Thursday, October 25, 2007

What big eyes you have


The better to see you with, my dear!

The Christmas Village craft show is coming up and I've been busy busy busy.

See you soon...



...when there's time to get out and about.

Thursday, October 11, 2007

Lazy game cam

The game cam is triggered by heat, so when the air is warm there's not much action. These photos are from the last two months.



We thought this was a fox at first, but it's a reddish coyote instead. Here's how you tell the difference: Foxes have black "leggings" and ear tips, and white tips on their tails.1



Other than bobcats, I think turkeys are my favorite game cam find. We get most pictures of them on dark cloudy days.



I love this photo of their tailfeathers! I'm always excited to find turkey feathers on the ground, but finding them still attached to the turkey is even better.



The weeds might be getting too tall for good critter pictures.



It looks like this deer has a tick in her ear.



The weeds are definitely getting too tall for good critter pictures.



Extreme close-up... the deer can evidently hear the trigger mechanism, and are more curious than you'd think.



Dang. The only spotted fawn game-cam picture ever, and he's already exited the frame.



Not-so-wild Deere and Bush Hog.

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1You can look at the Red Fox wiki if you don't believe me.

Tuesday, October 02, 2007

What's blooming


Strawberry bush, a.k.a. Hearts a burstin' (Euonymus americanus). My mother sometimes calls this plant Wahoo, but the internet says that's the name of a similar, more purplish-blooming plant. That kind of spoils my fun, since I liked to yell wahoo! whenever I found one.


I think this one is Grass-leafed Golden-Aster (Heterotheca graminifolia or Pityopsis graminifolia, I'm not sure which name is the more current.)


This one shows the grass-like leaves.


Great Blue Lobelia (Lobelia siphilitica).


I was about to call this one White snakeroot (Eupatorium rugosum), until I realized that the leaves are wrong for that. It's actually Boneset (Eupatorium perfoliatum altissimum). (Thanks Ontario Wanderer for that correction! I didn't realize there were different types of Boneset.)


Same thing, whole plant.


The Ironweed (Vernonia altissima) is still hanging in there. I saw five Monarch butterflies on it at the same time - very nice since we don't see near the numbers that we used to.


White Crownbeard, a.k.a. Frostweed (Verbesina virginica).


A yellow composite that I've yet to figure out the name of.


Some asters I'm not going to get specific about.

The pics aren't as spiffy as I'd like... I set the camera to a tiny spot-meter and kind of forgot. So most of them were too dark, and were grainy and had to be manipulated.

The goldenrod and the ragweed are blooming too, but I didn't get pics of those.