crescents...

But then Tom enlarged the photo and we could see that they were Silvery Checkerspots.

Then we moved a few steps further and he got to see the Rain Garden for the first time.

The Queen of the Prairie that I saw had finished blooming but Tom spotted a Cardinal Flower and the Rattlesnake Master..

and a lavender blue one that we think is a Monkeyflower.  I didn't know until I was looking through my wildflower field guides at home that I should have checked for a square stem.

We were off to a good start.

Tom stopped to take a photo of the falls through the trees.

We turned off toward the Octagon Prairie...

Tom with his camera...

Me with my camera.

Tom stopped to take a few close-ups of Gray-headed Coneflowers...

He looked at the other side of the trail and said,  "Look, there is a Viceroy butterfly."

I took these pictures.

And Tom took this one.

Deptford Pinks are an alien species but I have never seen more than a couple plants in any one spot.  They don't appear to endanger the native species.  They are tiny.  I never knew they were spotted with white until I took a photo of one and enlarged the photo.

A Bouquet of Prairie Flowers, August, 2017

Earlier this month, Marsha came to paint with me.  I was pleased to see her.  I haven't been painting much for several years.  I needed a jumpstart.  Marsha, bless her, seems to have done that.

The flowers in the bouquet are from our yard...the smaller yellow ones with the graceful thin stems are Tall Coreopsis, the bigger yellow ones are Oxeye, and the orange are Butterflyweed.  The pitcher is one we bought in either Williamsburg or Jamestown, Virginia.  I remember Williamsburg.  Tom remembers Jamestown.  I received the tatted star doily in a Christmas gift exchange when I was co-oping at Landers Corporation in Toledo my senior year in high school.

This is how the painting looked after the painting session with Marsha.  I started with a rough sketch using a Micron pen, then laid in watercolors.  I was hoping to keep the painting as a sketch, an impression, not a photographic image.

I always need to make frequent stops to "think".  This was the result of my thinking.

Another day to "think".  I decided to lighten the fabric on the right side, also to redarken the leaves at the pitcher edge.  I had wiped out a lot of the color.  Then I went bolder with the watercolor.  The very last strokes I made were a few with a white gel pen to bring back some reflections on the pitcher.

Beautiful Day at Charleston Falls, August 12, 2017

Come with Jeanne and me on the walk we took at Charleston Falls this morning.  The day was perfect...sweater weather and sunny.

Black-eyed Susans

And the smaller Brown-eyed Susans

Ironweed

Spiderwebs sparkling with dew in the sunshine

Not sure what this plant is.  I plan to take more photos and post them to the Ohio Wildflowers and Flora Facebook page.  I discovered when I started searching my field guides that I hadn't looked at the plant as closely as I needed to for ID purposes.  The little black row of "buttons" fascinated me.

Bright orange fungi on a rotting log

Doll's Eyes ( White Baneberry)  The fruit is far showier than the delicate flowers.

And an enormous Prairie Dock

Bigelow Cemetery State Nature Preserve, Madison County, Ohio

After I wrote the blog about the Royal Catchflies in our yard and our experiences with them, Tom and I decided it was time to make the excusion to see Bigelow Cemetery State Nature Preserve, the place where we first saw Royal Catchflies.

The first time I saw the cemetery was with a group of volunteers from Brukner in the early nineteen eighties.  This sign had not been erected.  Naturalists in Ohio had only recently become interested in the prairies that appear here and there in Ohio.

Tom and I have been here many times over the years. The first times he and I both walked the paths. Now Tom waits in the van while I explore.  He brought a book along to read while I walked for forty minutes.

The trees in the distance are Burr Oaks, the tree associated with Ohio prairies.  Its tough thick bark can withstand prairie fires.

This monument marks the burial spot of Stephen Smith, age 11, who died in 1833. The earliest tombstones date to 1814 and the last known burial was in 1892.

                                          Prairie Dock

This is the gravestone of Dr. William King.  He "Died April the 14th 1844  Aged 30 years 11months and 5 days".  Many of these stones have the exact day of the person's death described like this.  It makes me feel that people appreciated every day that they lived.  Below, mostly hidden by the flowers is a message:
"My glass has run, my grave you see
In time prepare to follow me.
Go home dear friends and dry your tears,
I must lie here til Christ appears.
And when he does, i hope to rise
Unto a life that never dies."

                                        Sainfoin (Scurf-Pea)

Mostly Gray-headed Coneflower, two Purple Coneflowers, and two Royal Catchflies.  Burr Oaks in the background.

                     Honeybee on Wild Bergamot

                               Painted Lady

Leaves and developing acorns of the Burr Oak

Various prairie flowers.

In this photo, you can get a good look at the calyx beneath the red petals.  The calyx is sticky which is why the plant is called a "catchfly".

I saw a Ruby-throated hummingbird at least a half dozen times nectaring at the Royal Catchflies but I wasn't as fast with my camera as the hummingbird was with his wings.  I'll just have to keep him in my memory.

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.

Walk at Charleston Falls, August 31, 2013

While Jeanne, her dogs, and I were walking and talking at Charleston Falls, Tom was looking.  He took about fifty photos.  These are a some of the ones he saved.

Jeanne and I walked to the falls so Tom took the other path and walked/rode to Cedar Pond.

Beyond Cedar Pond is a planted prairie.

The Big Bluestem (Andropogon gerardii Vitman)  is showy and full of color.  It grows from 3 to nearly 10 feet tall. (1-3 metres)

Because of the shape of its seed heads, it is sometimes called Turkeyfoot.

There are many varieties  of yellow daisy-like or sunflower-like flowers.   Here is Prairie Dock, (Silphium terebinthinaceum).  It grows 4-10 feet tall.  Gernerally, it is taller than the surrounding Big Bluestem. The leaves may be two feet across.  One of the children I took on a hike told me the huge leaves feel like her dad's chin in the morning.

Closer photos of the flowers.

Below is another yellow flower.  Notice that the yellow petals are arranged differently and the center is also different.  This is Tall Coreopsis.  Coreopsis tripteris grows 3-9 feet tall, and looks deceptively delicate.

The complement of yellow, purple,  is also in the prairie.  This is Ironweed ( Vernonia) which also tends to be tall. (4-10 feet tall.)

Some of the flowers are a bit past their prime but the overall effect is beautiul.

Tom took these photos as he neared the end of the maintenance trail.  He set his camera to take one photo at the setting the camera automatically chose and also a photo one stop lighter and a photo one stop darker.  I like all three.