Catching Up

Here are some photos I took last weekend. Since I don’t have a lot of things to say this evening, I thought I’d let the pictures do the talking instead.

Unidentified, but very red mushroom

Unidentified mushroom

I like the way this one reminds me of a fan – you know – the type kids make by folding paper.

Sugar maple (Acer saccharum)

I liked the color on this leaf.

Western conifer seed bug (Leptoglossus occidentalis)

After I took this photo (and many others) Beth and I captured this bug. I have identified it as a western conifer seed bug (Leptoglossus occidentalis), and I think that’s probably correct. It eats pine sap, so we added some very resinous pine cones to the jar we put it in. It has now survived in captivity for six days and is showing no signs of flagging.

The jar itself is a one-pint mason jar, but instead of using the metal disk in the lid, we are using a couple of folds of paper towel. The bug can’t get out of that, and it lets air go though easily enough. I like that setup.

It snowed here last night – we got about an inch. It’s mostly gone now, but the deck is still covered with slush. I didn’t get any photos though, because I didn’t wake up until it was time to leave the house. Then we had to rush Beth through the morning routine, leap into the car, and get moving. She was only two minutes late for school, so I guess that wasn’t too bad.

We are supposed to get another six inches of snow tomorrow evening. We still have plenty of foliage on the trees too, and the weather predictors are saying that’s not a good thing. More leaves mean more wet, heavy snow will be caught by the trees. They are expecting lots of tree damage (and power outages) as a result.

I will surely get some photos of the snow if it comes.

 

Purple Mushroom

Unidentified Mushroom

I found a couple of these in the woods this evening. I don’t know what they are with any confidence, but I sure think they look cool.

 

‘Shrooms and Blooms

Here are some pictures of some mushrooms and flowers (‘shrooms and blooms) I took over the past couple of days:

Dewberry (Rubus sect Eubatus)

Dewberries are in the same genus as blackberries and raspberries, and there are several species in all three of those categories. This particular blossom is odd in that it has six petals instead of the more typical five.

Net-winged beetle (Calopteran spp)

This guy had a buddy on the next leaf over. Just hanging out, I guess.

Unidentified Mushroom

I’m not sure what kind of mushroom this is, but I liked its color.

And another

I don’t know what this one is either. These two are taken from the same perspective so that I could steady the camera on the ground. I really need to tap that tripod mounting hole.

Pickerelweed (Pontederia cordata)

A little while ago the swamp candles had bloomed, leading me to predict that the pickerelweed would bloom shortly. And here it is! Beth and I went to Sandogardy Pond this evening and that’s when I took this shot. There was a huge turtle swimming in the pond too, but it did not surface when it was near us, so I couldn’t get a decent shot. Too bad!

 

Short Walk

This afternoon Beth and I took Penny down to Sandogardy Pond. Beth rode her bike, and I held Penny’s leash. I kept my eyes to the sides of the road most of the way there looking for flowers, and such.

Here is some “such”

Unknown Fungus

I took a stab at identifying this little fungus, but came up empty-handed. There were three clumps of it growing in the ditch beside the road. Whatever it is, I like it!

Nearby, I spotted some False Solomon’s Seal (Maianthemum racemosum) just beginning to bloom:

False Solomon's Seal (Maianthemum racemosum)

I have some of this on my own property, but it’s not as far along as this specimen. I guess I’ll be seeing more of it over the next couple of weeks.

We soon came to the Class VI road (meaning it is not maintained at all) that leads to the pond. About halfway down that road under a large white pine is the only place I know where I can find Lily-of-the-valley. I’ve been checking on it every time I go down there, and today I struck pay-dirt:

Lily-of-the-valley (Convallaria majalis)

Too bad these flowers won’t last very long.

All along that road I saw plenty of pink lady’s slippers (Cypripedium acuale). Even though I’ve posted plenty of lady slippers in the past couple of weeks, I could not resist these triplets growing towards the end of that road.

Triplets!

When we arrived at the pond, I found a nice northern highbush blueberry (Vaccinium corymbosum) in bloom. I’ve got plenty of the lowbush variety at my place (and all along the road and trails to the pond), but there aren’t very many highbush:

Northern highbush blueberry (Vaccinium corymbosum)

Then I checked one of the bunchberry haunts.

Bunchberry (Cornus canadensis)

These were spotted in Maine last week, so I knew I should find some here just any time now. Bunchberry is an interesting plant. It belongs to the same genus as the dogwood trees, but it sure seems pretty different to me. Also, those white petals are not petals at all, but rather, sepals. The petals are little tiny things in the center of the sepals.

I walked around the beach to the trail that follows the stream draining the pond. There, I found a large patch of indian cucumber root (Medeola virginiana) in bloom.

Indian cucumber root (Medeola virginiana)

A little farther down I came to the patch of corn lily, aka blue bead lily, aka Clintonia borealis.

Clintonia borealis

These flowers will turn into blue bead-like berries later this summer. They look delicious, but are not edible. The leaves are supposed to be, but they should be picked before they uncurl. I think they’re well beyond that stage now. Maybe next spring I’ll try them.

The trail along the creek ends when it hits the class IV road. At that point, the road is much more a trail than a road, and there’s a small wooden bridge used by snowmobiles and ATV’s. In the marshy spot along the creek right there by the bridge is a stand of false hellebore (Veratrum viride). That’s a plant I learned only recently. Last year I tried keeping an eye on it so I could get a shot of its flowers, but I never saw any. So I continue with that this year. I’m getting close:

False hellebore (Veratrum viride)

I don’t know if I missed them again, or if they’re about to open. I’ll try to get back again as soon as I can to check them out.

 

A Shortcut to Mushrooms

Last week at the Pathfinder meeting we worked on the Fungi honor. One of the requirements is to identify and either photograph or draw 15 species of fungi. There are a lot of honors like that, and I always have the kids do the drawing. There are a couple of reasons for this. One is that not all the kids have cameras and I’m not about to loan them mine. Another is that drawing requires closer observation of the specimen.

But there are problems. Specifically, David isn’t very good at drawing, and hates to do it. He asked why they couldn’t just take pictures, and I explained the reasons I just mentioned above. Then he suggested that maybe he could take photos later. I said he could, but that I wanted him to keep quiet about it so I wouldn’t have a revolt on my hands.

Today when I got home from work, I suggested that he should go outside and take the pictures, and he agreed. We went out together, because I had already spent a considerable amount of time scouting the property for mushrooms (I had collected several specimens for the meeting last week). I showed him how to operate the camera in the manual mode, because the results are so much better that way. F-stop, macro lens, tripod, 2-second delay (so the camera can stop shaking after the button is pressed), and setting the exposure time. It looked like he was doing a decent job, but I haven’t reviewed his pictures yet.

Now all he needs to do is identify them. I had identified over half the ones I brought in last week, and other Pathfinders (staff and kids alike) worked on identifying the rest. So in the end, all of them had tentative ids, which is good enough for me since we’re not eating them.

Tomorrow he and Jonathan will be visiting with some friends from church, so that will leave Beth, Va, and I here at home in the afternoon. My plan is to take Beth and Penny for a hike down to Sandogardy Pond, even if it’s rainy. We’re going to try our hand at geocaching, and I found that there are two geocaches there. If that goes well, the next honor the Pathfinders do could very well be Geocaching. We’ll see!

 

Mini Vacation

Yesterday evening, Va and I went on a mini vacation to Kittery Maine. We left the kids at home. We ate dinner in Concord on the way to Kittery and stayed in a fairly nice hotel right across from the outlet mall(s). We slept in, watched Myth Busters until 10:00am, checked out, and then did some shopping. I bought a lid lifter for my dutch oven at the Kittery Trading Post, and she bought… I dunno. Stuff. We got home a little after noon.

Before we left I tramped around the yard and woods (in the rain) and gather as many different types of mushrooms as I could find. I came up with 15 different species or so. Then I sat down with my mushroom field guide and made a stab at identifying them. All that was in preparation for this evening’s Pathfinder meeting. We finished up the Fungi honor.