Thistles in August and September

 

The thistles in the 'valley' - in the town to the west of us, they bloom in May and June.  They have long since lost their flowers and even fallen down to the roadsides where I cannot even see them anymore.  Our thistles have been growing slowly the past few months, growing tall - and now, today, on August the 20th, they have finally begun to show signs of blooming.

Our thistles always seem to bloom in August and September here - in our 'lonely mountain' as Mark calls it.  We are some 300 to 600 feet above the town - which really isn't much compared to some places, but it sets our entire property into a different climate, which trickles down into many other strange (and sometimes wonderful) things happening.

We had those cedar waxwings the other day, and numerous turkeys, deer with fawns etc etc...  There is a family of grey foxes that argues constantly down in the little creek here.  The Joe Pye weed is also finally starting to bloom on the roadsides down in the valley - I always look for it about this time, covered in butterflies.  The bees and butterflies will be covering our thistles again soon, as well.

I saw the bedstraw blooming, as well, and the Devil's Walking Stick (Aralia spinosa, Angelica tree) was blooming a few weeks ago, covered in pollinators and is starting to form it's berries down along the creek.  I found tomato hornworms for the first time yesterday, and fed those to our chickens.

 

 

Continuing to work on my Japanese.  Hoping to hear back from someone about a little car we are looking for. 

Did the level 19 Japanese on one app, and some 'round' study - rewrote my notes, checked multiple spellings, tried to remember everything I could and then went on to the vocabulary app and saw how much more I could remember.  Review Level 10 later on the phone, just to get it done, and then maybe repeat the vocabulary and go on to the clozemaster.

our Daphne dog came for a walk with me, her joints are getting pretty stiff lately - but when she goes and runs and hollers through the woods she can barely get up for a while after she lays down.. I've been telling her to take it easier.  Charlotte is the 'puppy' and even she hears Minerva out in the woods often and says 'too tired for that' and flops back down

fed the chickens some lespedesza, then changed their water, looked for more hornworms but didn't see any - doesn't mean they aren't there  I would have put a banana bread in the oven but Mark has the end of the monthly pork loin that I got yesterday and the temperature is right for it but not for the banana bread.  Will go look up freezing bananas for that sort of thing and how the defrost should go.  Talked with Esme this morning about things, while we were waiting for the school bus.

forest walk (with botanical interest pics)

We walked down by the lake with Grandma and up into the swampy areas where the beavers are working on felling trees and the herons make their nests.  We were looking for emerging plants and trying to document some of them, too.

 

 This was a freshly felled tree.  The woodchips were new and bright and the tree branches in the water had fresh new Spring leaves on them.

 Down by the beaver dens

 This kind of milky glass green color turned to turquoise blue at the edges of the lake, like a giant piece of agate.    The herons nest around here, too.

 a beech nut tree with lovely branches

 This is an interesting cane grass that was growing next to the lake in one area.  I can't remember seeing it before, but there were several plants of it.  The top was feathery and the bottom was a collection of hollow reed-like pieces growing out of one clump.

 Daphne was so happy, look at her smile!

 Esme was happy to get her feet in the water, too!

 standing down at the edge of the lake near the beaver dens

This is rabbit tobacco or mullein