From late this afternoon, a macro of a cornflower (Centaurea cyanus) in a field near my home. There were thousands in bloom, reminiscent of Texas bluebonnets though perhaps even more stunning. This is another photograph using my new Olympus camera with its amazingly vivid colors.
The time of Chinese wisteria is a distant memory, and now the blooms of Chinese privet are spent. The days of Japanese honeysuckle are upon us. So pass the seasons of invasive species flowering along Piney Woods Church Road.
Today was my first day “in the field” with my new Olympus OMD EM5 camera. I still look fondly upon the Sony CyberShot that I used for the first 127 days. But this new camera leaves me amazed with the vividness of color and crispness of images possible. I am still figuring it out — there is so much to learn! Today, I share this image of a leaf miner’s “scrawl” on a leaf of muscadine grape, reminding me of scrimshaw work.
Poison ivy is, admittedly, not a popular plant with most people. For those highly allergic to the oil the leaves and vines exude, it can seem downright evil. Yet the deer seem to enjoy it from time to time. And if you can find a spot where the leaves aren’t too dense, on a day the wind isn’t blowing too much (so that a leaf doesn’t brush against your hand), sometime in mid-spring you might discover its lovely greenish-white blossoms with brilliant orange centers, each a couple of millimeters across, hidden beneath the toxic foliage.
In three more days, Fern’s Market at Serenbe will close. I have been dropping by most every day, for coffee and conversation. Somehow there are moments of puns and laughter amid the sadness. I think of Fern’s often on my Piney Woods Church Road walk. From this evening’s saunter, here are two more ferns for Fern’s.
On my way home down Piney Woods Church Road, I glimpsed this spider web along a barbed wire fence. The spider evidently used a dried plant stem as a frame, crafting its web within that spiral.
After taking some photographs of the tulip poplar blooms today, I stopped at the home of dear friends to chat over a beer. I missed the sunset, but on my way home, I stopped to take a post-sunset photograph of an old barn against the horizon.
A massive old tulip poplar, partially dead and bearing a lightning scar, is currently blooming in a cattle pasture along Piney Woods Church Road. I confess that I had never before seen the tulip poplar blossoms on the tree — only later, as scattered petals fallen onto the grass. The creamy yellow-white and brilliant orange flowers are lovely to behold.
I include, from today’s walk, a photo of a greenbrier leaf in the afternoon sunshine, growing on the road bank near where Piney Woods Church Road intersects with Rico Road. I was drawn to the way the light made the leaf glow.
Time for another celebration of a common weed, which one of my flower guides deigns to call “troublesome in lawns”. For a couple of weeks now, I have enjoyed the English Plantain (Plantago lanceolata) lining much of Piney Woods Church Road. I particularly relish the architecture of the leaves, with their parallel ribs. The flowers themselves are (even by my open-minded standards) rather nondescript — absolutely minute white blooms crowded together on a cylindrical head, with only a few flowers blooming at any one time. Besides the deep blue of the sky (several days without rain now, and several more lie ahead) and the gray of the roadbed (recently regraded and regraveled), most everything I see — apart from the occasional cow — is some shade of green. A solution, at least for today, is to convert the Plantain image into black and white instead.
