The milkweeds are starting to bloom and the milkweed is important to many species, especially the monarch larvae which appears to feed exclusively on milkweeds and the monarch butterflies need the milkweed to lay their eggs.
Some people eat the milkweed flowers, using them in stir-fly, soup, casseroles and other dishes (after you wash the bugs out first). I prefer to just look at them and take pictures of the blossoms instead of eating them and I will leave them for the monarchs butterflies instead.
Last evening the rain ended as the fog was rising while the sun was setting and the colors probably would have glowed more reflecting off the fog and from all the moisture in the air, but with the growing army of mosquitoes, I didn’t stick around to watch the changing of the color at dusk.
This poor tree has seen better days and with the rain today, probably is feeling a bit soggy too. When it finally collapses into the water, it will no longer be a home to the birds.
It has been hard keeping the bird feeders filled now that the baby orioles and grosbeaks have been coming to eat (besides the mother squirrel too). And it appears the baby Northern Flickers have left the nest as I saw a group of them on the lawn looking for their meal. But since they feed on insects, I don’t have to put more seed out since there are plenty of bugs this year.
I do love old wooden barns with their rustic look to them but while I was making a barn board frame yesterday, I couldn’t but think how nice and weathered the boards on this barn are which would make some wonderful frames. But other than some cracks in the foundations, this barn might be around for a little while longer so I guess I have to put my hammer and crowbar away for a bit yet.
The wind was blowing yesterday, although the mosquitoes were still getting me but I think there are just so many of them, the wind just blows them right into me. The blowing wind does make it difficult to a picture of a small flower though.
Along the railroad tracks, these waving blue flowers caught my eye. About 70 species of Spiderworts exist in the Western Hemisphere, and I think this one might be the Ohio Spiderwort, but then I am just usually taking pictures blossoms and not all the plant parts to identify them.
The name Spiderwort may have come from the resemblance to spider silk when the sap is stretched between the fingers or that the plant looked like a crouching spider. The word “wort” often applies to plants with medicinal purpose and the Cherokee used it for insect bites (or spider bite).
One of the other common for the Tradescantia genus, doesn’t have a nice sounding name as it is also called Cow Slobber. It got that name from the plant’s sap as when you break the flower stalk, the sap forms stringy filaments that look like slobber and cows do ‘slobber’ at times (especially if you are nearby for them to wipe the slobber on your shirt).
The baby robins better keep their beaks high or they might drown in their nest with the rain storms. Normally the female will shield her young but I bet the female robin wished she had built her nest some place drier this year.
Like many holidays, a lot of the farmers worked on the 4th of July baling hay since it was one of the few opportunities of dry days to get some hay up. Although not all the hay looked very green anymore as it had been washed multiple times from rainy month.
There was more fireworks last night and now this morning, mother nature is providing some booming noise too. But maybe later today, the sun will shine again on the orange lilies so they can show off their really bright orange color instead of the muted orange under the gray skies this morning.
From backyards to large cities, last night was fill with lights and booms in all directions. And while the lights were pretty, there was a lot of critters hiding from the booms. My scary cat Tippy probably wished there wasn’t a 4th of July.
