October moon

 The October full moon occurred on October 1st and looked something like this:

then the following night I was able to see that the moon had a companion that was visible: Mars

It's there, in the upper left and slightly red, which, as many of you know, is why it is often called the Red Planet.

Topsy Turvey

 Such a strange name for a flower and I have been having fun playing with it.

And as I work towards the center of one of the blossoms, it looks like this:

 

Then when look down into it, we see this:

 

And that center bulb looking part is the pistil and the yellow (seeming to float)

 parts are the stamen.

A closer view of the pistil; photographed about 3x actual size

I don't know how much larger it is when seen like this.

Google has recently updated this blog software and while it seems to offer more, all I'm finding is that it is more complex to use. However, I understand it is easier to comment - so it this looks o.k. or not, would you add a comment so I can learn if its true about being easier to comment? Thanks. 

Oxalis, many

As some of my four or five readers know i'm a big fan of the plant Oxalis. There are many, many oxalises, one of the most common being the small, very small, yellow flowers that bloom all over many lawns and are considered a nuisance. And i love 'em! Here are a few photographs from what i've been growing, (four species):

Oxalis Inops, pink bloom

Oxalis Deppei, Ironcross, coral bloom

Oxalis Triangularis, lucky, purple bloom

Oxalis Regnelli, white bloom

and all together now:

Happy oxaling to you.

Spotted Wintergreen or

Striped Prince's Pine

Learned about this small forest floor plant on a guided walk at the NC Arboretum and then while walking around in a small piece of wooded land next door, i found this plant growing among the leaves.

When they start growing, they look like this:

and then they begin to grow tall, looking like those below:

and close up they become pretty cute and complex.

Where they are growing, a small wooded area about a hundred yards from my house, will be bulldozed by a contractor who is building homes on the land. He's fine with any plants there being removed so i've dug a few up and potted them with the idea of putting them around the house.

Up close, they look like this:

and this:

This photograph show all three stages of the bloom: the bulb before opening on the right, the open bulb on the left and the seed pod beginning to form on the top which is what the green pod-looking ball will turn into.

The seed pod looks like this:

If you live anywhere west of Mississippi, they grow in the spring along forest floors among the leaves.

Moon and clouds in July '2

Last evening i was playing around with the moon and surrounding clouds, and she shared this with me:

Eventually, there was no visible moon ... all very beautiful!

Playing Around and round . . .

Am, again, playing around with the layout of this blog. Turns out there is a way to offer subscriptions so when i create a new post, you'd receive an email notifying you ... but i don't seem to be able to learn how to install that app. Sigh, i'm fairly good with certain kinda tech-stuff — all things related to cameras, etc., but not so with codes et al. Well, i'll just continue to trundle along with the way this is.

Recently, three days ago, we returned from a three week trip to the mid-west: Chicago, Milwaukee, Green Bay which was a good venture as those things go although, for me, there were far too many words being thrown at my ears. Glad to be back to the quiet of the mountains.

I do have a good amount of photographs i want to post but haven't put them into the format that allows them to be posted ... another day or so.

Here's one i like:

From the Circus Museum in Baraboo, WI where the Ringling Bros started out.  A most interesting history of not only the Ringling Bros but also many other circuses.

A clown car and i couldn't find where it said how many got into this car.




Below is the entrance to the Cave of the Mound: a creation of the glaciers that pushed their way southward many eons ago.  It was a very interesting tour-

Often called "soda straws" as they are hollow from the water draining thru them; one of many types of stalactites.

Instead of turning into a stalagmite, this became an 'egg' like form.

The two images below were a single room viewed from holes blasted thru the wall so we could look inside. The cave was so filled with stalagmite and stalagmites that it couldn't be entered with breaking many of them ... so they blasted a couple windows into the cave wall and that's what we're look thru. You can see the edges of the opening about the edges of the photograph.

We were moving much too fast for the kind of photography i wanted to do as the angle and frame size is important to really give a sense of the size and forms of the cave.

Birds, again

Occasionally, a Red-wing blackbird show up at the feeders. I don't think i've seen it on the feeder, just in the tree watching the other birds. I think i've seen it twice. I'm a big fan of red-wing blackbirds as there were many of them at GGF but they are rather rare in the mountains here — don't know why.

The tree is a Sourwood tree also called Lily of the Valley tree ... this is its first year here as i planted it in the spring ... looking for forward to its fall colors.

I have been trying to get photographs of bird pairs: both of the same genius  and of different kind:

Two reds

Young Brown Thrasher on left, its parent on the right

And sometime they want something they can't  have or reach:

Tufted Titmouse reaching for the humming bird feeder - no, he/she didn't reach it.