milkweed tell-all, part 3 of 5, visitors

post #181
     It's Sunday again, so here is another selection from my milkweed collection and more memories of my amazement.

       I start with an iPhone overview of location #2, midday in early September, 2013:

  
      BEFORE YOU LOOK AT THE NEXT THREE PHOTOS, TRY TO SEE A VISITOR ON THE PLANT!  HOW GLAD I AM I TOOK TIME TO MAKE THIS PHOTO (even though the midday light is rarely the best) BECAUSE I WOULD NOT OTHERWISE HAVE BEEN LOOKING CLOSELY AT THE PLANT TO SEE WHAT WAITED FOR ME -- the unexpected!  And it is also true I might have not gotten into the habit of looking, looking, looking from then on, taking a chance each time for wonder.

     I was so taken by the frog that I went back that very evening to see if it was still there.  I was rewarded by seeing another visitor, plus the frog had moved -- to the leaf just below where it had been before:

I love the frog's shadow through the leaf.  I think he or she thinks I can't see any frogs, thanks to their turning to green.  In any case, there is no attempt to escape.

The seed pods are beginning their autumn voyage from green to gray.

       Can you now find the frog in this evening overview photo??  (Hint: look in the middle of the photo)

 
  Five days later, I start seeing more milkweed bugs.  I still am not sure if they help with things or if too many of them damage the plant.  Again, my lack of biology training slows me down a bit.  I suspect an overabundance of them means trouble for the plant, and, were there monarch butterfly eggs, definitely trouble for the monarchs.

I loved seeing this spider returned and still at work. I hope it is not one of the spiders that eat butterfly eggs....

      About ten days later, I discovered LOCATION #3 along the road on the way to town -- with an actual place across from these several plants where I could pull the car off the road.  I found wonders here, too, but I will wait until next week (part 4 of 5) to show more than this single photo from there.  Of course I had been driving by this place all summer without paying full attention.  I am so grateful I finally came to my senses....so to speak.

    
          So, for now, Hey, good lookin' -- to you all.

milkweed tell-all, part 2 of 5

post #180
       I am loving reviewing my milkweed photos with these blog posts in mind.  Today I am  including a few non-milkweeds as well.  It feels like the best way to share what else was happening at the same time in a plant's short life.  I come at this project as an artist and not as a biologist, though obviously the two perspectives overlap.  
        NOTE: I am planning to publish this before 9:30 a.m. (daylight savings time!) which is earlier in the Sunday than usual.  I am needing to drive a couple of hours west, to Lexington, in order to volunteer noon to 3 at the annual Kentucky Crafted: the Market.  This is a great event with over 200 juried artists displaying their wares -- to wholesalers on the Friday and to the public over the weekend.  It is taking place at the Lexington Convention Center, often referred to as Rupp Arena which is part of the complex.  It is open until 5 today and I recommend it highly.  We are proud of our hardworking Kentucky Arts Council!

      Now, to continue on from the last post, here are images from late June through August, blossoms fading and falling, seed pods growing and hosting....

This is where I left off last week -- late June, flowers still doing fine.

      I think these garden photos are very telling.  (Thanks, Sandy and Junie, for letting me admire your hard work.)  The beans are ready, the corn is growing, and so are the zucchinis!  Talk about a big seed pod!!

          (Just have to include this sky photo from up on the ridge that day.  Amazing!)

    I was away quite a bit in July last summer, so I MISSED some of my milkweed's transition from big flower to big seed pods.  Luckily I have this upcoming summer to fill in this lapse.

Location #2 --  Hello young pods!!

     Back at location #1, the meadow has been mowed for hay, taking with it my milkweeds, but bringing on the deer....

...mostly because of these gems.  Everyone around here had one of the best apple seasons in forever.

These are Joe-Pye weeds, who, like milkweed, are happy to grow along our back roads.  They attract butterflies, just like the milkweed does, but they are a lot taller than a milkweed.  Monarch butterflies, however, are particularly bonded to just milkweeds.

first photo of a milkweed bug

Happiness was discovering this beautiful spider and her web bridging these two milkweed plants!!

       

I didn't have my tripod with me so this image is done hand-held, as we say.

       This last photo (for today) shows a hint of things to come.  And I have been saving the milkweed bugs for their own show, soon.  Thanks for joining me on this journey.  For some reason, this past week I have had blog visitors from over twenty countries, so I am now curious about how many places in the world have milkweed plants.  In any case, welcome to all of you!

Some catching up -- more milkweed, a deer, and Seamus Heaney

post #156
      I continue to follow the milkweed plants, waiting for the "spider" seed bits to erupt from the pods.  Because I have been looking regularly and closely at the milkweed, I have seen some unexpected things!  This is a wonderful aspect of photography; it helps the eye and the heart to pay attention.

I wasn't expecting to see a frog on the milkweed pod, so I almost missed it!

a closer look, from the side

The next morning -- I am assuming it was the same frog, since this leaf was below where the frog sat yesterday.

a few days later, a gathering of young milkweed bugs

and the same spider type as two weeks earlier! (See the next image)

I have had a request for the name of this spider -- I can't find it on the "fantastic spiders" or "weird spiders" web sites.  Can anyone help me??  Please??

 

Meanwhile, the deer continue to visit us and check our apple drops.  We have to get them before they do!

       
        And in the big world, a special Irish poet, Seamus Heaney, died August 30, 2013.  These are the books of his poetry that my husband has had for many years, and he heard him read in Louisville, KY as well.  
     Where would our lives be without fine, brave and generous poets.

     I may end up writing my own poem to go with my series of milkweed photos, but today I am sharing a poem by Philip Levine, called Milkweed. 

Milkweed by Philip Levine

Remember how unimportant
they seemed, growing loosely
in the open fields we crossed
on the way to school. We
would carve wooden swords
and slash at the luscious trunks
until the white milk started
and then flowed. Then we'd
go on to the long day
after day of the History of History
or the tables of numbers and order
as the clock slowly paid
out the moments. The windows
went dark first with rain
and then snow, and then the days,
then the years ran together and not
one mattered more than
another, and not one mattered.

Two days ago I walked
the empty woods, bent over,
crunching through oak leaves,
asking myself questions
without answers. From somewhere
a froth of seeds drifted by touched
with gold in the last light
of a lost day, going with
the wind as they always did.

back to where the beavers work

post #130
       Before the recent rains we've been having, I returned to make more photos of beaver activity.  The hike there requires several crossings of the creek.  Less water in the creek means 1) easier crossings! 2) less chance to fall in the creek and get the camera wet! and 3) more time for taking photos!  I ended up leaving the house in the late afternoon, so I didn't make it back home until 8 pm, just before dark.

      First, signs of beaver dining and destruction:

     These stumps seemed like an h'ors d'oeuvre or perhaps a training opportunity.  The close up of the stump tops that follows in the second photo reveals dual spiders...who knew! 

      

        

         

      Another duality seems to be at play here on this log.  I wonder if this could be a his and her munchies bar?  Or a parent/child side by side training effort?  There is so much I don't know.

        
      Here are two variations on beaver paths to the water, or perhaps a beaver slide is a better word:

     The Wikipedia beaver information says the purpose of these trees which may drown in the water is to create "standing dead wood" which is a necessary food for "a wide range of animals and plants."

  The area these beavers cover has high cliffs, on one side, and many trees left to choose from.

        

      These last two photos show the last dam of three that I could see on the creek.  The second photo shows a detail from the first -- a very clever severing of the tree trunk, though the tree itself was caught in another tree so it has not yet fallen across the creek.  (I am standing on a hillside; I am not in a tree!)

    
      There have been some heavy rains since I took these photos a week ago.  And it is raining tonight.  I look forward to another visit there when I can make it.  Beavers work at night, and I do not.  But other years I have seen beavers in nearby lakes, in the daytime, so who knows what is possible if one has ample fits of curiosity!