Mockingbird political debate

If you've done much backyard bird watching, you've probably seen mockingbirds engage in this behavior.  I'm guessing they may be vying for winter feeding territories, but I really don't know.  When my son was young, he said they were having a political debate.  Kids say the cutest things.

(By the way, this is the first time I've tried to post a video to my blog from my hard drive.  I attempted several times before it actually posted.  Let me know if you are able to view the video, which is only about a half minute video.  Thanks.)



One of my Leylands came down

Darling husband was up early this morning, blithely going about his way, stepping on a toad on the sidewalk (which I had the privilege of scooping up and discarding) and going to church to put on a pot of coffee for a service that had been canceled.  I had managed to go back to sleep when the phone rang with a robocall letting me know church was canceled due to power outages and downed power lines.  Something about that is just off--a person could sleep in because church was canceled except for that annoying telephone call to say church was canceled.
After I dutifully called darling husband to let him know church was canceled, I opened up the back door to let the threshold dry out where some rain had seeped in yesterday.  That's when I noticed some green foliage where it shouldn't have been.  It was interesting that in the millisecond before I realized what had happened that I had a positive emotional reaction to all the greenery!  Of course, it took less than a second to realize a tree was down.  It was one we had planted a little over 20 years ago.  I remember when we first planted that row of Leylands.  A few times we would arrive home to find the wind had blown them over.  I mulched them with the white gravel the previous owners had put around the foundation shrubs.  The gravel weighted down the rootballs enough to hold the trees up.  Well, this tree has blown over again, but on a much bigger scale. 

There will be no uprighting it with gravel this time, just lots of clean up.  I guess darling husband will eventually find out this tree is down after he's surveyed the rest of the county.

Hurricane Matthew

North Carolina has been getting pummeled with rain and wind from Hurricane Matthew today.  We've been fortunate not to have lost power here.  Our house is in the low spot in our subdivision, so we always get flooded in heavy rains.
Darling son is house sitting, but when I called to check on him today, he seemed content to hunker down where he was.
Darling husband is more like a caged lion.  He usually wants to go see for himself if things are as bad as the newscasters are reporting.  Fortunately he contented himself to staying in the yard and copying the reporters on TV.

 

A motor home that I've never seen here in the neighborhood parked at the edge of our yard today.  I assumed they were trying to find a place to ride out the storm.  (But who knows?)

 

I walked around the yard and looked at the "river" flowing through.

 

 I found a mushroom that looked like a gargantuan daisy.

 

Here is a shot of the backyard.



My few collard plants are windblown and flooded.

All in all, not too bad here on our property, relatively speaking.



Learning more about the maypop

I have recently learned more about the maypop. 
My first introduction to it was as a kid.  Mom showed us one that was growing near the edge of the garden where she usually kept a row of gladiolus.  She let us take the hen-egg-sized fruits and poke toothpick legs in them to make a little fat green pig.  (As frugal as we were even with small things like toothpicks made that seem like an indulgence.) 
I think Daddy was the one who told us he used to eat the fruits.  I think we might have tried to eat one of the green fruits.  I think we must have tried the pithy white part that is part of the skin, but we did not find it palatable at all.  Maybe Daddy told us we were supposed to wait until they turned yellowish, but I don't recall ever trying them again.
Recently I learned that the part you eat is the part around the seed (after the fruit has turned yellowish and started to wrinkle) like the part you eat in a pomegranate.  Recently on one of my walks, I saw a ripe fruit.  A week later, it was still there but starting to rot just a little.  I thought I might save some of the seeds.  I mashed the fruit with my walking stick.  I was surprised at the sweet fruity scent that was still there.  At that point the inside had a yucky consistency, too nasty to put in my pocket, so I crammed a little of the mess in the crack of the top of my walking stick.  I brought it home and put it on a newspaper to dry out.  I may try to plant the seeds next spring.
One thing I realized from looking at my pictures is what the bud looked like.  Really, the flower has such a remarkable form.

Here is a bloom and a green flower bud to the left of the bloom.

 

In this picture, you can see a bloom in the lower right corner that is starting to open up; you can still see the green calyx.

 

Here is the picture that clued me in as to what I was looking at; I could still see the green points that are such prominent features of the bud.

 

Hopefully one day I will get to taste a ripe one.

 

...and Monday afternoon walk

The weather was nice again Monday afternoon, and dh and I took a stroll around the botanical gardens.  I had already spent quite a bit of time walking behind a mower that morning, so I didn't feel like anything more vigorous than a stroll.  We did chance to meet Mr. Allen De Hart, himself.  He and Mrs. Benton were treating fire ant hills.
Each season there brings new flowers into bloom.  By the lake, I saw a silver-spotted skipper on some ironweed.

 

The turtles are to be seen most any season.

 

 

Sunday evening walk

Sunday evening I took a walk at the De Hart Botanical Gardens.  It's one of my favorite spots.  On my way there, a large deer loped across the road.  It was far enough ahead of me not to be scary.  (I was glad for the motorcyclist who came up behind me that the deer had already crossed.)  I took some pictures of the sights I enjoyed that evening.

a katydid on a yellow flower

 

 

a butterfly pea

 

the skydivers

a passionflower (or maypop as we call them)

the hot air balloon

reflected in the lake

To top off all the lovely sights, on my way home I saw a rainbow.  There had been no rain at all that day.  In fact it was a wonderful September day with low humidity.  That made spotting the rainbow seem even more unusual.

 

 

It was a lovely evening.

Lichen-covered lacewing larva

A few weeks ago, I saw what I thought was a piece of debris stuck to my bedroom door.  I thought perhaps it was a piece of lichen-covered bark.  I figured it had come in on the camp chair that my son borrowed for a bluegrass festival.  (He had returned to chair to its storage place behind the door a day or two before.)  What I didn't quite know was how the bit of bark was sticking to a vertical surface, but I figured some sap or other unwanted tackiness was involved.  I took a closer look, though, and noticed that whatever was attached to the door was holding itself sort of like the meal moths that hang around.  But it did look like a lichen!  Hmmm.  Later, I thought I would scoop it up on a piece of paper and dump it outside.  I half expected it to fly when I touched it, but it didn't.
I've concluded that what I had was most probably a green lacewing larva.  They cover themselves with lichens to camouflage themselves.  Later they use the lichens as a case in which to pupate.
Here is the one that was on my bedroom door.  (This is a close-up; the critter was less than an inch long.)

Sometimes I don't even have to go outside to view the critters of the natural world.