CAN YOU SPOT THE COMMA?

It is mid-October, but there are still butterfly species nectaring about at Prairie Pond Woods, and a few individuals that have come back to the deck flowers for the past few days...one Red-spotted Purple, three Great Spangled Fritillaries, and two Eastern Commas.  They're not looking so good...a bit haggered...so I'm guessing I won't see them at all by the weekend.  And every afternoon between 4:00-5:00 a very beautiful moth flies, quite spastically, over the deck. Too spastically so far for me to get a good photo.  Maybe tomorrow.

By now you've probably seen the Eastern Comma in the photo.  

But can you see why it is called a Comma?
 

In the lower portion of it's ventral wing is a small, silver "comma."

Its cousin, the Question Mark, looks similar but has a dot at the bottom of the comma making it look like one. Two species easy enough to identify!

I'm always amazed at how these seemingly delicate creatures can hang on through cold nights and frosty mornings...but they do.  And it is a great thing when folks plant late-blooming flowers, such as asters and golden rods in their gardens to help these late-blooming Lepidoptera.

So, what's flyin' around outside your place?

GOLDENROD

On roadsides,

in fall fields,
in rumpy branches,
saffron and orange and pale gold,

in little towers,
soft as mash,
sneeze-bringers and seed-bearers,
full of bees and yellow beads and perfect flowerets

and orange butterflies.
I don't suppose
much notice comes of it, except for honey,
and how it heartens the heart with its

blank blaze.
I don't suppose anything loves it except, perhaps,
the rocky voids
filled by its dumb dazzle.

For myself,
I was just passing by, when the wind flared
and the blossoms rustled,
and the glittering pandemonium

leaned on me.
I was just minding my own business
when I found myself on their straw hillsides,
citron and butter-colored,

and was happy, and why not?
Are not the difficult labors of our lives
full of dark hours?
And what has consciousness come to anyway, so far,

that is better than these light-filled bodies?
All day
on their airy backbones
they toss in the wind,

they bend as though it was natural and godly to bend,
they rise in a stiff sweetness,
in the pure peace of giving
one's gold away.


~ Mary Oliver

I LOVE THE PRAIRIE!

While my perennial home garden looks sad, dry and pathetic due to the heat and lack of water, the prairie part of Prairie Pond Woods is in full, vibrant bloom mode...complete with more butterflies than I have ever seen!
 

That is the joy of native prairie plants…and the joy of prairies in general. I know, I know, I rant about it every year beginning in July and don’t stop until October!
 

But prairies have a beauty and wisdom all their own. Every year is different. Every year something new appears or reappears after a long absence, when conditions become just right. I love this dynamic. And the color combinations are exquisite!

 


A whole field of purple and yellow complimentary colors with green, white and lavender accents...it is dazzling! I want to just stand there for hours.

 

One patch by the fallen willow displays the white splashes of boneset, the orange dots of spotted jewelweed, the vivid, purple tufts of ironweed , all atop a layer of lavender mistflower mixed with the yellow starbursts of black-eyed Susans (the photo below just doesn't capture the delight of it all). 

Some Big Bluestem in the foreground

The Start of The Refresher Course

While strolling along The Refresher Course, whose paths I reluctantly widened this year, I was amazed to see a few Butterlyweed plants still in bloom. They usually peak about the third week in July, so an extra few weeks of show is quite the treat!

Butterlfyweed Pods "ripening" in the sun

Every fall when the wind stirs, I hope seeds are being dispersed to other less colorful parts of the prairie. When the birds begin to migrate back south, I wonder what new seeds they are depositing, maybe from the well-known Lynx Prairie just a mile or so away as the crow flys.  And when the deer amble through at dusk, I know seeds are shaking loose and hitching a ride on their bodies. 

Like all gardening or land restoration, it is an act of complete trust.  So much of the process is silent, unseen and dependent on so much more than we realize.  Growth and diversity are amazing and miraculous events...may you find them in your gardens and in your hearts.

Enjoy these other random photos, shot while "strolling the grounds...."

Question Mark

You can see the "question mark" on its ventral hindwing

Played Peek-a-boo around the stem until I out-maneuvered  it and got the shot

I'm thinking this praying mantis is full with eggs...  Yay!!!

Wingstem

Ironweed

The not-so-eentsy-weensty spider...

Abandoned Field Sparrow Eggs

Hazelnut Pods

Sphynx Moth

Common Buckeye

Red-spotted Purples enjoying minerals and salt from Scat!

PHOTO & QUOTE FOR THE WEEK

 Monarch Butterfly

Beyond living and dreaming

there is something more important;

waking up.

-Antonio Machada

I TOOK A WALK TODAY...

Though the prairie is gloriously in bloom right now and will be for the next several months, I felt like heading up into the woods today. Maybe, in this oppressive heat, it was thinking about all that shade under the dense canopy of oaks, beech and maples. Maybe it was the rattlesnake plantain I thought might be in bloom by now. Or maybe it was a gracious, divine prompting, leading me straight to two new discoveries on the property!

As soon as I crossed the pine entrance into the woods, all was a calm, drastic change from the fluttering , hopping and whizzing of things in the prairie. Except for the cicadas hidden and droning in the trees, there seemed to be nothing going on. No longer was it the place I kept coming to in the spring to spot colorful yellow-throated vireos or scarlet tanagers high overhead. Today, all things interesting and beautiful were to be found on the floor of the forest…and almost missed!
 

Rattlesnake Plantain

The first time I checked on the rattlesnake plantain, one of the 7 orchid species native to Ohio, was in the spring. A small, perennial cluster was just emerging at the base of a tree off the path leading to a place we call, The Woodland Cathedral, and they leaf spread was no more than several inches in diameter. Unfortunately, it didn’t look that much different a few months later. And many of them looked like they had been stepped on, perhaps by deer or some other animal. In fact, I couldn’t find them at first they were so insignificant, but that looking is what lead me to my next exciting find…Indian Pipes! 

Fungi, such as the whitish Indian Pipe, are interesting because they do not use chlorophyll to create nutrients through photosynthesis. They feed off of the nutrients created by decaying organic matter.  Plants like these used to be called saprophytes...but are actually no longer considered plants and have been given the name saprobes.  I also discovered the dried remains of Sqauw Root, another important decomposer…and another “first” for the Prairie Pond Woods species list!
 

Hard to see but it's dried up Squaw root

 

From there I was hooked on a quest to see what else might be erupting from the leaf litter…so on I went. Below is a gallery of the phungi photos I took around dusk!

This was quite interesting...

Very ethereal

 

Turkey tails

Box Turtles love fungi!

The underside...kind of reminds me of coral