We are together every day.
We work side by side.
We look at each other as we pass.
We rarely touch, unless by accident or of necessity.
No need to speak.
They know me.
I know them.
I am one of them.
FLOWER
I Am One Of Them
Author: Flower Roberts
Up River
If you want to go where it’s cool and quiet, go up river.
As you travel, you feel you are leaving everything behind.
Floating between the water and sky with the wind in your hair,
Quietly cruising past the lazy life along the river.
The air gets cooler as the water gets colder.
It’s time to soak in some sunshine.
Sit on the shore.
Maybe hang out with Huck Finn
or lay low with only a couch and a cooler.
The only sounds are quiet sounds up river.
The wind passing through the grasses,
and the water lapping the shore,
or the an eagle flapping its wings.
the splash of a fish or the plop of a turtle leaving its log.
Life is slow up river.
We know when we turn around,
that we will yearn for this peace.
But the wind blows us and the current takes us back to our lives.
Waiting for us to get busy again.
FLOW
Go Find Some Fungi
When the ground is too soggy to dig in,
I put on my rubber shoes and go mushroom hunting.
I do not eat what I find.
I like my liver too much to risk eating a poisonous fungus.
This snail is enjoying a snack.
I only know common names of some of these. Please forgive my ignorance.
I have always been fascinated by fungi.
Maybe I should start another blog called fungialley.
I consider fungi both beautiful and beneficial.
I took all these photos this past weekend in my yard and in the woods behind my house.
I did go out in a kayak and found some floating fungi. That will be another post.
If a reader knows the true identifications of any of these, please send me a message.
FLOWER loves fungi.
No Sedum? You Need’um.
In September most flowers are drying up and needing dead-heading.
Not the sedums. They have been slowly stretching out their clusters of green buds.
As the tiny flowers open the entire head blushes with color.
You don’t need to look to know if they are blooming, you can HEAR it.
Each colorful head is full of all kinds of bumble bees, honey bees, wasps, butterflies, moths and lightening bugs.
It’s like a party on every plant.
FLOWER
Two Tiny Jugs
Two tiny jugs made of mud, side-by-side on a Magnolia grandiflora leaf.
Were they made by fairy potter?
Do they contain tiny scrolls from an ancient fairy kingdom?
No. They are made by a remarkable wasp, a Potter wasp/Eumenes species.
Mama Potter carries the mud in her mouth
and shapes the jug with her mouth parts and long skinny abdomen.
She leaves to top open to deposit a paralyzed caterpillar and an egg. Then seals it shut.
Her baby wasp nestles inside its jug and eat its snack.
When it is big enough, it eats a hole in the side of its jug and emerges.
What a good mama!
FLOWER
Kangaroo Paw has Claws
This is the Anigozanthos ‘Bush Ranger’ that I brought home from California.
Its common name is Kangaroo paws.
Yesterday, I noticed that some of the “toes” on the paws had opened.
There were little blooms with five yellow stamens in a row, looking like claws.
I am so glad that the”Cutest Plant in California” is now thriving in Carolina.
FLOWER
Another Cute Little Stinger
I had to search for these two, but I knew that they ate banana leaves.
These are Saddleback caterpillars/Archaria stimulea.
They are beautiful. The hairs are their stingers. Their venom is painful.
I was stung by one over thirty years ago. I still remember the shock of it.
Itty bitty, greenie weanie, tiny little stinging meanie.
FLOWER
The Banana Forest
Mr. Flower brought one banana tree into the marriage over three decades ago.
Over the years this banana has multiplied.
Now, we have a banana forest.
We have learned some banana tricks.
We used to dig them all up and haul them all into the basement in the fall.
Now we enclose them in a circle of wire fence and fill around them with leaves or straw.
This is the easy way to over-winter a banana tree.
Instead of digging them up and carrying them in and out, we just enclose it and leave it.
Thus the banana forest has developed.
Each family of pup trees is circled around the dead mama tree.
I enjoy standing in the banana forest while the wind blows.
I pretend I am on an island in the tropics.
My sister jokes that we should rent it out for wedding photos.
For those folks who can’t make it to Hawaii for the big day.
ALOHA from FLORA
He’s Cute! Can I Pet Him?
I found this fuzzy baby munching on some Lucifer leaves.
He looks so much like a tiny Barley bunny, that I wanted to pick him up.
Good thing I know better.
This sweet little puss caterpillar also has another name.
Asp caterpillar.
Megalopyge opercularis/Flannel moth caterpillar/wooly slug
If you must pet it, you will get stung.
He’s cute, but he’s mean.
FLOWER
floweralley 