Meadow Wildflowers

We are getting just a hint of the lazy days of summer to come (I am optimistic that this long spring will pass into summer soon). Today I walked through a meadow full of wildflowers with fritillaries, monarchs, and other less colorful butterflies flitting about. Meadow wildflowers, butterflies, and summer go together.

Fritillary on common milkweed

Spiked lobelia, Lobelia spicata

They remind me of summer vacation during junior high. We had the best 7th and 8th grade science teachers. During the summer they taught a 2-week nature course. Every day for 2 weeks a bunch of us met at the school, climbed onto the bus with lunches in tow, and set off on some outdoor adventure -- studying rocks and geology, visiting a fish hatchery, learning bird songs, running through meadows after butterflies and wildflowers. It's the latter activity that I was remembering today.

Black-eyed Susan, Rudbeckia serotina

Those were the days when we collected everything and brought it back home to be killed (sorry), pinned, and labeled for our butterfly collection. This particular meadow was in the Quabbin Reservoir in central Massachusetts, a meadow that is likely off limits to people these days. Those were carefree days under a hot summer sun. We did not worry about ticks, or mosquito bites, or sunburn. Our community supported and subsidized this summer session. It only lasted a few years as I recall, the budget was cut after some adults thought it expendable and unnecessary.

My older brother was growing cucumbers that summer, selling them to the local pickle factory. I loved to ride over in the truck, wait in line to have the truck weighed and unloaded, and breathe in the pickle smell coming from the huge vats of cucumbers. I helped picked the cucumbers, but I more remember the big, fat, slightly yellow cucumbers that I took for lunch every day during the 2-week summer session. I'm sure there were strange looks (we were in junior high after all) as I sat on the bus eating my cucumber.

Daisy fleabane, Erigeron annuus

I've loved meadows and wildflowers (and cucumbers too!) ever since. The bursts of color from black-eyed susans, fleabanes and dogbanes, yarrow and goldenrods, milkweeds and clovers, makes me feel happy. I still feel like chasing after the butterflies, but hold back and instead enjoy them as they fly freely from flower to flower.

Rough-fruited cinquefoil, Potentilla recta

Sundew

Yesterday a parasitic plant, today a carnivorous plant, or more precisely an insectivorous one. I came across the round-leaved sundew while on a walk with a botanist and a dragonfly enthusiast. George, the botanist, spotted this diminutive sundew along with bog clubmoss growing in a small seep at the base of a disturbed hillside.

Round-leaved sundew (Drosera rotundifolia)

The sundew thrives in sunny, boggy areas. The basal rosette of roundish leaves lie flat to the ground. The top side of the leaves are covered with reddish hairs tipped with glands that secrete a sticky substance (resembling a dewdrop) that traps insects. When it catches an insect, the leaf blade folds inward around the prey. The fine inner hairs secrete enzymes that digest the insect. The nutrients that are released by this digestion are absorbed by the glands in the hair tips. After the meal is digested, the leaf unfurls, ready to trap another insect.

We came upon these sundew in late morning under a clear blue sky, so the photos were a little washed out. You can just make out a slender stem rising from the center of the basal rosette of leaves. This is the flower stalk which bears flowers on one side of the stalk. The sundew is very intolerant of shade. Even grasses, sedges, and ferns can shade it out. This exposed rocky slope is in full sun and has standing water at the base because of all the rains this summer. Sundew are capable of colonizing such disturbed sites, although over time as vegetation grows up, the sundew may disappear from this ephemeral habitat.

We soaked up the sun while peering down at the lovely sundews. It helps to wander along trails and woodland edges with a botanist and a dragonfly wizard. Their eyes are searching for and seeing different things; we had many unexpected finds on Monday.

A Parasitic Plant

A few weeks ago I was on a short hike in western Massachusetts, hiking up to Rattlesnake Knob in the Holyoke Range. This range is across the road from our homestead, so we regularly explored these areas growing up. We were climbing the short steep section up to the Knob, and noticed a funny looking plant at the base of a large oak, just to the side of the trail.

I don't recall ever seeing this plant before, but maybe I had years ago. My friend Scott identified it today after I sent him the picture. It is American cancer-root (Conopholis americana). This is a parasitic plant, and like Indian pipe, it has no chlorophyll and does not photosynthesize. Thus the parasitic nature, gathering its nutrients from the nearby trees. The suckers of the parasitic roots cause large rounded knobs to form on the roots of the host tree, mostly oaks in the red oak group. There were many oaks on this dry, but rich, wooded hillside.

The cancer-root, also known as squawroot and bear corn, looks like a pine cone or corn cob. Much of the year it is out of sight below ground. In May and June it sends forth its flower spikes, the only plant part that is visible above ground. The plant has no leaves, only tiny scales.

The "bear corn" name may relate to the resemblance to a corn cob, or that bears feed on them, or that they help (according to one report) bears with constipation after a long winter's nap (who knew).

This cancer-root must have just popped up out of the rich duff layer not long before we happened by. It was just by chance that we stumbled along at the right time. Soon it will resume its subterranean life until next spring.

Spotted Owlet

I lost track of time today, this glorious day, under a clear blue sky and bright sun. An atypical day these past weeks. I was mesmerized by the clear air, brisk summer breeze, and solar warmth. So mesmerized that I spent 4 hours weeding 5 rows of carrots at New Roots Farm, before I realized the time. I wondered why my knees were starting to hurt. I am even celebrating a little sunburn on my legs.

My thoughts are actually on India, with my in-laws arriving on Wednesday from Bangalore for an extended visit. Our menus will be shifting to homemade south Indian vegetarian meals. We can already taste the first serving of dosai, expertly made by Srini's mother. Once we tried to count the number of dosa or dosai that she has made in her lifetime, thousands and thousands. Dosa are crepe-like, fried thin, made from a mix of fermented rice and split urad bean (a black lentil). Stuffed with potatoes, onions, and spices it becomes a masala dosai. With a little coconut chutney on the side, it is breakfast, lunch, or dinner.

While we are getting more rain than is needed, India is suffering from delayed and diminished monsoons. These rains are critical for food and hydropower production. Less rain leads to crop failures and power outages. One wonderful thing that we can offer our Indian relatives when they arrive is clean air. They will breathe deeply upon arrival, cleansing their body of the polluted air that permeates Indian cities.

On to the title of today's post - spotted owlets. My sister-in-law Shanti sent several photos of a spotted owlet (Athene brama) that got stuck inside their veranda in Pondicherry, India.

Since it was daytime, and these owls are largely nocturnal, they caught the bird and kept it in a box under their bed until they could release it at night. This is a common owl, widespread throughout India. It is small and stocky, grayish brown with white spots, and large yellow eyes.

They are common around human habitation, feeding on insects and other small animals. You can see them emerge from daytime roosts as darkness descends, flying out to perch on utility poles or the roof of a building.

Pondy is hot and humid right now, not something that I usually wish for. But we could use a taste of both right about now, to spur on the tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants that need a shot of sun.

Insect Free?

I nearly went off the road in disbelief and exasperation as I drove by this sign at our local hardware store. It reads, "Time for Step 3, to be insect free"

Shall we count the ways that this sign is deceptive, naive, even dangerous? If we were "insect free" we would all be dead. I assume that "Step 3" is an application of pesticides. According to this sign, homeowners are to apply a chemical to kill all insects in their yard including all the beneficial and essential insects. If this is the outcome the application is clearly unhealthy for their kids and pets, me and you, the planet.

Here's what Scotts Lawn Care website says about Step 3---

"What It Controls
Controls ants, armyworms, bermudagrass mites, billbugs, chiggers, chinch bugs, clover mites, crickets, cutworms, earwigs, fleas, flea beetles (in dichondra), leafhoppers, mole crickets, sod webworms (lawn moth larvae), vegetable weevil (in dichondra)"

What's wrong with crickets! and most of the other things on this list. All for a green lawn?

We have a healthy, greenish lawn, with a mix of grasses and broad leaf plants, bees, spiders, mites, crickets, and more. Yes, some grubs, which the robins, turkeys, moles, and skunks eat. We also have a yard full of vegetables, perennials, herbs, fruit trees, and shrubs. I would not spread a pesticide on the lawn that could contaminate our food.

Our culture needs to get a grip on this idea of a green lawn free of anything but grass. It is not healthy and is a waste of money. A bit of a rant today, but people need to stop listening to marketing campaigns.

Molasses Cookies

I usually make molasses cookies for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and generally during the cold months. Well, that now includes July! This felt like a molasses cookie day, with an average temperature of 57F and even more rain (if that is possible) than we've had in previous days.

Given the weather forecast, these cookies may not last the weekend.

This is one of my favorite cookie recipes and it is not a family secret since it comes from the Betty Crocker Cookbook. If you too are living through an extended cold, rainy period and want to enjoy some molasses cookies, here is the recipe.

Molasses Cookies

Preheat oven to 375F

Ingredients

1 cup packed brown sugar
3/4 cup shortening or butter
1/4 cup molasses
1 egg
2 1/4 cups flour
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp cloves
1/4 tsp salt

Steps

Mix brown sugar, soft butter, molasses, and egg until creamy
Mix flour, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, salt
Add flour mixture to sugar mixture; mix well
Cover and refrigerate at least 1 hour
Shape into walnut-sized balls, flatten slightly
Place on very lightly greased cookie sheet
Bake about 8 minutes
Let cool, or not, and enjoy

I also bought two quarts of fresh strawberries from a local farm stand. So, a little bit of summer and a little bit of winter for dessert. This feels right since we are neither here nor there, weather-wise. And who does not like two desserts!

Red Cheer

It is gloomy. There is nothing else to say about the weather. It rained all of June, and now that it is July 1st it is raining this month too. Every morning I check online at the Weather Underground. I look with hope for this...........
and all I see day after day is this.................
The gardens are floundering or drowning. Our back deck is the best place to garden this year. The geraniums and mini petunias are providing beautiful red cheer.

The potted geraniums from last summer were brought into the house for the winter, where the leaves faded to a pale green. Outside again since late spring, they've regained their two-tone darker leaves and sprouted many scarlet red buds and flowers.


Even the hummingbird has forsaken the perennial bed for the sweet little red petunias just outside the back door to the deck. The door was ajar yesterday when I heard a loud bumblebee, only to turn and see the hummingbird hovering and darting between the red flowers.

We may get a glimpse of the sun Friday afternoon or Saturday, just to remind us that it is still up there somewhere.