The cat isn’t quite sure what to make of the pig as she was trying to snuggle one second and hissing the next!
Pig vs Cat
Picture of the Day for August 19, 2016
The crimson color of the Prairie Ironweed brightens up the prairies in late summer. The tough stem that keeps the flower standing tall contributed to it being called Ironweed. Ironweed is a larval host for the American Painted Lady butterfly.
Prairie Ironweed
Picture of the Day for August 18, 2016
On a warm sunny day with high humidity, the dew points could climb a little higher because of ‘corn sweat’. Corn fields don’t really sweat, but they do transpire moisture known as evapotranspiration, the natural process of water evaporating from plants to the air. An acre of corn can give off 3,000 to 4,000 gallons of water each day, according to the U.S. Geological Survey Office so it may extra humid out today.
Corn Sweating
Picture of the Day for August 17, 2016
A mother turkey has been bringing her four babies out on my lawn looking for bugs to eat (including ticks which I am glad as they can eat 200 ticks in a day). If they were seed eaters, they would have had a lot of sunflower seeds this morning as some critter smashed my bird feeder pole last night and the feeder was on the ground. A group of turkeys is called a rafter although I don’t know if that holds true if only one adult and the rest are babies (which are called poults).
A Hen and Poults
Picture of the Day for August 16, 2016
A sign of summer is daylilies blooming in a range of colors. And as the name implies, the bloom typically last no more than 24 hours, with the flower opening in the early morning and wither during the following night. But there are many flower buds on each daylily flower stalk, and many stalks in each clump of plants, so, the flowering period of a clump is usually several weeks long. So while a single blossom may be fleeting, the colorful display continues onward through the summer.
One Day of Glory
Picture of the Day for August 15, 2016
This might not be “Charlotte” writing in the web for Wilbur, but there is a pig nearby and there is some extra markings in the web as the Zipper or Writing spider makes a zigzag pattern in the web. Argiope aurantia is commonly known as the black and yellow garden spider, zipper spider, corn spider, and writing spider. The females are much larger than the males and this female is wrapping up a snack so she had plenty to eat as she makes her egg sac which can contains between 400 and 1400 eggs.
Zipper Spider
Picture of the Day for August 14, 2016
The extra moisture in the air lately has created some colorful sunsets when the sun rays bounce off the clouds.
August Sunset
Picture of the Day for August 13, 2016
Modes of transportation has changed over the centuries, although horse drawn wagons have had a long history of use as horses were domesticated around 4000 BC and the wheel invented in 3500 BC. This wagon hasn’t been that long but it has seen a fair number of years and probably hauled a variety of loads.
Old Wagon
Picture of the Day for August 12, 2016
The Black-eyed Susans didn’t see much sun today so they had to create their own yellow sunshine.
Flower Sunshine
Picture of the Day for August 11, 2016
The dragonflies have been flying around my house in large numbers this summer but the butterflies seem to be less frequent visitors or are very skittish (probably since the cats like to sneak up on them) so they don’t hold still for a picture. The Red-spotted Purple is a common butterfly in Wisconsin during the summer months.
Red-spotted Purple
