The last flower to bloom in our gardens, surviving even freezing and a snowfall, is the yellow iris. This one glows in the light of the November 20 sunset.
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Red flowers clustered at the top of a plant spike open for the first time in the evening sun.
She Who Must Be Obeyed doesn’t know what the plant is. She doesn’t remember purchasing it or planting it. For weeks, however, we have been watching what was a beautiful foliage plant sprout from the earth. As it rose the green beauty unfurled leaf after heavily veined leaf. Rain and dew beaded gorgeously on the waxy leaves. Over about the last week something different began to emerge. Our burgeoning stranger sent up a spike from within a roll of leaf, the spike marked by red edges. A flower? In the last few days it became apparent it wasn’t to be a single flower but a cluster of red blooms. Today the buds began to open and tonight the sun lit them wonderfully. We had evening fireworks at our back door.
A butterfly samples nectar from a flower head in the gardens of the The F.A. Seiberling Nature Realm.
Today we paid a visit to the The F.A. Seiberling Nature Realm in Akron, Ohio. It was a fine, cool, beautiful day for a walk in the gardens and natural areas of the park. The last time we visited there was in October 2008. The nature center itself has undergone major improvements since then including installation of solar power panels on several rooftops, LED lighting, new pavement, and pavilion areas. We enjoyed walking through the woods and photographing various natural subjects and captured many splendid views of everything from mushrooms and flowers to vines and butterflies. Only two images are included here but I’ll be working on other images and posting them to a photo gallery — maybe add one or two to my 2011 photo calendar. It’s late now (actually after midnight) so I’ll post and go to bed. I like these low-key, slow-paced days.
A flowering plant poses as if in mid-dance at the The F.A. Seiberling Nature Realm.
On the morning of the first day of September, a Monarch butterfly feeds on a yellow coneflower.
I spent a good part of Wednesday morning, before work, at Hinckley Lake. The weather was nice and I wanted to get out of the house and catch some tranquility before heading to the office. I watched a pair of Great Blue Herons posturing and eyeing each other. They were a bit distant for dramatic photos. So, from the waters’ edge, I shot a few images for the record but mostly watched the slender birds practice their slow motion choreography. Walking back along the path I made efforts at photographing some back-lit plants. Those images, it turned out, were not in good focus — manual focus on ground glass is not very precise and I wish for a split-focus screen for my camera (sadly lacking). Back at the boathouse, however, I caught sight of monarch butterflies feeding off bright yellow coneflowers. I shot many exposures of the orange and black beauties. Shown above is my pick of the bunch.
Thursday was a really, really lousy day at work! Started out in the wee hours with a power failure in the server rack, then a yahoo co-worker moved a couple of networked printers before their time putting them out of use, then the HR manager's PC died, and on and on and on. By the end of the day I was stressed out, my body hurt from head to toe, I was angry, frustrated, and I was physically exhausted having stayed up late with observatory programming the night before and scrambling to work an hour early when I discovered there was a crisis in progress. This morning was a time to unwind a bit on my way to the place of Thursday's torments.
One of my favorite local places is a city park in Olmsted Falls. There, amongst hand-carved rocky walls, grow mosses, flowers, and trees. Nearby a river slowly wears down its rocky bed creating the falls for which the town is named. The light and the atmosphere are peaceful there. It's on my way to work.
Several varieties of iris grow there, surely planted by forgotten hands. They glow softly in the early morning light amongst the rock walls.
An unkempt and smelly lily pond is adjacent to the park's tiny parking lot. I was looking for frogs or turtles, and even heard but did not see a bullfrog. Then I noticed the tiny black dots floating amidst the tangles of pond weed… tadpoles! Hundreds, maybe thousands of tadpoles were swimming everywhere. Most were of a very small, deep brown or black variety dotted with yellow. What I thought were bubbles of gas burbling occasionally to the surface turned out to be much larger bullfrog tadpoles! They darted to the surface, gulped air, then dove back to the relative safety of the pond floor!
Before leaving, I strolled to the bridge carrying a street over the river valley and crossed to the north side. There, perched just on the river bank, is a house of enviable location. Still, I got my respite and a bit of stress relief through a much less permanent visit to a tiny city park. One of my favorite places for, now, several decades, David Fortier River Park.
Yeah, we got s*** last night! You heard me… snow! There, I said it! Two inches of heavy, icy, crap all over everything. It's supposed to be sunny today and the temps are over freezing now. I'm expecting to not have to deal with the frozen stuff –much– when we take Tasha to the vet late this morning. It's a followup visit and an expected second antibiotic injection. (She continues to improve, by the way.) In the mean time, as I've said before, it's a good thing those "delicate" spring flowers are really quite tough; look what happened to one in our patio garden.
The first flower of the season opened at home today. We thought it would be a crocus budding nearby but, no, it was a miniature iris. Absolutely beautiful, even in the early evening shade, exploding out of the dark litter and mulch. Our worry over Tasha continues despite a fairly good weekend. While she did come out and welcome us home tonight, she continues to hide most of the time and, well, just doesn't act right. We fear it could be worse than "only" a skin problem. Kind of dampens our excitement over the flowers.
We did a little shopping in the morning. Did a little yard work around midday. Took a little trip to Hubbard Valley Park (Medina County Park System) this afternoon. The walk on the park's trails, through woods and meadows and around a lake, were beautiful. I found, however, that enjoying and photographing a beautiful sight at home was every bit as rewarding as what I had seen in the wild. I finally got around to photographing my favorite of the summer's "volunteer" sunflowers. That beauty grew at the end of our sidewalk and brings a smile to my face daily when I see it there. Backlit by the late-day sun, it was all the more memorable this afternoon.
Oh boy what a mess! Mom-In-Law's (MIL) sewer line plumbing problem required a complete replacement of the 50-year-old line from a corner in the back of her home's basement all the way across the floor and to the front foundation wall! Expensive, really hard work (for the Roto-Rooter guys), and a huge smelly mess. It also meant destruction of the house's tile floor, laid by MIL's late husband back when the house was new. That's actually the sad part.
It's a really bad thing to happen but, as it turns out, once the poorly-installed, broken-down pipe is replaced from the house, through the front yard, and to the street, MIL's drains will work much better and a "mystery odor" will likely disappear.
Since the plumbing's out, MIL is staying with us for the duration. I took an emergency day off from work to help clear the MIL's basement for demolition work and to look after her for the afternoon.
A beautiful part of the day was the blooming of She Who Must Be Obeyed's asiatic lilies — large, lovely, sweetly-scented blooms. The mid-afternoon sun backlit one of the flowers and I excused myself from a conversation with MIL in order to record the image before the sun sank behind our garage.
New neighbors are not used to having to enclosing their garbage-bearing trash bags in closed cans to keep them from raccoons and dogs that patrol the area. So, lately, every Tuesday morning we are greeted with the sight of trash and garbage strewn across the common lawn areas. No one owns up to it. No one seems to learn from it. No one cleans it up. {Grrrrr….} Shot photos to send to the Association's management for distribution with a reminder. {Update: SWMBO spotted an envelope showing through a garbage bag in one of my photos. I dashed out and jotted down the name and address so we may have a lead on the negligent party!}
Turning my back on the mess, I photographed Her lovely garden. There were more spectacular flowers in the garden this morning, but this pale yellow bloom caught my eye. I'm taking the day off as my July 4th holiday comp. time which will allow me to tend to Tasha who will be going in for teeth cleaning at the vet's shortly. Vets give cats general anesthesia when cleaning their teeth. With all those needle-sharp teeth contained within a ball of claws, muscle, and fury I can't say as I blame them!
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