Where to Start?

It's been a while since I've posted, and my thoughts are all scattered.  I'm sitting at the Toyota dealer, car getting a full checkup, and I have plenty of time to post.  I just can't decide what to do.  So, I suppose we'll just start going through photos.

Okay, here we go.  

First, I want to start with a very special thank you, going out to the wonderful ladies of Newcomb's Mountain Quilters.  I came home from work the other day to find a package on my porch.  When I opened it, it was this lovely friendship quilt made (and signed) by my quilting friends back "home." How sweet is that?!?

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Some new flowers are blooming along the roads where Toby and I walk.  Here is night-flowering catchfly, a non-native plant, but one that is blooming quite profusely right now.

 There are a couple plants blooming right now that to the casual eye look a lot like bladder campion, and this catchfly is one of them.  The flowers, however are a bit smaller, and the "bladder" (the green pouch behind the petals, made from the sepals) is long and slender, whereas on bladder campion it is a bulging bladder (hence the name).

Meanwhile, back at work, the leaf-legged bug eggs hatched!  

Unfortunately, no one was there to feed, water or release them, so they perished in the jar.  Still, I was able to photograph them.  What lovely babies they are.

And this,

is a fossilized mollusk I found while putting in the veg gardens at home.  I'm not sure what species it is/was, so I am hoping some fossil enthusiast out there might have a lead for me.  This part of the country was all underwater a few thousand years ago - Lake Michigan, which preceeded the current Lake Michigan and was larger than all the Great Lakes combined.  

Yellow goatsbeard is going to seed.  These seedheads are about the size of a baseball.

And they make amazing subjects for a nature photographer!

Just down the road from me, in any direction, actually, is state land.  In this particular direction (north), we have some great habitat.  Indigo buntings nest here, and at night the air is filled with the calls of whip-poor-wills.  This particular evening, though, the light hitting this tree caught my eye.  The golden glowing is the sun lighting up the flowers.

And what is it?  Basswood!  I've seen the tree plenty of times before, but I've never seen it in bloom, so this was a pleasant surprise.  I've heard stories of how the bees love it, how it fills the air with its sweet scent, and that it makes great honey.  I'm not a connoisseur of honey, and only use it for baking, so I'm the wrong one to make declarations on the virtues of basswood honey.

Here's another bladder campion look-alike for those not in the know:  bouncing bet.  This is a fun plant , even though not a native one.  Bouncing bet is also called soapwort, and the name is well-earned, for this plant, when its leaves are crushed and mixed with water, forms a very gentle soap, which was terrifically valued in the middle ages by those in the fabric business.

And "bouncing bet" as a name?  Well, Bet was a popular nickname for Beth, Betsy, Elizabeth, and one that might've been common.  Picture a washing woman  named Bet, bending over the wash tub, scrubbing away at a load of laundry, and her skirts and underskirts bouncing away as she scrubbed, scrubbed, scrubbed.  It's said that this flower looks like her bouncing skirts.