I found its first bloom this morning.
It is as lovely as I had hoped.
What a complex flower.
I will see if the hummers find it, too.
FLOWER
Red Passion
Uncategorized
Hangin’ out with a Hummer
It has taken many quiet hours to get these little jewels habituated to my presence.
I have placed chairs in different spots in the yard,
where I quietly sit most days, just long enough to be noticed and then ignored.
I sat among the herbs in the bunny yard today to get these shots.
She even hovered in front of my face and the camera, too close for the zoom lens.
She took breaks between plants.
Today’s flower favorites were are Pineapple sage, Turk’s cap, Passion Flower hybrid ‘Blue Crown’ and Mexican bush sage.
Mr. Cardinal came to pose, too.
FLOWER is a quiet friend.
Spider in the Storm
Laugh if you wish.
I was concerned for my mama spider and her egg sac during last night’s storm.
I have been watching them both for weeks. She is a Green Lynx spider/ Peucetia viridans.
I was attracted to the head of goldenrod blooms by a peculiar object among the yellow flowers.
I saw her egg sac before I spotted her guarding it.
The color of the egg sac is a dull straw-brown, but the shape is intriguingly like a cut diamond.
It has a flat table top with crown below it and pointed bottom, like a culet.
How could a spider make such a complex shape? I wonder the same about the intricacies of webs, also.
I have been waiting for the spiderlings to emerge, so that I can examine it more closely.
The mama spider diligently guards this nest and puts her body over it when she senses my presence.
This morning I did get a better picture of the sac due to her dazed and soaking wet state when I approached.
She quickly assumed her guard post when I touched the goldenrod.
I am so glad that she and her offspring are safe and sound after the wind and torrential rains.
I am considering staking the Goldenrod so that Mama Lynx will not have to hang like that.
I know I shouldn’t interfere, but we grandmothers are very protective.
I am also afraid that “Mr. Flower” will cut it down with the weed-eater. Oh my! I’d better stake it now.
I’ll keep you up-dated about the hatching.
FLOWER
What’s Legs Got To Do With It?
What’s legs got to do with it, got to do with it?
What’s legs but a way to be in motion?
What’s legs got to do with it, got to do with it?
We need more legs when a leg can just be broken?
Why is it we love all things with two legs?
or four legs?
but if the creature has no legs,
or six legs,
eight legs
or more
we scream, run away or kill it?
I love snakes and bugs.
They are my friends.
FLOWER
My Weed
There is a whole world on one weed in my garden.
I did not kill this weed because of a hybrid I fell in love with in Tuscany.
So when I saw it growing on the bank, I staked it up to compare it with the hybrid.
What a wonderful weed it has been.
This wild Passion vine/Maypop/Passiflora incarnata has been a whole laboratory.
There are ants on the pods and stems.
The best part is all the caterpillars of various sizes.
Tiny, shiny, spiky, orange and black caterpillars of Fritillary butterflies.
I check on this plant every day and find something new.
An added bonus is a beautiful, blue morning glory that grew up into the Passion vine.
My daddy’s favorite color of blue, bluebird blue.
I have been blessed by this weed. I am so thankful I did not kill it.
Where would all those lovely caterpillars be? Nowhere, that’s where.
Follow the weed.
Sedums in September
While the rest of my garden is shutting down and drying up in North Carolina,
the sedums are just starting to put on a show.
These flowers are the star attraction for bees, bugs and butterflies now.
I have quite a collection of these not-so-thirsty plants
due to my past profession as a garden artist.
Sedums thrive in “stone trough” planters made of hypertufa.
This is a mixture of Portland cement, vermiculite, sand and peat moss.
My sedums survived this dry summer much better than my “water-loving” plants.
Now that the temperature is finally dipping down a bit,
the sedums are putting out their lovely heads of tiny flowers.
Many types have pink blooms, but some have yellow
or even white.
September is the month for sedums in the south.
FLOWER
I Found Gold!
I was out in my yard with my camera, as usual.
Something shiny caught my eye on the leaf of a Flying Saucer.
A speck of gold, dazzlingly brilliant on this drab day.
A 14 carat gold nugget perched on a leaf, just waiting to be plucked off and pocketed by little, old me.
I couldn’t believe my eyes, so I snapped a photo.
As I reached for it, it scampered around to the underside of the leaf.
The nugget had antennae and legs! A tiny, shiny alien on my flying saucer.
My gold was running away. It was alive!
A Golden Tortoise beetle/ Charidotella sexpunctata.
It climbed onto my arm. “Come to mama.” I cooed.
It spread it’s golden wings and flew away.
Fame and fortune are fleeting fantasies.
I’d better just stick to my flowers.
Follow the flying fortune!
The Crow Knows
I do not need to check the fig tree to see when the figs are ripe.
The crow lets everybody know.
He sits on an oak branch high above the fig tree, bobbing up and down,
as he loudly caws all to the feast.
I do not mind sharing. He takes the high figs and I take the low figs.
There are other fig lovers.
Giant hornets.
They do mind sharing.
Follow the Figs… Carefully.
My Faith and Fungi
Words are not enough for me.
We make up words. We translate words from other languages.
We misinterpret words. We twist words or give them a spin.
When I want to know the truth about something; I consult my mother, Nature.
Life here ends in death. All things that live on Earth die.
I wondered about what is next for all living things. Not just we people.
I had another friend go to the other side. Too fast and too soon.
I have a lot of loved ones on the other side.
The longer we live, the more there will be crossing over without us.
Life is so much more than atoms and cells and energy.
I stumbled upon a stump during my wanderings and wonderings.
There on the dead relic of a tree were many types of fungi.
Taking what was left of the tree, now gone, and recycling it into molecules.
Using the stump to grow, decomposing the remnants into raw materials
to return to the soil, to nurture another life.
If our world has a process to recycle a tree stump using fungi and bacteria,
there must be a re-purposing for something as precious as a spirit.
Peace People.
