Nature Study Monday: Amanita

That was a completely unintended week-long blog vacation that proved to be much needed.  I am so happy to be back though!

Are you a forager?  With all of our walks in the woods, I have recently become very interested in the many different mushrooms that peek through or pop their heads out of the fallen leaves or that stand at attention on decaying logs in the forest.  Today on a walk in the Delaware Water Gap, we came across a couple foraging and learned a little about what they found.  I learned, for instance, that a toadstool is not a specific kind of mushroom, but a generic name for one.

I have much much more to learn about these forest creatures before I venture to eat one.  A friend walking with us pointed to this mushroom as Amania bisporigera (or the Eastern North American Destroying Angel--yikes!), a fungus so toxic that it accounts many or most of the mushroom fatalities worldwide.  Upon further investigation, I am no so sure that we classified it correctly.  Most of this classification evidently are found growing on the forest floor (this one is on a log) and are found in the spring. 

 Nevertheless, I will surely not be eating anything looking like it in the near future.

Nature Study Monday: Coneflower

Do you have any of these growing around your home?

I planted Coneflowers early this spring and anxiously awaited their arrival throughout the summer.  Butterflies supposedly love the flower as much as we do, but I have not noticed many surrounding ours.  They, instead, flock to the nearby butterfly bush (which I only learned later is not a native plant and therefor not a host to many of our native butterflies).

Coneflowers (Echinacea) are native to eastern and central North America and do not mind some drought.  They like full sun but can handle some shade, and once they are established they live a long while and attract all kinds of good native species to your garden.

Nature Study Monday: Carpenter Bees

I am very interested in all the sorts of bees that we have humming about our yard over the past three months.  Documentaries like this one have me especially interested in the fate of our dear honeybees.  To fight the anxiety drummed up knowing just how dependent we are on our yellow and black friends I study those that are flying about my yard and dream of the hives that we will get next year.  And I am finding out so much more each day (thanks Julie for pointing out that this is actually a yellow jacket).

Carpenter bees, or at least the species that we have in our own backyard, are a great deal larger than honeybees.  As you may have guessed (or already know), they make their homes in wooden structures or decaying trees by boring holes and creating tunnels.  The bees, however, do not eat the wood, although they might use it to create divisions within their nest.  They are primarily solitary nesters although in some species some females and their daughters nest together.

They are good pollinators of open-faced flowers, like our bee balm, pictured above.

Nature Study Monday: Tiger Swallowtail

These beautiful butterflies flit about our butterfly bush in the early morning and each time I see one I pause and watch until the moment passes, and up and away it goes.

The Tiger Swallowtail, like the Eastern Black Swallowtail, has a long tail on the end of each wing (hence the name).  The Tiger Swallowtail can be found throughout most parts of the United States and Canada and is native to North America.

Tiger Swallowtails lay their eggs, one per leaf, on Sweet Bay Magnolia and Tulip poplar trees.  Once the caterpillar hatches from the egg, it eats its shell and then begins to munch on the host tree's leaves.  It changes color as it sheds it skin, from brown to light green to dark brown again (just before it pupates).

These yellow beauties prefer the nectar of coneflowers and Petunia and especially love shades of red and pink.  I have found ours (like the one pictured above) drinking the nectar from purple butterfly bush flowers as well.

What kinds of butterflies are flying about in your life?

{this moment}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

Amanda Soule

Nature Study Monday: Toadstool

On a long hike through the woods of the Berkshires this weekend, we saw a whole handful of these funny little creatures.  Have you ever seen a toadstool in person?  For me, they are the stuff of fairy tales and not for the average hiker.  But there they were, in all of their magic, right in the middle of our trail, one after the other.  A classic case of the more you notice, the more you notice.  I wonder how many times I have passed mushrooms like these on walks in the woods...

Amanita muscaria, the scientific name for toadstools, are found in coniferous forests throughout the Northern hemisphere.  They have both poisonous and hallucinogenic properties.  Both humans and animals have been known to seek them out for the latter.  

For me, it is magic enough just to spot this small in a romp through the woods.  What a wonder this world is to behold...

Camping with Kids

I have always wanted to, but found some excuse as to why it could happen.  Too hot.  Too cold. Too tired.  Too much.  Enough with these excuses, I say!

We took the plunge into the kid camping waters over the weekend, and it was... just perfect.  Not perfect in the perfect sense.  There were some unexpected elements like a (blaring) outdoor movie after dark and more blaring music following that.  Not exactly the camping experience that I remember from yesteryear.  Oh, and then there were the portable satellite dishes for campfire t.v. viewing.  

But perfect in every other sense.  Clear night skies, a babbling brook, s'mores, and fresh water swimming, fire sticks, and fire chats, and time together outside without the pull of the garden, or the house, or a myriad of other things. 

This camping thing, we can do it.  We really can.

Saving Seeds

Seeds have always been such a mystery to me--I mean, where and how do they materialize?  I remember looking inside a not yet bloomed sunflower last year for the seeds it supposedly had.  Yeah, as I suspected, no seeds.  These seed thingys, I thought, are for someone else to hold, behold, and plant.  Not for me.

But this spring, I bought some of these thingys to plant in my own garden, to plant from seed.  Our first go together indoors was not so great.  My seed trays that I faithfully brought in and out of doors each day (until I stopped remembering) didn't like my forgetful ways or the the cold spring we had this year.  Direct seeding, though, worked!  What fun it was for us to put a little pellet, or flake, or tiny ball in the ground and watch it turn into carrots, peas, spinach, and lettuce.

Seed saving is the next logical step for me on this path, but back to one of the original questions--where and how do these seeds materialize?  Lo and behold, and again with nature's unpredictable predictability, there they were hanging off one of our dill plants, which had evidently gone to seed.  Wow!

What a truly cool world.

Nature Study Monday: Honeybee

If last year was the year of the garden, and this year is the year of the chickens, next year will most certainly be the year of the honeybee.  We don't have a hive yet (that I know of), but these buzzers are humming all over our flowers (and yours too, I hope).

I have a lot to learn about our endangered friends before they move into our backyard.  I do know that our food crops are dependent on them and that all of us need to everything we can to keep them safe, healthy, and happy.  This documentary helped give me a better understanding of how essential honeybees are to our planet.

Honeybees have fuzzy bodies and shiny abdomens accompanied by thin wings.  They live in colonies of up to 25000.  Females can sting only once, and males cannot sting at all.  They are generally calm and not aggressive.

Nature Study Monday: Angelica

I think I might dub 2011 as The Summer of Garden Herbs.  We have so many growing this year and I have so much to learn about them.  Some are very familiar to me, the sites, smells, and feel of them, like chamomile and lavender, for instance.  Others like Jerusalem Artichoke or Angelica are totally new.

Each time I visit a nursery, I go straight to the section on herbs.  It seems that they all have the basics--sage, thyme, basil, etc...  but there might be one or two obscure ones that I happen upon.  This is how I came upon our new Angelica plant.  I had heard of it before, but had no idea why I might want it in my garden.  I did notice that it likes some shade and I had that to offer so we were in business.

Angelica is a biennial.  If the plant is left to flower, it will die in its second year.  I am hoping that mine will drop seeds and then reseed itself.  We will see.  It likes moist soil and "speckled" shade and is native to northeastern North America (another great reason for me to plant it).

For medicinal purposes, the roots, leaves, and seeds (I believe) are used to lower fevers, quell coughs, and soothe colicky babies.  The stalks of the plants are candied and sold as sweets. 

Hmmm... I think I will save that last bit of information from my little ones!

Have you had any experience with Angelica?  Please share!

Nature Study Monday: Angelica

I think I might dub 2011 as The Summer of Garden Herbs.  We have so many growing this year and I have so much to learn about them.  Some are very familiar to me, the sites, smells, and feel of them, like chamomile and lavender, for instance.  Others like Jerusalem Artichoke or Angelica are totally new.

Each time I visit a nursery, I go straight to the section on herbs.  It seems that they all have the basics--sage, thyme, basil, etc...  but there might be one or two obscure ones that I happen upon.  This is how I came upon our new Angelica plant.  I had heard of it before, but had no idea why I might want it in my garden.  I did notice that it likes some shade and I had that to offer so we were in business.

Angelica is a biennial.  If the plant is left to flower, it will die in its second year.  I am hoping that mine will drop seeds and then reseed itself.  We will see.  It likes moist soil and "speckled" shade and is native to northeastern North America (another great reason for me to plant it).

For medicinal purposes, the roots, leaves, and seeds (I believe) are used to lower fevers, quell coughs, and soothe colicky babies.  The stalks of the plants are candied and sold as sweets. 

Hmmm... I think I will save that last bit of information from my little ones!

Have you had any experience with Angelica?  Please share!

Nature Study Monday: Roman Chamomile

My most favorite tea in the whole wide world is chamomile.  While it is much too hot right now to enjoy the relaxing effects of it, I am still loving all of the flowers.  

I have never grown chamomile before.  This year I grew most of my plants from seed and bought one for insurance.  It is growing splendidly underneath and next to our blueberry bushes. 

Chamomile is native to Europe and likes full sun.  Ours started flowering a couple of weeks ago and I am looking forward to many more flowers this season!  

Butterfly Dreaming

Last year we found an Eastern Black Swallowtail caterpillar munching on our potted dill plant.  After witnessing the metamorphosis, I knew that we had to plant plenty more of its host plant around the garden so that these little black beauties would grace us with their presence again this year.  So plant we did-loads of dill, some parsley, some fennel, and some carrots.  So it is strange to me that I am surprised that these sleek specimens are flittering everywhere about the garden.  Nature always surprises me with its unpredictable predictability.

I mean, do butterflies have a sense of smell?  How on earth do they know they difference between parsley and cilantro, for example?  But they do.  The fuzzy little precursors to our Black Swallowtails are munching their way through our dill just as we speak.  Three of them (in varying stages), in fact, are atop our kitchen counter right now.

For those of you who are interested in learning more, I have found The Life Cycles of Butterflies and The Family Butterfly Book really informative and fun to read.

What butterflies are flitting about your garden this summer?

Nature Study Monday: Gray Catbird Nest

We have a pair of catbirds living in and around our backyard that have stolen my heart.  I remember earlier this summer when I first discovered the catbird and hoped that I would see another before they left for warmer weather. Now I see (or hear) one or the other of the pair in the early morning, late evening, and many moments in between.

Hidden deep within a shrub about 8 feet off of the ground, we found their lovely nest, filled with three turquoise eggs.  Catbird nests are subject to being "stolen" by the cowbird and their best defense is their hiding of the nest.  Hidden it was.  

The outer layer of the nest is composed of larger twigs and branches, and what looks to be a cigarette wrapper, and the inner part is delicately woven and soft, a perfect place for her babies.

Catbirds nest two to three times in a year.

Nature Study Monday: Gray Catbird

One morning in late spring of this year while walking to school, we heard a very loud meowing sound (like that of a cat) from the bushes.  With no cat in sight, we walked on, confused.  As if to quell our confusion, the answer arrived at our bird feeder later on that same week.  

It was the first visit (that I noticed) of this beautiful bird; the Gray Catbird winters in Central and South America (or the southern US).  It spends the summer in North America munching on insects and berries.    They nest in shrubs, usually 4 feet or so off of the ground (but evidently they can be up to 60 feet up).

The habitat of the catbird is threatened and those catbirds that winter around the Florida are depleting.  Coastal development of their habitat is to blame for this.

Nature Study Monday: Nasturtium

The perfectly rounded leaves of the nasturtium leave so little that needs to be said.  There are fewer baby seedlings that I find more delightful.  I planted a bed of hummingbird attracting flowers a few weeks ago and these were the first to appear.  I have little experience identifying plants and often have to do some research in order to figure out what is sprouting (even if I planted it!), but I did name these as soon as they came up (and it made me like them even more).

If you do any googling of these plants, you will find that they are the gardener's darlings.  They are easy to grow from seed, do well in sandy soil, deter many garden pests (like aphids and cucumber beetles), and they are edible!  I have so many coming up in and around our butterfly garden that I am considering transplanting some to the veggies.

Nature Study Monday: Peony

For Mother's Day, my own sweet Mama brought me a whole bunch of these beautiful flowers which a re in bloom right now. I find it hard to look at them for too long as I can not really wrap my head around the beauty.  It almost confuses me.  

And I knew without even "knowing" it that they had to be native to Asia.  The flora and fauna from that part of the world have such a distinct exoticism.   It turns out that he peony is native to Asia but also to parts of Europe and the Pacific Northwest.  Most peonies grow in bushes but some look more like trees.  They are evidently tolerant of some shade but do need 6 hours of sun each day. 

I made a stop to our local nursery a couple of days ago and found a white peony shrub (which I have a very nice spot for in our front yard), but I thought better of it--the flower is definitely not native our area, and while I do not have a black thumb, I also do not have a lot of tolerance for plants that need to be babied.  It looks like the only peonies I will have will be in a vase, but I'll take them!

Dandelions Calling

The changing of the seasons, of winter into spring in this case, is a real reminder of the fleeting nature of our lives. It is so much less about "out there" than it is about right here, now, this very moment.

I do know this, and even when I don't, I get reminders of it all of the time, like here, and here and here.  But somehow despite the seasonal reminders, the darn near constant calls back to the moment by my children, I still slip back "out there," and away from the fullness of the now.

These glorious spring days, though, have been reigning me in, insisting that I stay closer to my breath, to my kids, to the ground, to what is around me right now.  I have been a better listener and , oh the stories they have told!

Nature Study Monday: American Goldfinch

I spotted yellow again!  Except this time it was the brilliant yellow of a male American Goldfinch during mating season {thank you to Susan for correcting me on my spotting of an "Oriole. " Not an Oriole at all but the winter plumage of a goldfinch}.  Female Goldfinches keep their duller yellow color all year while males actually molt twice.

American Goldfinches are completely vegetarian, only rarely eating an occasional insect by accident.  They frequent backyard feeders and love sunflower seeds (I am wondering if I might have the answer here to one whole side of our sunflower house not sprouting.  Hmmm.  Never mind, he is too beautiful to stay mad).

They nest later than most birds--in June or July--when milkweeds are in bloom.  Evidently the female weaves the nest so tight that it can hold a cup of water!  How I would love to find one of these.

Birds nests are all around right now.  Have you seen one yet this year?

Nature Study Monday: Magnolia Tree

The later part of my childhood was spent in Texas, a perfect place for the Large Flowered Magnolia Tree, yet I do not remember them.  I am not sure how one can forget, or simply not notice, this exotically blossomed and stately tree, but somehow I managed.

Our magnolia trees are in blossom right now here in Northern New Jersey and they are a breathtaking sight.  For some reason, though, my heart nearly quickens when I come upon one; their blossoms are so fleeting and the very sight of them reminds me that they will be gone.

The history of the tree is an interesting one.  I assumed that they were all indigenous to Asia, but this is not the case.  Some of them come from the southern part of North America. Interestingly, they evolved to be pollinated heavily by beetles.

Magnolia trees do not blossom for very long here (a week or two?), but their petals look almost as lovely on the ground around the tree.  I simply love them.