Friday, July 23, 2021

Cool enough to walk

So off I went. I've been pathetically low in energy lately so I seized the moment and went on my normal walk rather than the ten minutes, if that, I've been getting.

I saw a little flock of warblers around the evergreens, interesting songs, tiny birds. We get them in migration season, which usually peaks in May and early October, but I wonder if storms have blown them off course. We're bang in the middle of the Eastern Flyway, ringside seat.

It seems that fungi are in season


This might be a good one for dyeing, but since there's only one just now, I left it. If a colony develops we'll see.


Toe in picture for scale

And we still have the yellow sorrel I like to see underfoot.

Here I'm asking for an id. The blue plant behind the coreopsis. 

It's in my neighbor's garden, she thinks from wildflower seed she put in, and doesn't know what it is. Does any of our crowd of knowledgeable botanists know? As you see, pretty tall, maybe 18". Thank you. I'll pass on the info to her.

It occurs to me, while I'm asking, if you can identify the fungi, pretty common around here. I'll look them up, too. 

My Little Golden Guide, I love those books, enough information for my purposes. And the Non Flowering plants one

which took me ages to find, being named for what it isn't, has some hilarious notes, such as: this was listed as poisonous but has been found to be edible. Wonder who took a chance for the sake of science? And the shaggy manes, edible but you must pick before they darken. Or else what? And the careful comment that some of this group is edible, some poisonous. I guess you're on your own after that.

And on the less welcome side, back home, I found a resurgence of the cursed catbriar among the ground cover in an awkward spot, and got out what I could.  No pictures of that little pest.

The air seems cleaner now, smoke haze gone and my eyes not so gritty. That put a dent in my doll progress, so I'm going to get back to her. 

Nature note entries for the day done, as usual emerging with questions. Always more to learn.


11 comments:

  1. I thought the red mushroom was a red potato! I'm not about to try eating any wild mushrooms other than morels because I'm too afraid of poisoning myself. A friend once made us soup using shaggy manes and it was the most awful stuff I've ever tasted. One bite and it went straight in the garbage. Never want to have that stuff cross my lips again!

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    1. Around here morels are protected, so I go with buying mushrooms. We have great local growers, a huge array of varieties. Not risking my own judgment!

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  2. Happy walking!
    Little blue flowers remind me of forget me nots.

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    1. They're an equally lovely blue, but very tall.

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  3. Found this on wikipedia, which looks like it might be what you're seeing.

    Brunnera (no I never heard of it either)

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brunnera

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    1. I'll check that out, thank you.

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    2. I think that's it. How clever you are. Its also known as false forget me not, noting Salty Ps observation.

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  4. I can't identify anything except dandelions!

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  5. Interesting... we have lots of an unspecified small blue flowering plant 🪴 I may see if it is the same thing!

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  6. I don’t recognize the blue flowers by name. So pretty though. There is an island Facebook group here where people can post photos of plants for id help from the group. It is really helpful here. Sorry I couldn’t help.

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