Pickwick

Pickwick Crocus

I promise this is the last crocus for a little while, at least until something else sprouts in the yard. I will move these bulbs this year. They have somehow survived the dogs for 4 years, but I'm going to not forget them and move them around in May. I want them behind the garden fence so I no longer have to obsess over photographing them before a dog squashes them. Pickwick Crocuses appear to be one of the few veined crocuses you can get as a bagged bulb at home improvement stores. I don't remember seeing type any other then pickwick around planting season.

Hens and Chicks

I wish this was about avian chicks. This is from a plant that has been hanging on for two years now in a pot. I bought it planning to put it in one section of the rock wall, and just keep not getting to it before fall. The 4" pot sits in a convenient corner of the garden and the plants just keep waiting. The largest rosettes died quite some time ago and the babies keep spilling out of the pot. I do nothing to protect it, but it keeps surviving the winter quite well.

Ebony Jewelwing

Ebony Jewelwing - Male

This is a male Ebony Jewelwing (Calopteryx maculata), another of the few damselflies I can identify to a scientific name. The females look largely the same but have white dots along the top of their wings. These guys are visible around late June through July. I've found them in at least four locations in Massachusetts. By far the easiest to find them at is Garden in the Woods in Framingham. I've also spotted them at Stony Brook in Norfolk, Ashumet Holly in East Falmouth, and occassionally at Broadmoor in Natick. They seem to prefer barely lit forest streams. They like sitting in bright patches of sun twitching their wings for attention.

George Washington Bridge

Last time I was in new York for some reason my favorite bridge was lit up differently. Normally only the wires are lit, the topwers were lit up this time, I expect for some kind of construction. I had to spend some time trying to capture the light without washing out the bridge. It's too bad there weren't any nice clouds to help break up the overall blackness. It was also back in February, so there is some snow visible to the left of the bridge. This is one of the better images I took before we left to drive home.

Frog with Duckweed

As soon as it starts thawing again I'm looking forward to the frogs. There are two places where the pond frogs are often less jumpy. Broad Meadow Brook and Garden in the Woods are both excellent places to find frogs that are perfectly content to sit for long periods of time. Most will even sit still while children shriek nearby.

Landscape Arch

Landscape Arch

I'm back to Utah images to combat the fact it is snowing again. It's cold, and in Arches it never dropped below 80°. During the day it went above 100°. I don't think I've been this eager for spring since I was little.

A traditional vacation snap shot of Landscape Arch, I was in Utah in June, so clouds were very rarely glimpsed. This led to many slightly boring pure blue skies. Next time I will brave the rains in July for more interesting images (maybe I'll get a camper, I hate camping in the rain). I'll also suck it up and drive south into Arizona to visit Antelope Canyon, and pay extra to be on one of the photography tours where they try to space it out so you can photograph without extra people.

Toka Eyes

I'll admit that her eyes had a lot to do with why I got this dog. She had no manners, and wasn't housebroken, but I freaking love her gold eyes. Okay, the fact the other dog I took with me could stand her was a big plus as well. A few years later, she may not be perfect, but the positives outweigh her annoyances.

More Crocus

Even with some snow yesterday the crocus are still trying to come up. There might be snow tomorrow and Thursday as well. I really miss those 2 gorgeous days from last week. I know if I dig around a bit I should be able to find the name of these crocus. Best guess is Crocus flavus Golden Yellow. I have them labeled as Golden yellow in my notes, but the flavus is the type that seems most likely on Google.

First Iris

I like these flowers even more then the crocus. They just appear, with barely any leaves. They weren't up yesterday at all, but today I had open flowers. I can't wait for the others to show themselves. They are one of the easier bulbs to plant, since they are slim and small I remember just pushing them into the dirt and covering them over. They bloom for a few days then disappear until next year. I don't think these were labeled a specific variety, just iris reticulata.

Spring Arriving

The fall before last I planted tons of bulbs, mostly mixed crocus, iris, muscari (which I won't plant again as it looks like limp grass most of the time), mixed daffodils and a few specific varieties of each. Last spring they bloomed fairly well, but I've been looking forward to this year, especially since I didn't have any extra money for bulbs last fall. So far yellow, purple and white crocus are up. I've got daffodils just starting to peek out and I had to clear the leaves off a few of the planting beds to find the bulbs. I'll have to dig through my photos of last year to make sure I know where everything is.

Mantis Signs

While this is certainly not my best picture ever, I'm ridiculously excited about the content. While rambling around the yard today my mother spotted this and asked what it might be. It's an egg case, from the preying mantids I released last year. I stuck a milk crate over it so I don't manage to crunch it in my spring garden cleaning. I'm ecstatic. I was considering driving an hour to the butterfly place I go the egg case last year just so I'd gt more mantids. Looks like I won't have go (too bad there's a cheese-making store near by I want to visit, they do have other butterflies available however so maybe I'll go anyway). They should be Mantis religiosa, the European mantis. I'd rather the Carolina mantis, but I haven't seen any available.

I also mixed up 5 different lettuce seed types today and planted them under the plastic sheet hoop house that managed to survive the winter. I'll be trying to plant more in about two weeks if these ones come up.

Now all I need to figure out is how to get native grasshoppers back in the yard. We had plenty when I was a kid, but they've dwindled and I haven't seen any in several years. We'll be tilling the dirt this year and trying more seriously to get some grass. I would love to have back the mix of green and tan grasshoppers we had before.

Frost Stars

I did not get up early enough to hike, but I was able to scour the back yard for interesting frost. The frost on my car had melted to a ruin, but the yard had plenty of interesting shapes. Since i started using live view, the tripod, and my camera's remote I've been getting much clearer frost images. Since I only have a standard macro lens I can't get as close as I want, but until I get an MP-E 65mm that will have to do. Since I have two other lens I'd want first, buying a dedicated manual focus macro lens probably won't be happening.

Spahgnum Bluet

Spaghnum Bluet

It snowed today. Grrr I want spring already. This photo is from march of last year at Upton State Forest. I'm normally not skilled enough to get a good species match with dragonflies, but this one is likely Nehalennia gracilis. It helps that I took a few dozen pictures of the same 6 animals. There were maybe a dozen fluttering along the driveway of the parking lot. I tried going in a bit deeper in the woods, but I'd forgotten my hat and the deer flies were biting. The damselflies were taking care of any flies near the parking lot. Next time I'll bring my boots for the flooded trails as well.

Beanbag Bed

I took a bean bag chair out of my closet a few days ago. It was in the way and I though the cat might like to sleep in it. So far she hasn't tried to. One of the dogs however keeps jamming herself into it. She looks a little confused as she circles and her feet get stuck in the middle. Once she is down it does look comfortable; she even puts up with me harassing her. The other dog would not touch that bean bag if there was raw liver in it. I might get him to curl up on it with a few years and a lot of hot dogs. I'll have to be content with just one dog who is willing to try new things. I did do a slight cleanup on the wall behind her as my bedroom wall is long overdue for a repaint.

Pliosaur (Lipleurodon)

Yesterday, I spent some time digging through my parent's attic. I finally took home the biggest container of my critter toys. Other then thinking the money might have been better spent on college, I do have fond memories of the critters. I have an extensive collections of dinosaur, horse and mythical creature toys from the 80's and early 90s. I would have more from the late 90s, but at that point it would be with my own money, so I have fewer but nicer ones. The one pictured today was actually one of my later purchases. I bought it at Utah Field House of Natural History Museum in Utah I think in 98. The bottom is stamped A PLIOSAUR (Lipleurodon) Length about 8 metres. British Museum of Natural history 1989. Invicta plastics Ltd. Leicester England. I bought it because I couldn't believe they were still making these toys.

I had a number of hard plastic dinosaur toys of this same style. A quick web search shows that plenty of people collected them. I'm actually missing the more common critters, but I have many fond memories of my ridiculously heavy Brachiosaurus, which I beat half to death while playing.

I'm likely going to box the critters back up as soon as I weed out the ones I really don't like. I'm not sure what exactly I'm going to do with them after that. I do have a few that are still missing I need to dig up as well, I hate to have any missing.

Christmas Cactus

I miss these plants. I had one of each color. I actually used to have 4 Christmas cactus and one Easter cactus. They're from the same family, but the leaf pads are different shapes, and the flowers were different. I handed them all off to my aunt when I was planning on moving. I didn't move, but they're thriving and I'm not going to pay for any more plants until I have an actual greenhouse. Growing plants indoors under lights just ends up depressing. African violets can thrive, but not much else that I really like, and my lighting options at windows are very limited. I get okay light in the winter, but only in the winter.

Hoodoo

I now wish I'd thought of attributing scale to this image. I don't remember how big the hoodoo was, or how old the tree growing on top appeared. I do remember this was during an 8-mile hike in the blazing desert. It was fun, though I wish I could have gotten out of bed earlier. Next time I go to Bryce in June I need to bring arctic gear. Down in the canyons it was nice and warm, but up at the campsites it was just above freezing at night. My sleeping bag is old and only rated to 40° F. It dropped a little lower then that at night. I was sleeping in thermal pants, two pairs of socks and a sweatshirt and I still though I might die each night. I woke in time for dawn exactly once and thought I was going to freeze to death then as well. It was a lesson I won't soon forget.

Skunk Cabbage

Is it sad that I eagerly welcome the first skunk cabbage flowers of the year as the true beginning of spring? Most people are not enamored with skunk cabbage. The plants themselves look a bit like swamp hostas. The actual flowers are just tiny yellowish white globes inside the strange leaves shown above. It is supposed to smell like a skunk if you damage the leaves, but as I've never tried that I'm not sure that it does. I do know it is exceedingly inedible, and apparently tastes quite bad. I haven't tried that either. I just think it comes up so nicely early in the year and covers the muddy nastiness that is a swamp before the ferns really get going.

Moose Hill from Tuesday

The snow is very slowly releasing it's grip on the ground. I got there a little late around 8 AM and the ice layer across all the trails was still mostly frozen. next time I will remember to bring my ice grippers. I didn't sink much even though the snow was still 12" deep in a few spots. The crust is now quite thick. The walk out wasn't too bad, but 2 hours later the ice layer had started to melt and made the main trail back quite slick.

The boardwalk is still closed, but you get to walk all the way to it before you find out. I wonder if it's covered with snow, or if the refreezing actually damaged it this winter. It's my favorite section, so it being continually closed is a let down. I'll have to remember next time and wander down to the pond and stream across the street.

It's maple sap harvesting season again. This year there was a trash can being used at one point. I kind of prefer the metal buckets, though there isn't really much of a difference.

This is the same place I captured graceful shadows on the snow a few weeks ago. The snow has since melted in strange places and seems more like the surface of the moon.

I wonder if all the short pine trees will bounce back from spending months stuck to the ground. I did see a number of larger trees snapped in half across teh paths, so maybe being bendy isn't so bad.

The trails all had leaves and branches embedded in them. My guess is the sun warms them up just enough for them to slowly melt down in the snow. The ice cocooning them however was quite nice.

Closeup of nice ice.

More ice.

Near the end of my trek I spotted this curious fellow. I have never seen a spider out in snow before. It was alive and walked away while I was watching. I imagine it isn't very happy about being out right now, but it didn't seem to bothered.

There were plenty of vague footprints to sort through. Most of the prints were obviously people, but I spotted a few deer tracks, possibly coyote, and raccoon as well.

Ice

I went hiking Tuesday morning and after much sliding around (trails have been iced over for a while now) found some things to photograph. Since we haven't had new snow in a while the snow is starting to look a little messy. Fallen leaves and branches litter the trails. As it has been warmer for the last few days items have been melting and refreezing into the trails. leading to ice encased leaves. If I got out earlier I might have seen frost details, but by the time I was out it had melted down a bit. Read More about my hike at Wild into Suburbia.

Crab Spider

In late summer these spiders can be found on daisy type plants. I've seen them on phlox as well. They do appear in different colors, often matching the bloom color of their chosen plant. They often sit either just under the flower petals, or right up against the bud on top of the petals. A sure sign they are around is dessicated insects attached to the flowers petals. It took me a while to notice them as they are tiny, barely 1 cm across for many of them. All the pictures I had seen were greatly magnified as these spiders are unlikely to be noticed with a casual look. They sit with their four front legs spread wide resembling crabs.

Baby Mantis

Another anticipating summer picture. In May of last year I released baby mantis all over my yard. Every week I'd spot a few of them. Then I went a good month without a sighting. In September after neglecting mowing for a few weeks I discovered an adult wandering about in the long grass. I'm hoping there was more then one survivor and I'll get new baby mantis this year. The tiny babies are ridiculously cute and the adults will actually watch you. You can see their eyes moving to track you as you shift. My next critter to try to get back in the yard is grasshoppers. We used to have hundreds of them before the lawn died. Now there are just some crickets and beetles.

Awaiting Summer

I am eagerly anticipating summer, or at the very least spring. The milkweed flowers won't be seen until late June, so I'm aiming high. Last year's flowers were rather lackluster due to the aphids I was too lazy to continually squish. I did get bright red aphids last year which was an interesting change from the bright yellow. Looking back I don't seem to have any pictures of the bright red ones, which is a shame. At the time I remember being impressed by the many options I was getting for aphids.