Choosing Voluntary Simplicity » Enjoying Nature

Wolf Spiders — Natural Pest Control in the Garden

Shirley — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 14:45:39 +0000

I was trying to photograph a tiny, tiny toad that was hidden in some very dense ground cover. Imagine my surprise when suddenly this large spider darted out of the vegetation and paused obligingly for a moment on my open hand. I already had the camera focused so I took advantage of the opportunity to take this picture!

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Why There Are No Old Bold Mushroom Hunters

Shirley — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 21:17:57 +0000

One of the interesting side effects of our very wet summer is the huge number of wild mushrooms that are growing in the woods across from our house. Although this year's is a bumper crop, these woods have always been mushroom rich. I used to think that someday I would have learned enough about mushrooms so I could identify which mushrooms are safe to eat.

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Eastern Gray Treefrog (Hyla versicolor)

Shirley — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 17:46:12 +0000

We have tree frogs here... probably a lot of tree frogs if the volume of their "trills" is any indication... but they are nocturnal and so reclusive we almost never see them. So when a tree frog jumped from a tree and landed right beside my husband's gloved hand as he was weeding, it was an interesting opportunity for some photographs.

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Little Acorn… Mighty Oak?

Shirley — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 18:30:15 +0000

I uncovered this sprouted acorn in the pile of leaf mold yesterday. We are used to finding stashes of seeds and nuts that the chipmunks and gray squirrels have "planted," but this little acorn sprouted in the mulch and had already produced a perfect miniature oak tree.

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Tricolored Bumble Bee (Bombus ternarius)

Shirley — Fri, 08 May 2009 14:38:42 +0000

If you have been reading this blog for a while, you will already know that I like to take photographs of bees. A couple of days ago I noticed that there were bees on the dandelion flowers (earlier than usual this spring), so of course I had to take some photos. One bee had a bright orange stripe around its body and was unlike any bumble bee I have ever seen before.

It turns out this bee is a tricolored bumble bee, also sometimes called "orange-belted" for obvious reasons. Even though I have never seen a bee with an orange stripe before, it is supposedly a fairly common bumble bee in the northern United States. It is a large bee... males and worker bees can be up to half an inch in length, and the queens are even larger at more than 3/4-inch. They are considered to be superior pollinators because they will collect pollen even in cold or wet weather... and it was cool and damp the day these photographs were taken.

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Digging Dandelions in the Spring

Shirley — Tue, 05 May 2009 01:05:29 +0000

Every afternoon for the last four days we've taken an eight-quart kettle and two knives and gone out to our meadow to get some dandelion greens for dinner. And yes, I'm talking about the common dandelion... the weed. In New England, we call it "digging dandelions," but the dandelion isn't really dug... we use the knife to cut the entire plant off just below the surface of the soil. We're lucky to have a large meadow just filled with dandelion plants. In a couple of weeks when the dandelions we leave are in blossom, the meadow will be a field of brilliant yellow... and next year there will again be as many dandelions as we want to dig. It's a common sight this time of year to see people in this area out digging dandelions. I think it is a testimony to how much we New Englanders like our dandelions, because getting enough for a meal... or bigger quantities for canning or freezing... is a VERY time-consuming process.