holding their own

the assemblage of july roadside wildflowers i photographed a couple of weeks ago are now dried. and still looking colorful. there seems to be a little lull here with summer blooms. but the early goldenrod and the wild sunflowers are just starting. so soon, our roadsides will be awash in golden yellows.

july roadside wildflowers (dried)

unsung

did you know there are over 6,100 registered and named varieties of hostas? with that many cultivars around, one would think that hosta flowers would get a little more recognition than they do. i have ideal growing conditions for hosta, but i don’t cultivate them. we try to stick to native plants our land. the hosts in my woods are all escapees from other gardens. so stumbling upon their uncelebrated flower scapes in the woods, poking out of the leaf litter, feels a little like finding spring ephemerals in may. in other words, it’s a delight. i am a fan of hosta flowers.

hosta flowers

weird beauty

bunch galls appear as flower-like clusters of leaves at the tip of a goldenrod stem. the female gall midge lays her eggs on the top bud of the goldenrod stem in the spring, stimulating the plant to produce an abnormal cluster of leaves that provide shelter for the developing midge. rather ingenious for a tiny midge. nature never ceases to amaze.

goldenrod bunch galls (Rhopalomyia solidaginis)

raining acorns

i’ve been down in iowa for a couple days to photograph a lawn-tennis tennis court (think wimbledon) that a farmer built in his corn field for a magazine article. yes, it’s all very field of dreams.  i’ll tell you more about it tomorrow, as i am still on assignment. as i gathered these bur oak acorns today, they were raining down on me as i gathered them. the weather is fair, and has been for a several days. so i am not sure what is triggering the synchronized release, other than daylight hours. but, clearly they all got the memo on the same day.

bur oak acorns (Quercus macrocarpa)

winter stems in summer

okay, so i have a lot of boxes tucked here and there where i toss various STILL subjects after i photograph them. one such box is a collection of straight stem and twig pieces. it’s odd, i know. i suppose, there is some nostalgic reminder of my youth playing pick-up-sticks. i was an ace at pick-up-sticks. i still have a steady hand. perhaps i should have been a surgeon. oh well, the hours would have killed me. anyway, this is a portion of my collection. i really should save these winter stems images for february and march when finding STILL subjects is three times harder than now. but, the house has been topsy turvy ever since the tree fell on the roof. so, today, i am reaching for a ready box of color and texture which is in sharp contrast to the lush greenness outside my door.

stem and twig collection