Brenda is a certified Virginia Master Naturalist, a Habitat Defender for Shenandoah National Park, and a devoted fan of Mother Nature. She lives in a cabin in the Blue Ridge Mountains near Shenandoah National Park, and hikes up to the higher elevations of her mountain often to see what nature is up to. Her constant hiking companion is a camera that captures nature as it unfolds through the seasons. It’s her goal to share the natural world around her through her photographs.
It is not so much that our planet needs or wants our help, it is actuallythat Nature needs our help.
This planet will keep on happily spinning around not caring about whatever might be on its surface for billions of years.
But we humans have the responsibility to care for this planet, not for the sake of planet Earth but for the world of Nature and for US. We have the responsibility to keep Earth a place where life can continue. Too much to think about? If you can only do one thing, RECYCLE, RECYCLE, RECYCLE! Please.
In what will seem like the blink of an eye, there will be lots to work with. Between what the garden produces and what I can find at the Greene Farmers Market, I’ll have plenty.
I’ll have plenty to chop into pieces and put into the freezer.
I’ll have plenty to make into custard rhubarb pie or rhubarb sauce. Mmm! Rhubarb sauce to have by itself or with vanilla ice cream. Maybe homemade vanilla ice cream. Oh MY! I’m ready for it now!
Yesterday I took recycling and trash to the landfill and recycling center down in town. There is always a population of gregarious Black Vultures hanging around the facility looking for a meal. They’re most often in the trees. This day though they were convened on a hillside as if at the edge of a lake or at the shore, so I had to take advantage of the situation and get some pictures. It was interesting approaching these creatures. They tolerated my presence and just moved away slightly, slowly, if I got too close. It was as if they were all thinking, “Okay, who let this woman in?”
These large birds are part of Mother Nature’s cleanup crew, two, to two and a half feet long, head to tail. With a wingspan of around five feet. They’re called Mother Nature’s cleanup crew since they help stop the spread of disease by removing carcasses and actually eating dangerous pathogens. With powerful stomach acid and gut flora they help decontaminate our environment. Black Vultures are native to northeastern United States to South America, all the way to Peru, Central Chile and Uruguay. The more I read about them the more I appreciate them.
How amusing to celebrate, math and baking, together for the sake of Pi Day. Fun to approach mathematics with sense of humor. Pies being thrown into the mix for the sake of pi. In order to recall the never ending digits used to express the mathematical constant, there are mnemonic poems called piems (combining the words pi and poems). The number of letters in each word represent the corresponding digit of pi.
This, a piem written by Dmitri Borgmann is a fun example. It represents the first 30 digits of pi 3.14159 265358979323846264338327.
Now, a moon, a lover refulgent in flight,
Sails the black silence's loneliest ellipse.
Computers use pi, the constant, when polite,
Or gentle data for sad tracking aid at eclipse.
If you haven’t noticed it yet, take up an image, keep it in mind, watch for it. It’s out there. Even now.
Purple Deadnettle (Hamamelis virginiana) is a member of the mint family. Its square stem is a sure sign of that heritage. It’s an herbaceous plant not native to North America but to Europe and Asia. It is certainly invasive but can easily be pulled thanks to shallow roots.
Being an annual winter weed, Purple Deadnettle quickly takes over farmer’s fields turning them into colorful and, to my eye, beautiful fields. And why the name, Deadnettle? That name is in reference to the resemblance of the leaves to leaves in the Nettle family and their stinging hairs. However Purple Deadnettle leaves do not have stinging hairs. They are safe, or “dead,” and not a problem to touch.
Yesterday yummy. It got up to 63°, the sun shining, and a lovely blue sky. Unquestionably a perfect spring day. Those Daffodils definitely added to that perfection.
Today was quite a different story. At the crack of dawn the thermometer had fallen to 17°, and the trees were being violently whipped by high winds, as heavy snow plastered anything that got in its way.
By 8:00 am the power at our cabin had succumbed to the extreme weather. Fortunately the cabin has a helper, a generator. It exercises itself every week and is always ready to arrive like Mighty Mouse to save the day. The generator handles everything except the washer and dryer, and the heat pump and air conditioner. A benefit of having no power? A fire in the wood stove. Lovely.
Those Daffodils? The blizzard turned them into a heap of lemon yellow petals and icy white snow. Not to worry though. Daffodils are tough critters. They can take nearly anything that Mother Nature throws their way. By Monday, when temperatures are predicted to be up into the 60s again, they’ll be up and looking quite happy again.
And now, as I sit writing this blog post, the power has been restored, and I’m totally delighted with five inches of snow that has decorated my mountain, looking like someone has poured marshmallow fluff over everything.
Wood Frog (Lithobates sylvaticus) eggs. There’s a small man-made pond within sight of my kitchen window. Late winter and early spring finds much activity out there. Wood Frogs are the ones that start things off, having what seem like parties, loud parties that last all night long and on through the day, for many days. Now, as a result, the pond has many clumps of eggs. Of course there are Wood Frog eggs. No surprise there. All that noisy carousing. But there are other clumps of eggs that look quite different.
These eggs, look a bit like wads of cotton that have been wrapped around stems of aquatic plants in the pond. The eggs of Red-spotted Newts (Notophthalmus viridescens). Adult Newts populated my pond soon after it was put in and have been there ever since. Their life has four stages: 1) egg 2) tadpole 3) eft (terrestrial juvenile) and 4) newt (aquatic adult). In late winter/early spring female newts lay 200-375 eggs, attaching them to aquatic plants.
Here is the terrestrial juvenile stage. A little critter that I love to find in the woods. The Red-spotted Newt can live for between 12 and 15 years and can grow to a length of 5.5 inches. I’m uncertain of the number of aquatic adults that are living in the pond. They’re shy creatures that I don’t get to see often. But when I do I’m elated.
The Yellow-lined Owlet moth (Colobochyla interpuncta) does an incredible job of using camouflage to become nearly invisible.
Here’s another look. Same photo, just closer. Ah, there it is. See those two little legs sticking out?
The larvae of Yellow-lined Owlets feed on the leaves of persimmon trees and willows. Their adults are active during the months of April through September. They can be found in North America from Wisconsin to Nova Scotia south to Florida and Texas. Wonder how many of these moths I’ve walked past without even noticing them. Amazing camouflage job, Mother Nature.
A regular around here. The Red-bellied Woodpecker (Melanerpes carolinus). And here you get a glimpse of why it has its name, a very tiny smudge of red on its belly. They can be found in the eastern United States, from Florida north to Canada.
Red-bellied Woodpeckers eat fruit, nuts, seeds, berries (such as Poison Ivy berries shown above) and tree sap.
They also eat arboreal arthropods and other invertebrates which include caterpillars, flies, grasshoppers, and the larvae of beetles. And you can add to the list, tree frogs, small fish, nestling birds and bird eggs, and Brown and Green Anoles. That’s a Brown Anole (Anolis sagrei) in the photo above, which I photographed in Florida. There it is an invasive species, and seems to be everywhere. It is native to Cuba and the Bahamas. And these woodpeckers enjoy the suet that I put out for them here at my cabin.
It’s blooming now along roadsides where it grows aggressively. Coltsfoot (Tussilago farfara). A plant that is native to Europe and parts of western and central Asia.
It is a plant that has flowers that resemble Dandelions, though if you’re quite familiar with Dandelions you’ll know that this is not one.
The leaves are totally different from Dandelion leaves, being roundish, or heart shaped, much like a Violet leaf with a slightly toothed edge. These leaves don’t even appear until the blooms are fading. You may spot some green leaves in this image, above. They are definitely Dandelion leaves. The leaves of the Coltsfoot have not emerged yet. They’re waiting for those flowers to fade.
Each stem, scaly, and bracted, bears a single flower.
The Coltsfoot seedheads too, resemble that of the Dandelion, though the seeds of the Coltsfoot are much more dense, and the tips of fluff have a coppery color which the Dandelion doesn’t have.
On the Internet I’m seeing many claims of medicinal qualities of Coltsfoot but along with those claims I am seeing statements that all parts of the plant contain alkaloids that are toxic to the liver. You’ll want to find something safer to use as a medicine.
