Even though I posted a sunset picture a few days ago, I figured this sunset was a good choice for a Sunday. Later the clouds changed into different and interesting formations (one even squarish with two eyes and a mouth like Spongebob but that was too frightening of a picture for a Sunday morning!).
Rays of Light at Sunset
Normally you think of flowers being colorful, like the multi-colored chicken I posted yesterday, but some flowers didn’t get the memo about being colorful. Even white daisies with their yellow centers are colorful but this Indian Pipe has no chlorophyll and gets its nutrients through a mutually beneficial relationship with a fungus in the soil where it grows. And since it doesn’t need sunlight, it can grow in deep wooded areas.
Because of its lack of chlorophyll, it’s sometimes called ghost plant or corpse plant. The nodding flower pushed through the soil with the flower already formed and when the blossom is pollinated, the blossom straightens to an upright position. It turns black when it dies and then to me it looks like a burnt wooden match stick.
Indian pipe survives not from photosynthesis, but by stealing carbon from a mycorrhizal fungus living in the root zone of trees. Mycorrhizal fungi are symbiotic organisms that vastly increase the absorptive surface area of a tree’s root system and aid in uptake of specific nutrients and the tree responds by providing carbohydrates for the fungus.
By chemically mimicking the tree’s root system, the Indian pipe causes the mycorrhizal fungi to attach to its roots in a kind of biological identity theft. The fungus mycelium receives sugars produced by the trees from photosynthesis which some then gets passed to the ‘thieving’ Indian Pipes.
The unique requirements and epiparasitic ways make it all but impossible to cultivate in a garden or to transplant them.
Indian Pipe (or Ghost Plant or Corpse Plant)
The county fairs brings all kinds of people and animals to the fair, even some ugly hairless rats, but a trip through the poultry and rabbit barn is always a necessity trip to see the cute little bunnies. Although an unpleasant honk from a goose might welcome you instead. And then there are some chickens with a very bad hair day but other chickens can be quite colorful.
Colorful Chicken
The old style windmills are another item from the past which are disappearing so it’s nice to spot one now and again, especially at sunset.
Windmill at Sunset
I finally made it back down to the nice little creek where all the Forgot-me-nots were blooming but had been distracted with other things to see the last time, like the fish swimming in the creek and the rock wall that I posted last month.
The human eye can pick up all the little, tiny blue flowers along the banks but the camera just can’t do justice to the scene, especially after scaling the picture down to post. But it was a very lovely sight to see, but for today’s post, I’ll use a close up of one stem of the tiny flower.
In an earlier post I mentioned the German legend how the flower was named ( I’ll repeat that legend at the bottom) but another legend says “The Christ Child was sitting on Mary’s lap one day and said that he wished that future generations could see her eyes. He touched her eyes and then waved his hand over the ground and blue forget-me-nots appeared, hence the name forget-me-not.”
Course not all the legends have a happy ending as in Mill’s “History of Chivalry”. The lover, when trying to pick blossoms of the myosotis for his lady-love, was drowned, his last words as he threw the flowers on the bank being “Forget me Not.”
Another theory suggests because the leaves taste so bad, once you have eaten them, you will never forget them.
I still like the German legend the best, after the earth was created, God went to each plant and animal and gave each a name. As God finished and was getting ready to leave, he heard a little voice at his feet saying “what about me?” He bent down and picked up the little plant whom he had forgotten, and said “Because I forgot once, I shall never forget you again, and that shall be your name.”
Forget-Me-Nots
Lighthouses always seem so peaceful to me and yet they were built because of events which weren’t peaceful like storms and hidden rocks. Split Rock Lighthouse was built in response to the Mataafa storm that damaged twenty nine ships on November 28, 1905. One of these shipwrecks, the Madeira, is located just north of the lighthouse.
Congress appropriated money for a lighthouse and fog signal in the vicinity of Split Rock. Built on a 130 foot cliff, the 54 foot tower sends it half second light 22 miles across Lake Superior every 9.5 seconds and its fog horn blasts for 2 seconds with 18 seconds of silence which could be heard for 5 miles.
The lighthouse was only accessible by water for nearly 15 years so all construction materials were brought in by barge and hoisted up the cliff with a derrick and a steam-powered hoist.
The light was first lit on July 31, 1910 and the light was retired in 1969 when modern navigational equipment made it obsolete.
Split Rock Lighthouse is one of the most recognized and photographed icons in the state of Minnesota. Generally you see the close up of the lighthouse on the cliff, and I have taken my share fair of those, but this was the view I had from my campsite where I watched both the moon and sun from my front door (or at least my tent flap).
This view is not a picture to shrink down to post and still see magnificent lighthouse but I could just about envision the ship captains peering across the lake hoping to catch the lighthouse so they could safely navigate the waters, where I just had to navigate a few feet to the bench to enjoy the view.
Split Rock Lighthouse across the Bay
The sun is shining on the start of another work week and for farmers that might mean combining oats, baling hay or milking cows. But most of them didn’t have the weekend off so the work days just continue rolling one after another.
The method of farming work has changed over the years becoming more automated but I can still remember my great grandfather using milk cans when he milked his small herd of dairy cows.
A Glimpse of Milking Past
A pretty sunset is always a welcome sight and if it shows the leading edge of a storm front when rain is needed that is a bonus.
Sunset as Storm Approaches
They often talk about things on the threatened list of being extinct, and around here wooden barns would be on the endangered list as they are coming rarer and rarer to find as they are being replaced by the metal pole barns instead.
The wooden barns have a different feel to them, a warmer feel, but also they normally contained several functional areas; area to milk the cows, stable for the horses, hayloft to store the hay, a granary, and area to store equipment.
But times have changed, methods have changed, and existence of the small farmers having a variety of animals to feed his family have vanished but every once in a while you stumble across an old wooden barn and you catch a glimpse of history and you wonder what memories it holds.
Rustic Wooden Barn
Well since the spider wasn’t very popular and certain people wanted to squish it, here’s the lilies I was taking pictures of when I spotted the spider. And since I like to try different angles, sometimes that means getting low and you never know what creepy thing you might be eye to eye with.
Lily in the sky
