Holiday Decorations at Belmont – 2015

The Howard County Conservancy hosted their second annual Colonial Holiday Celebration at Belmont last weekend. I volunteered to help with set up and registration – just as I did last year. There was enough time during the set up to photograph some of the beautiful decorations.

Here is the front door – with wreath hanging from the knocker and urns full of Osage orange seed balls. We put small sacks with LED lights on the stairs before it got dark. Those stairs look like they seen a lot of traffic over the years!

The registration table was just inside the front door and we had homemade ornaments to commemorate the event on the tree just beyond (and for sale). I was part of the team that had the adventure creating them!

I loved the old style decorations like strings of popcorn and read ribbon.

The dried hydrangea with magnolia leaves on one of the mantles was very attractive. The color remaining in the hydrangea flowers are very subtle…..and they provide a contrasting texture the magnolia leaves’ velvety brown and shiny green.

I like the ribbons draped from the chandelier with cranberries as ‘weights.’ This was the decoration remembered from last year and I was glad to see it again.

Now for a slide show of some of the other decorations. The decorators focused on natural materials rather than glitz of modern decorations. Pomegranates, cranberries, nadina, holly, bittersweet, clove studded oranges, and apples for the reds and oranges…boxwood, pine and cedar and magnolia for the greens….gum balls, dried vines, pine cones, turkey feathers, antlers, and acorns for browns…hydrangea for the light green, pink and blue. Wow – it’s quite a collection!

Conowingo Dam – November 2015

We are planning day trips to Conowingo Dam (Maryland) this winter to attempt photography of the Bald Eagles that feed there from the fish in the outflow from the dam when electricity is being generated. We went in last May and saw more Bald Eagles than I had ever seen in one place before (my post from May is here) and it wasn’t even the peak season for the Bald Eagles being there! Now it is getting to the peak time so we are planning to make the trek once a month – on a time when the roads are not slippery. It’s about an hour from our house so a comfortable day trip (and we’ll bundle up and take something hot to drink).

The parking area below the dam already held some cars when we got there at mid –morning last week. And the photographers were lined up along the fence. The number of big lenses was impressive. There was a lot of water coming from the dam and we saw eagles immediately on the rocks

And perched on the electrical tower.

Periodically we’d spot an eagle flying over the water – and catching a fish.

This one caught a large fish and took it to one of the equipment towers. There were black vultures and an immature eagle that gathered there to eye the fish. Eventually – the eagle with the fish flew away with it. Who wants to eat with that kind of audience?

Sometimes the fish is small…sometimes large.

Next time I hope to position myself to improve the background for the photographs…and to go on a brighter day so that the wing movements will not be a blurry. I may also pay more attention to the black vultures next time we go. I only saw one Great Blue Heron on this trip (last May we saw more); they are frequently photogenic if they are not too far away.

On this particular trip – I enjoyed the remnants of fall color next to the parking lot (turning my back to where the eagles were).

I also noticed a feather. I wonder whether it was from a Bald Eagle or a Black Vulture.

There is a Facebook page for the Conowingo Bald Eagles Community for more information.

Gleanings of the Week Ending November 21, 2015

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Poland's Mysterious "Crooked Forest" Populated with 400 Bent Pine Trees – Trees are remarkably resilient. Whatever caused these trees to be bent near the base…and then continue growing upright…they are survivors!

Why do we still not know what’s inside the pyramids? – I usually notice stories about Ancient Egypt that come in on my newsfeeds but my awareness is even higher right now because of the Ancient Egypt course I am taking on Coursera.

6 Homemade Vegan Sauces and Condiments that are better than Store-bought – I’m trying the recipe for peanut sauce after I finish the store bought bottle I have in my refrigerator!

The digital revolution in higher education has already happened. No one noticed. – Another dimension of higher education not mentioned in this thoughtful piece is the continuing education that many post-career individuals seek. I recently looked at face to face classes offered in my area of Maryland and decided that the selection available from Coursera and other online providers was much greater (and the price was right too). Another case where the digital revolution in higher education has already happened.

Photography in the National Parks: Your Armchair Guide to Big Bend National Park – Part 2  - A continuation of an article I included in my October 31 gleanings….good info for planning a trip there.

Tangy and Tasty Fresh Cranberry Recipes – My ‘new’ recipe to try for Thanksgiving is the Cranberry-Carrot cake. I am not going to put icing on it….eat it more like muffins for Thanksgiving Day brunch. Don't forget Cranberry Orange Relish either! Wegmans recipe is here.

Move Over, Turkey: Meet the World’s Other Bald, Be-wattled Birds – Thinking of turkey this week….here are some other birds that have similar heads. They all look odd to me!

Field Drain Tile and the “Re-Eutrophication” of Lake Erie – Why the algal blooms have worsened in recent years after improving for the prior 15 years.

Elegant Greenhouse Photos Mimic the Ethereality of Oil Paintings – Hmm…the textured glass reminded me of a shower door. This might turn into a winter photography experiment!

Incan Mummy Genome Sequenced – The mitochondrial DNA analysis was the first completed and placed the boy in a very small subgroup – only 4 other known individuals. Other genetic analyses of the 500 year old mummy of a 7-year-old boy are ongoing.

November at the Brookside Gardens Conservatory – Part 2

The Brookside Gardens Conservatory offered a number of opportunities for thematic photography when we walked around its paths earlier this week. Yesterday I posted about the mums and the reds/oranges that I missed in those flowers but found in others. Today the themes are focused on light and curves. There was a leaf that seemed to glow in a spotlight. I’m not sure which magnification I like the best. The higher magnification almost looks like it is on fire!

The corner of the conservatory seemed crowded but there was one plant that found a way to shine in the jumble.

And what about this ‘light at the end of tunnel!

Shifting to curves….the variegated crotons were crowded together – I like the curves of their leaves and the veins too.

The cycads are all curves….from the fibrous centers to the stubby arms of the trunk.

The fiddleheads are nestled in center of this large fern…their wavy curves still tightly coiled.

The bromeliad is orderly curves…except for the green one in the foreground that seems to be going in a different direction!

Succulents are stuffed curves. This one has a little point at the end of each leaf (or is it a stem). Look at the orientation of those points toward the center of the plant. They could be a model for aliens conversing.

Papyrus – river rocks – ripples of water…lots of curves.

November at the Brookside Gardens Conservatory - Part 1

Last week when we went to see the mum display in the Brookside Gardens Conservatory, the conservatory was closed because they were cleaning off the white coating on the glass roof. Yesterday – we discovered that they had already closed the south conservatory to set up for the miniature train exhibit that will be there after Thanksgiving until just after the beginning of 2017. The north conservatory was open and there were lots of mums.

The main colors were pink and yellow. I noticed the different petal shapes: think with splits at the end that curled in different directions,

Shallow scoops forming a tight ball,

Deeper scoops forming a flower with more space and deeper color in the center,

And huge round balls of petals that never seems to unfurl completely (these I associate with football mums that were popular when I was in high school).

As we walked outside – there was a pot of mums in the bright sunlight that might have come from the south conservatory. Hopefully the weather will be mild enough for them to complete their bloom cycle outdoors.

I was surprised there were not more colors of mums this year. I missed the oranges and reds so couldn’t resist taking pictures of other flowers in the conservatory to fill the color void.

 

 

Even the trimming one of the conservatory gardeners was making included red!

Big Fall at Mt. Pleasant

This past week has been the peak for falling leaves at the Howard Country Conservancy’s Mt. Pleasant Farm. On Monday it was breezy and leaves were flying. On Wednesday, I decided it was sunny and a good day to photograph the trees that still had some leaves. Today I am posting this before I make my trek there…and anticipating that there will be fewer leaves left on the trees.

It was relatively calm and the leaves were drifting down. This maple has a thick carpet of leaves that has fallen recently

Since the carpet still had a lot of color.

The sunshine and clear sky made the color seem all the more brilliant although the foliage was thinning.

Even the gingko has started dropping its leaves.

But in almost every direction there were some trees that had already lost their leaves – like the maple in the rain garden that was so brilliantly red just last week. I always think of the brilliant leaf colors as the last hurrah of the season before everything is hunkered down for winter.

Fall at Centennial Park

I missed the peak of fall foliage at Centennial Park. In mid-October there was still a lot of green (see post here). This past weekend, some of the trees had already lost quite a lot of their leaves…although there was still plenty of color. When we first got there on Saturday morning, the sun was in the treetops and there was a mist rising from the lake because of the temperature differential between the water and the air (it was a cold morning).

There were a few clouds in the sky and contrails across the sky.

I walked around a little to look around and let the sun come more. I noticed: dew on fallen leaves. This one is a tulip poplar.

Drifts of leaves in the parking lot. Many of the red ones were from a nearby maple.

The view straight up to the sky shows both color and that some trees are already in winter form.

Flocks of Canadian Geese took off from the lake – circling over the trees and into the brighter sunlight.

And finally the sun came all the way down the trees on the opposite shore.

The Great Blue Heron that had made a ruckus when we first arrived had retained his perch in the colorful trees there.

Learning Log – November 2015

October provide a variety of learning opportunities.

Two Coursera courses that I had worked on in September continued and completed. The Tibetan Buddhist Meditation and the Modern World course is the first of a series from University of Virginia. The first course was intense but worthwhile so I am watching for the next one to become available

Forests and Humans from University of Wisconsin-Madison was larger in scope that I had initially assumed. It became clear that to understand forests at all – one has to know something about the Earth systems that enable forests to exist – to thrive or decline. The mix of lecture, interviews, and readings was well done.

I’ve completed the first week of a new course: Ancient Egypt: A history in six objects from University of Manchester. The organization of the core material is very good…and that makes the references (there are quite a few very good ones they provide) easier to use.

Change always brings opportunity for learning. There were two instances that seemed more significant this past month:

The annual enrollment for health insurance. There are always a few changes that require study and choices have to be made. The package is as big as a small book!

I decided to experiment making Zentangle patterns on soft drink bottles to decide if I could transfer what I did on flat tiles to a curved surface (and maybe follow through to make the patterns on spherical balls for our Christmas tree). It was a learning experience…enjoyable but not enough for me to forge ahead with the higher cost project.

Travel learning is somewhat like the opportunities change brings: we tend to do different things when we travel away from home. Our fall foliage trip was my first Star Party so everything was new…and something I want to do again. The places we went in West Virginia were repeats but different enough to be learning experiences too; for example – there could have been puff balls at Beartown when we were there in 2001 but I would not have recognized them!

Sometimes a ‘travel’ type experience happens close to home too. I finally got a tour of the farmhouse at Mt. Pleasant farm…and learned about how the house had been enlarged around the original long cabin. The continuity of a family living there and modifying the house to meet their needs over the years was more interesting than many of the houses of wealthier people I’ve toured over the years.

Gleanings of the Week Ending October 31, 2015

Happy Halloween!

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Hamersley Shows Off the Beauty of Australia's Wilderness – A 4 minute film made using drones around the Hammersley rnage and Karijini National Park.

Blocking enzymes in hair follicles promotes hair growth - Wow! The results in mice a pretty dramatic for ‘normal’ mice. Experiments to address hair follicles affected by hair loss disorders are under way.

Microphotographs Reveal the Wonderfully Odd World of Plants – Images created for a 2016 calendar.

Photography in the National Parks: Your Armchair Guide to Big Bend National Park – Part 1 – This is a national park I’ve not explored....maybe it’s time to plan a trip.

A Rough Guide to the IARC’s Carcinogen Classifications – Andy Brunning’s graphic about carcinogens. Processed and red meats have been in the news during the past few weeks.

Using the Light When the Light is Right – A series of photographs from The Prairie Ecologist.

The Ten Creepiest Spiders of North America – Just in time for Halloween.  I remember by mother making sure I knew what a Black Widow spider looked like very early….a good thing since I found one in my sandbox one spring and recognized it!

Black Bears Facing Hard Times at Great Smoky Mountains National Park – Evidently the traditional fall foods for bears (acorns and grapes) did not do so well this year so they are foraging in larger areas and eating foods that are not their favorites (like hickories and walnuts).

Digging Deep Reveals the Intricate World of Roots – I do field trips with second graders where we collect some soil cores and then look at not only the soil the roots we find in it. They are always surprised that there are roots even 12 inches under the meadow where we usually go to collect the sample! This article shows that the roots actually are probably much deeper than 12 inches.

Urban Explorer Gives Viewers an Interior Tour of St. Petersburg's Architectural Gems – Over the top architecture…it is hard to image any of these being places people actually lived.

Ten Days of Little Celebrations – October 2015

Noticing something worth celebration each day is an easy thing for me to do. The habit of writing it down reminds me to be grateful for these and a myriad of other things in my life. Here are my top 10 for October 2015.

Several celebrations involved the volunteering I do with the Howard County Conservancy:

A rainy day hike with 1st graders – It could have been a disaster…unhappy wet children…but instead we moved quickly from covered are and to covered area when it was only sprinkling and the children were very happy all during their field trip. I celebrated their resilience (and my own)!

The snake and second graders – The response of children to snakes is hard to predict. I had a group of eight second graders and three chaperones that simply enjoyed watching the small snake move through the grass and then moved away from the direction the snake wanted to go, allowing it to escape. Fascination rather than hysteria…something to celebrate.

The 25th birthday of the Howard Country Conservancy – I am celebrating that the non-profit I enjoy volunteering with has been around for 25 years!

There were a lot of things at home to celebrate in October too:

Bringing the glass bird bath indoors – We had a first frost and that triggered the retrieval of the glass bird bath. I cleaned it thoroughly and it now is in its winter role: holding potatoes and onions on the dining room table. Making this change is always a celebration of seasonal change.

Bountiful CSA shares – Wow – we are getting full bags each week at the CSA season comes to an end....celebrating a riot of fall veggies!

80 daffodil bulbs planted – I actually celebrated when the job was done. The bags did not seem that daunting when I purchased them but 80 bulbs requires some effort to get in the ground! I am already anticipating how pretty they will be at the edge of the forest next spring.

Zentangle® on a soft drink bottle – I saw an article about making the patterns on Christmas balls and decided to try it on soft drink bottles as a practice. The first one did not turn out so well; the curved surface is very different than a paper tile. With practice – I now have some that I like…and I still have a few more weeks before I’ll switch to ornaments. I’m celebrating my developing skill.

Blue jays in the maple – The small flock of blue jays that I’ve noticed the past few fall seasons is back and visiting the maple I see from my office window. I am celebrating their return.

Our October road trip had at least one celebration each day…but I chose 2 to not overwhelm the list for the month:

Staunton River Star Party – I did not know what to expect…but it was fun and comfortable. I am celebrating the beginning of a new tradition since I am sure we’ll go again next fall.

Fall foliage – I suppose I could have listed this in the ‘home’ category too. October is the month to celebrate the beauty of deciduous trees preparing for winter.

Lessons from Our Fall Road Trip

Our fall road trip was 5 days – 2 nights camping in southern Virginia and 2 nights at the Snowshoe Ski Resort. It was an enjoyable time away from home and, like most travels, a learning experience.

We had not camped for more than 20 years and the type of camping at the Staunton River Star Party was different than we’d ever done before. We learned that:

• We can indeed both sleep in the car…but it is a pretty tight fit.
• The food is reasonably priced and tasty. We’ll still take an ice chest next year…but buy more from the vendor.
• The facilities at the park (like hot showers) make it easy to imagine a camping for longer than 2 nights. We’ll probably stay for more than 2 nights next year.
• We need to figure out how to create our own shade for during the day on the field. It can still get warm in the afternoons in early October.

Several lessons from the West Virginia portion of the trip:

• Cell phone reception is not good in the mountains. In fact – don’t count on it at all.
• The Snowshoe Resort is empty in October…and almost everything is closed. It seemed eerie to not have more people about. I might stay at the base of the mountain next time although I did enjoy the sunsets from the window of our efficiency.
• The efficiency had a queen sized Murphy bed. When it was folded up – a table folded down into the space where the bed would be later. It is very appealing to use space so efficiently. I tucked the idea away for application if I ever do extreme downsizing.

Cass Scenic Railroad State Park

The Cass Scenic Railroad State Park in West Virginia has a train and restored logging town; we went for the scenery but there is a lot of history to absorb as well. I’d bought the tickets ahead of time online. We arrived early enough – leaving Cranberry Glade behind and enjoying the winding roads through the West Virginia forested mountains near Snowshoe Ski Resort - to walk around the depot area and have lunch before our train departed. The hillside across from the depot was full of color.

As we started our journey up the mountain, the sawmill ruins were not far from the track. The track, engines and cars for the scenic train were originally built to carry logs out of the mountains…down to this mill.

Now the area is reforested (although the trees are still relatively young…there are no giant trees yet) and

The streams appear to be recovered. The area is either National Forest or under conservation easement.

The day was sunny and comfortable with a sweater or sweatshirt. The train moved slowly up the mountain and took pictures all along the way. We had taken this same train ride back in 2001 but I had forgotten that the train gets up the mountain via switchbacks. The slow speed and then stopping to achieve the switchback makes it easier to get pictures of the forest.

Many of the trees has already dropped their leaves but there were brilliant exceptions.

The train stops at Whittaker and the passengers get off to buy hot chocolate, photograph the hillside,

Or walk around the ruins of the logging camp. The temperature was cooler than down at the depot…and a good deal more exposed to the wind. Men that worked here lived in thin walled shanties.

As the trains went around a curve – lots of passengers leaned out to get a pictures of the engine with its billowing smoke. It is a coal fired steam engine. Our trip to Whittaker and back took about a ton of coal.

Gleanings of the Week Ending October 24, 2015

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Why being single is much more than handling just loneliness – Even though the number of singles has been increasing in many places (sometimes to over half the adult population), the market has filed to understand the commercial experience of singles by always skewing to the ideal life centered on couples and nuclear families.

The rapid and startling decline of world’s vast boreal forests – Boreal forests are Earth’s single largest biome…up to 30% of the globe’s forest cover. An indicator species of this biome are moose and their numbers in Minnesota have dropped so quickly that some groups want to list them as endangered in the Midwest. The Boreal forest may be shrinking…dying…changing. The boreal forests are warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet. There could be a near term tipping point. Many trees are dying already.

Sweden is on track to becoming the first cashless nation – I’ve noticed in recent years that I use a lot less cash…but not quite cashless. The US has a ways to go.

The Chemistry of Superglue – A little about the history of superglue…and how it works.

The end is in sight for reading glasses – I hope this works! The idea of replacing natural lenses with liquid crystals is also applicable to helping people that have cataracts.

Chaco Culture National Historic Park – Another Dark Sky Park. Now that I’ve been to one star party….I’m looking for other places in the US that have as good or better dark skies! I’ve been to Chaco once….during the day…and thought the isolation of the place made it easier to imagine the people that lived there long ago.

A nap to recap: how reward, daytime sleep boost learning – As I read about the study – I wondered what the results would be with a meditation break rather than a sleep break.

Winners of Nikon's 2015 Small World Contest Reveal the Microscopic Beauty of Our World – Images of things you can’t see so easily with just your eyes.

Orange lichens are potential source for anticancer drugs – Parietin in a pigment in orange lichens and rhubarb…that has the potential for treating leukemia without toxicity to human blood cells.

Study compares traditional, modern views of aging – There seems to be consensus that older people are more respected and perceived as wiser than younger people. However, traditional societies think older people have better memories and modern societies think older people have poor memories.

Cranberry Glades Botanical Area

Cranberry Glade Botanical Area was a stop on our way between Beartown State Park and Cass Scenic Railroad State Park in West Virginia. It is a boggy area with mountains around it. Many of the trees on the mountains had lots their leaves already…although there were some remnants of color left.

The cotton grass was waved in the breeze.

The boardwalk makes it easy to stay just above the bog yet see the dense grown on old logs.

The mosses growing directly in the bog are mostly green…but sometimes are vividly red.

Small plants are everywhere

But require bending down for a closer look.

There is a visitor center nearby that had an exhibit about invasive species (insects) that are causing problems in the area. They also had a laminated, folded quick reference about invasive plants that I bought – similar to ones I have about native birds and plants.

Beartown State Park

We visited Beartown State Park in West Virginia for the first time back in 2001. It is a small, but memorable park and well worth another visit. It consists primarily of a boardwalk around huge boulders covered with moss, ferns and lichens….

(and some very fast moving chipmunks)

With lots of trees that manage to grow up through the rocks.

The deep narrow crevasses are as similar to the slot canyons in the western US as we get on the East coast.

I took a picture of a staircase with my husband on it to provide some an element of scale.

The rock face had eroded pits. It is hard to fathom the amount of time it takes for weathering to form these pits; some of them are large enough to hold a person.

The leaf color was spectacular up close and

Looking up to the sky.

My special find of the walk was a pair of puff balls.

Staunton River Star Party

My husband and I spent last Monday and Tuesday at the Staunton River Star Party (held at Staunton River State Park). The park is an International Dark Sky Park….lots more stars visible than in the area where we live. The park prepared well for the event – with star party themed jack-o-lanterns, red cellophane on all windows were white light my leak, and paths marked with red snake lights or small red LEDs on stakes.

The observing field already had a lot of people setting up by the time we got there but we managed to get a spot that was close to one of the electrical hubs – good to be able to run equipment directly and/or easily recharge batteries during the day. We started to unpack and quickly discovered that we had forgotten our tent! Fortunately we did have the tent-like cover for the back of our SUV and some extra tarps. My husband and I managed to sleep inside the car on an air mattress (it helped that he was observing until the wee hours of the morning since the space was a narrow enough that we could only roll over in unison)!

We tied one side of a tarp to the roof rack and used tripods we had brought for our cameras to hold the corners away from the car. The wind came close to knocking the tripods over before we hung heavy equipment bags as weights. Having the tarp helped during the day when it got a bit warm in the bright sunshine.

I took sunrise and sunset pictures too: Sunrise on Tuesday morning. Note the various tents, trailers, awnings and cars…the whole field looked like this with a lattice of drive lanes to provide just enough organization so vehicles could get in and out.

Sunset on Tuesday evening. There were enough clouds at sunset that everyone was looking around for signs of clearing…and it did by the time it was fully dark.

Sunrise Wednesday morning – a few hours before we left. There were quite a few crows greeting the sun and they seemed to like the bare tree – stopping there before moving about and sometimes coming back to perch again for a little while.

The clouds on that last morning looked like they were losing part of themselves as they floated into morning.

The dew was heavy both nights we were at the star party and people generally called it a night before 3 AM. Those that did not have heaters to keep condensation off their mirrors had to stop earlier. I took pictures walking around during the mornings when the telescopes were generally neatly covered.

 

I took one short hike and found more fungi than I expected. There were a few colorful trees as well. Otherwise – I was feeling relaxed and lazy with the flurry of star party activity going on all around me.

Fall Road Trip

Last week we made our annual fall road trip. Last year we went to Chincoteague and Blackwater National Wildlife Refuges (blog post here) which is southeast of where we live. This year we went south into Virginia and southwest into West Virginia.

Our trip started with 2 days at the Staunton River State Park for a star party. The park is in south central Virginia…and has very dark skies. Our car was completely full with telescopes and camping gear!

Then we drove into West Virginia along very curvy roads. It was a step back in time with little cell service and gas stations with only one grade of regular gas….but the drive was scenic – up, down, around, all the colors of fall.  There are rhododendron and pines to provide a dark green backdrop to the yellows and reds along the way.

We noticed that some of the mountains had trees already bare for the winter…some with brightly colored trees…and some that still looked like summertime. Altitude and the direction of the slope make quite a difference.

We enjoyed Beartown State Park, Cranberry Glades Botanical Area, Cass Scenic Railroad State Park and the Snowshoe Ski Resort. I’ll be posting more details over the next couple of weeks.

Centennial Park Reflections

There were thick clouds the morning I walked around Centennial Lake; the light made for muted reflections rather than crisp clean lines in the water and blue sky above the line of trees…but I enjoyed the challenge and got a few images that I like well enough to share.

There was a pile of rocks that has been extending into the lake long enough for vegetation to take root. The reflections of the plants growing on the rocks are reflected as well as the trees from the opposite bank of the lake. I liked the muted fall colors.

The trees are still mostly green but there is an occasional bright red. I wondered if the fishermen thought the fish were lurching in the water near the bright color!

The bridge over an inlet to the lake can always be counted on for color – and again there was a fishing boat nearby. The trees appear to be on the verge of losing their green; it should be all the colors of fall by the end of the month.

Centennial Lake in the morning has a good orientation for reflections. My challenge is to go back on another morning toward the end of the month when there is no breeze….to get the glory of fall foliage in the trees and reflections.

Centennial Park Close Ups

Cloudy days are opportunities for some close-up photography. That was my first thought when I walked around Centennial Lake (Howard County Maryland) last week. The poke weed seeds stalks are quite distinctive….a nice color contrast with the green of their leaves.

Queen Anne’s Lace grows between the rocks on the dam that creates the water

As do other plants that are racing to bloom and create their seeds before frost.

A beech tree is shedding its seeds into the mulch bed (and lichen) along the walk near the boat rental

And an oak leaf – still retaining some green – has landed there as well.

I was looking carefully in that mulch bed for the birds nest fungus I had found there earlier in the season. Many of the cups were washed clean of their ‘eggs’ (spore cases) by last week's rain (or maybe an earlier rain) and the runoff had broken up some of the mats. There were some small mushrooms growing nearby – looking very delicate compared to the other plants and big leaves.

In the walk back to the car – I noticed several other plants in bloom

And some were dispersing their seed, already prepared for winter.

Milkweed in October

Milkweed is one of my favorite photography targets in the fall and the meadow as Mt. Pleasant Farm is my favorite place to find them. The heavy rains last week washed many of the pods clean. Those seeds left in the pod got very wet and now are cemented into the pod

Or the pod was not quite open enough to let them out before the deluge (I wondered if the pod would split open and the seeds would eventually disperse normally with their bits of fluff carrying the away with a breeze).

There were milkweed bugs but they didn’t seem as numerous as in previous years.

The best pictures this year were the few seeds that had dispersed - a little – but were covered with small water droplets. The structure of the fluff is jeweled! The very last picture of this group is my favorite. It was draped over a dried seed head of another plant – caught there long enough to catch the dew and drape around the structure enough to hold the seed aloft.

There were a couple of milkweed pictures in last month’s post about the Howard County Conservancy’s Mt. Pleasant Farm. The milk weed bugs have grown!