A tulip?

You tell me. I have no clue.



Other than that, school, composting, books (oh, I've GOT to blog about the books!), ball practice. Pictures Thursday. John gets to wear his whole uniform. He thinks it's almost as good as Christmas.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Hi.

You get no title, but I'll post pictures. :-) I got up at some unholy hour the other day and figured I'd just run with it, so when the sun began to rise, I grabbed my coffee and camera and went out to take pictures. By the time I stopped wandering about like a lost child in Wonderland, the sun was pretty well up. Oh, well, it was still nice to just be there, in the quiet, the beautiful, sparkling, dewy quiet of it all.

Zorak wasn't feeling well when he went to bed last night, but I figured it was just allergies. (OK, posting flower pictures alongside an illness post, when the flowers aren't in a bedside vase, seems a little wrong. Poor post planning. Sorry 'bout that.) Anyway, he figured it was too much sun. Either way, no biggie. Then he slept pretty late this morning, and when Me-Wa called to see about going fishing, he wasn't up for it. I started to ask why, but then I looked up to see him sitting on a barstool, phone dangling from his hand, just sort of staring at the counter speckles and weaving back and forth. hooboy. That's one sick Daddy.

He went back to bed and hasn't moved all day, save for two brief attempts to eat. Oh, and I'd slip in every few hours to rotate his pillows and get him to sip some water, but he didn't ever really wake up for that. He is SO sick, and so out of it. No fever, just chills, sweating, and total lethargy. I'm terrified to google those specific symptoms, but if he's still like this tomorrow, I plan to drag him to the doctor. At least on the upside, he'll be too weak and exhausted to kick and scream. 8^O

In other news, we are inundated with blooms and buds! The dogwoods and redbuds are all in full bloom, and it's BEAUTIFUL here! We have a lone flower in bloom, down among the bulbs, too. I thought it was a tulip, but the boys checked it out and said they don't think it's a tulip. It does look a little more starry-shaped than tulip-shaped. We'll have to post a photo, though. Whatever it is, it's the kind of flower that makes people say and do silly things in response to it.

Speaking of silly things, I've turned into "that woman". You know, the neophyte gardener, who is just beginning to get a feel for it. Or, as Zorak put it the other day on the drive into town, "Plants have become your Gamecube, you know." (I believe this was after the ninth or tenth time since leaving the property that I pointed and exclaimed, "OH, would you LOOK at THAT tree!" Um, yeah, we live in the south. There's more foliage here than probably anywhere else this side of Cambodia. Pleasant drive for him, I'm sure.) But it's fun, and it's wonderful, and I am *finally* beginning to understand how people can tell the difference between things like bulbs and ivies! It's much, much easier when you live among them, and can get to know them. Delightful!

Random Plants & Musings

Two big things:


1) I figured out how to control *change* the exposure on my camera. And how to do something else.


2) And... I don't know what that "something else" is.

Technically, this could be #3, as well, but it's not. It's just me, thinking we really ought to see if we can find the owner's manual for the camera. Not only do I not know what the other thing is, but I do not know how to determine which one I'm controlling (and I use the term loosely).

There's one button on the camera that does more than one thing! Shutter speed, perhaps? Or isn't that exposure? What controls action? The other one allows me to capture action as if it's posed. For example, when I told the boys to wave their hands and heads as fast as they could, they did, and I started snapping and poking buttons. This is what I got:

Looks like your typical self-posed boy portrait, doesn't it? This is them, in motion. Sort of.

Do you know what this means? NO MORE SHMU PICTURES! If I can harness this technology, we could have crystal clear photos of all our children, and not have a photo collection of one-eyed, three-nostriled furry things. This is BIG!

And a few more things... dunno what these are. As always, input (knowledge, guesses, whatever) is appreciated. Thanks.

I found these on the ground while I was trying to get a good shot of a mushroom.


And Ernie, this is for you.


Those things grow fast out here. That log fell in a storm during the fall, and already it's covered in fungi (ok, "mushrooms" - but I don't know what kind, or if they're technically mushrooms, or whatever, but there they are, and the boys have been instructed not to eat them). This is the biggest one, and I love the way it cups up and out, and how that vine has grown right through it without either one seeming to take notice of one another.



This is so much fun!

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Tell me this wasn't planted on purpose!?!?!?

There are three different plants in there, but the one I'm asking about is the thick, stalky one in the foreground with the greenish, reddish coloring and no leaves. Can you see the thorns on that thing? Oy! Zorak and I look like we've taken up Olympic cat tossing.

There's another one among them that has tiny, curved hooks that are sharp and hard. Possibly barbed. I suspect evil, as well. Particularly the one that reached down and nabbed me in the hollow on the back of my neck while I wrestled with the reddish ones above - ohhhh, okay. Strike that. Zorak just informed me that they're one and the same. These things get whip-like near the end. Yeouch!

And that means there are only two plants in that photo. So, then, what's this stuff, with the leaves?

If you run into it, castor oil is incredibly soothing on the injuries inflicted by these plants.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Hint #2: leaves, (also vines and bark)

We dug around beneath that tree. There were quite a few other leaves, but some of them we could recognize as belonging to other trees nearby. These are the ones there were the most of. Does this help any?



Also, this is from the tree behind it, but I'm wondering if it's vines that did this to the bark, or something else? I know this poor tree probably isn't healthy, but isn't the detail fascinating? (Click on the image to view the MONGO detail.)



Zorak asked me today if we are assuming that all vines on the trees are poison ivy. I have no idea. I'm just assuming that all vines on the trees ought not be there and must come off. Probably ought to check on that at some point, huh?

There's a lot I have put off, for the simple reason that this whole landscaping thing falls into one of those "painful ironies" categories. I've got two pretty big fears embedded in my imagination. One is of a vampire-werewolf cross - horrible creature, really. The other is vines that have malicious intent and will grow clear across the meadow, up the side of the house, through the window, and kill me in my sleep. Rent Watcher in the Woods. It could happen.

So today's three hours of yanking vines off trees and out of the ground? It's like shock therapy for the overly imaginative.

Kiss those babies (and keep the vines away from the windows!)
~Dy

What is this?

We're going to play a little game. (Don't run away! No, come back! I have coffee!)

I'll post a picture of something, and you guess what it is. This is like "animal, mineral or vegetable", except they're all going to be plants. More specifically, they're all going to be plants I cannot identify and have no idea how to go about identifying. So, you get to play AND do something altruistic for a friend. (Please come back.)

Let's start with the tool grabbing tree. The full shot is in the previous post. And here, we have a closer shot of the bark (bonus points if anyone can identify the tree in the background, too - no idea what that is)...


Here's a shot of a branch with buds (and the other tree limb mugging in the background - we've got a wild bunch of party foliage, here!):


And, to show off my inept photography skills, a blurry picture of a bud:


Fun, huh? (And yes, I really do love my youngest son. He was in no danger of being konked on the head by the trimmer. It was thoroughly lodged in there when this picture was taken.)
Kiss those babies!
~Dy