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Nest Building
A female Pine Warbler (Setophaga pinus), gathers fluff from last summer’s Tall Anemone (Anemone virginiana) to use to construct her nest. Here you can get a better look at what she’s gathering, from a seed head of Tall Anemone. Throughout the winter my gardens remain untouched just as they were at the end of autumn.…
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Various Shades Of Red
The woods are getting soft hints, just whispers of various shades of red. The Red Maple trees (Acer rubrum) are in bloom. This happens quietly. It doesn’t get much attention. There is a subtlety as it happens. The flowers, quite small, just enough to only create a hint of the color. As the flowers fade,…
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First Evening Of Spring
Along a trail, a ways up the mountain above my cabin, Common Blue Violets (Viola sororia) rise up to greet the evening. The first evening of the new season, spring 2023. There are 87 species of violets native to North America, or perhaps even more. Scientists are unsure of that number. Of those species, there…
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Ruby Slippers
A storefront in Roanoke and what do I see? A pair of RUBY SLIPPERS just waiting for me. (I can do it too, my dear amigo Gar-ee!) ________________________________________________________________ If you would like to receive my daily blog posts by email, sign up here!
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The Season Ahead
Flip the pages of the calendar ahead to June and this is what you’ll find in some of my gardens. Purple Coneflower (Echinacea purpurea) is a wonderful flower to attract pollinators, and what better example to find than a Monarch Butterfly (Danaus plexippus). _________________________________________________________ If you would like to receive my daily blog posts by…
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A Tiger Beetle
This one, the Six-spotted Tiger Beetle (Cicindela sexguttata), which I love to find along the trails up here. A lovely color. Metallic, emerald green, though some lean toward a blue-green. A beneficial insect, consuming insects and other arthropods that are pests in our gardens and woods. _____________________________________________________________ If you would like to receive my daily…
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Blueberry Buds
Since autumn they’ve been waiting there at the ends of the branches. Waiting through the chill of winter. Biding time till spring. Now that spring is nearly here the buds are swelling. Oodles of buds. Blueberry bushes in front of the cabin, in front of the woodshop, in front of the vegetable garden. With just…
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An INCH!
Snow this morning. First a nice slow gentle falling. Then lots of graupel that made the ground look like it was covered by exploded bits of styrofoam coolers. Then snow, snow, snow. Lots of snow falling from the sky. It covered the ground with a serious, measurable, inch of snow. The most snow we’ve had…
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Woods Awash With Soft Yellow-green
The woods are full of small, soft yellow-green blooms now. Spicebush (Lindera benzoin) is showing off its flowers. Spicebush, the larval host plant of the Spicebush Swallowtail (Papilio troilus) is a perennial shrub that often reaches to 15 feet, sometimes 20 feet. It is dioecious, meaning there are only male or female flowers on a…
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Double Surprise Day
The delightful spring weather called to me today. Called me to come out. To walk around. Something that I love to do. And when I’m out I am always looking for something new, something that will reinforce my love of nature. Big or small, there is always something out there. Most of the time, that…