Tuesday, August 11, 2020

Postcards from the Lake: On the Roadside

Earlier this summer I showed you one of my walks and some of the gardens and blooms I see along the way. That's looking up! This post is, for the most part, looking down at the roadside.


The weeds and wild plants we see on the sides of the road are a a sign of summer moving into a new phase, just like the shorter days and earlier sunsets. Things earlier in bloom begin to dry up and we also see new colors or ones that seem to continue much longer.


My walk started with a beautiful patch of knapweed. still looking pretty and purple.


I'm not sure what this is, but it is abundant!


To be honest, I'm pretty bad with plant names. I admire Shoreacres Lagniappe posts where she finds the most remarkable wildflowers in Texas and identifies them. Her photos are spectacular. Me? It's the little orange one that kind of looks like a mini-snapdragon bud.


Another sign of the change is the new proliferation of wild raspberries.


I'm assuming these are fine to eat, though I haven't had any, just to be on the safe side. But I wonder if these are the berries my mom's friend Fran referred to when she spoke of their childhood times at the lake and the day when it came to preserve the berries. Canning day was never fun because the children had to help and couldn't play!


It's a lovely thought, young children in the 1920s, helping mom with making jams and jellies from the berries they picked earlier in the day.


I know these are a weed but I think they look like morning glories!


I don't know what these are either (of course) but they are so sweet and puffy.


These shockingly bright yellow blooms pop out of the woods whenever I see them.


I think these may be the same in an earlier period. Or maybe not.


These pink ones look much the same -- I wonder if they are from the same "family."


In the garden post, I shared one of my favorite roadside blooms, the Queen Anne's Lace. It is still blooming but as the season as moved on, it is beginning to fade.


I find it interesting to watch this -- the fuller blooms began to shrink and it becomes more sparse.


And then it curls up into a soft puff ball. Its dried seeds will scatter for next year's flowers.


Here you can almost see the various stages!


Just as spring has its Trailing Arbutus, Jack in the Pulpit and Lady's Slippers, late summer changes are equally telling. We start to see bits of red that weren't there before....


....and leaves turning an early lemon yellow.


These berries have emerged, an almost greenish-coppery-sandy color. Will they turn red later? I'll have to watch!


The ferns are changing, too. While many remain a deep green, some have become to turn brown and die.


These red ones are new to me. I saw them in the woods but I've also seen them in gardens so maybe they just "traveled!"


This one is a sure sign of a coming fall -- do you recognize it? You may have it in your yard!


Yes. Goldenrod time is here!


Of course, when looking down, not everything is a pretty bloom. I still don't know how this fish made it across beach, cottage yards and a road!


And looking way up, we see the birch from which the branch fell with the interesting patterns, which you can see near the top of the tree here. Thanks to bloggers far smarter than I, I know that these are marks made by yellow bellied sapsuckers and perhaps other woodpeckers who find the sap from the birch a real treat.


I leave you with one of my favorites from my recent walk. This cheery green makes me smile. Big.


So, keep looking up, but if you must look down, look for the beauty. There's a lot of it out there!
 
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47 comments:

Mary Rose's said...

Hi,Jeanie -
The last photo, the yellow green flowers, that's euphorbia. I think it's pretty but in places it's called a noxious weed. (Rude!) Bugs like it. Goats will eat it. I bet deer might too.

I wonder if an owl or hawk dropped the fish across the road.

eileeninmd said...

Hello,

I like seeing all the colorful wildflowers. We are seeing the wild raspberries here too. I think the 6th from the bottom is Bee Balm. I have always loved the Queen Anne's Lace. Maybe an Osprey or Eagle dropped the fish? Take care, enjoy your day! Have a great week!

~Lavender Dreamer~ said...

Well you've sure taken some amazing wildflower photos! I love seeing them but don't always know the id. I'll go check on the blog you mentioned. Enjoy your day! (I was going to say, don't go belly up but that sounds kind of creepy! heeheehee!)

Rustic Pumpkin said...

The Morning Glory looks like a Morning Glory because it is! Here, it's our native wild one, and that lovely green plant you like, if it's what I think it is, which is of the Euphorbia family, then be careful of it and don't get the sap on your skin.

Deb in Wales

Valerie-Jael said...

It all looks so pretty - except for the dead fish! Have a great da, hugs, Valerie

bobbie said...

Love your postcards! Nature is so amazing ~

William Kendall said...

Beautiful blooms!

I imagine a cat or a raccoon could have dragged it out

coffeeontheporchwithme said...

I'm curious to see how many readers can name the various plants you showed. I can tell you that last one (or close to last, the red / magenta looking one) is beebalm, which also goes by another name, but I've forgotten it at the moment. I know the one where you said I know it's a weed is the evil incarnate, bind weed. Honestly, a nasty pandemic virus has nothing on that stuff! I rip it out by the armloads. I recognize almost all of them, but like you, can't come up with the names. -Jenn

Lowcarb team member said...

What a lovely selection of flowers the colours are just wonderful.
Out earlier today and we drove by some wildflower beds, they looked lovely ... just wish we could have stopped and taken some photographs.

My good wishes.

All the best Jan

Pam said...

Hi. The yellow/orangey little trumpet flower is "touch me not"!

Carol @Comfort Spring Station said...

It's hard to do but we do need to look for beauty even if it's small beside a big ugly.

Karen said...

The little snap dragon like flowers are jewel weed aka Touch Me Not. They are an antidote for poison ivy and often live close by. The yellow daisy like flower is St.John's Wort. Monarda is another name for Bee Balm. The white flower above the Queen Anne's Lace is called Bouncing Bet. The yellow flower between the St. Johns Wort and Bouncing Bet is Primrose.
I used to do guided walks to teach folks about the ditch plants. Many of them are useful and /or medicinal.
You should get a good wild plant book. Exploring the byways is quite interesting!
The one I use for reference is called Wild Plants of the Eastern Forest. Yes, I know you are more central that we are, but pretty sure out environment is quite the same.

Karen said...

Lot's of beautiful blooms ~ You can get an app for your phone that identifies plants and flowers now. I loved the stages of the queen Anne's lace. Thank you for the visual walk about & enjoy your week!

Misadventures of Widowhood said...

Love your collection of weed photos. Many weeks are just flowers no one has figured out how to make money off from yet.

Prims By The Water said...

Lovely flowers. I so love the blue chickory along the roadsides. Janice

Deb Nance at Readerbuzz said...

We use an app called iNaturalist. It helps you identify the names of living things and it tells you a little about the creature/plant.

Your photos are beautiful.

Pamela said...

Thank you for stopping to snap pictures.

Beatrice P. Boyd said...

You are right, Jeanie, and there is indeed so much beauty just in a simple walk. But these days many people are not seeing the "sunny" side of the street. I enjoyed the walk and the flower IDs too.

The Joy of Home with Martha Ellen said...

You have a great assortment of wildflowers, Jeanie. I too love seeing them on our walks. I come home and look them up on the internet. I see in the above comments the identification of some. I bet a large bird dropped the fish you say. We often see them on our trail. You are so right, there is much to observe if we have the eyes to see.

Lynne said...

I enjoyed your “look down” series!
I recognize many but not sure of the names.
I do know, the red is Bee Balm.
Mine did beautifully this year.

BeachGypsy said...

I love all the pretty pictures!! wow, you see alot of flowers on your walk. I love the morning glory picture the best. None of your other flowers look familiar to me!!--so neat because I get to see/learn about different flowers from different states. Hope y'all are doing great and wow! I couldn't believe it when you told me your temps the other day...wow!!---send some of THAT HERE, PLEASE??! I love summer but the heat is just wearing on me at this point.....

BeachGypsy said...

PS.... I love your pretty cosmos and zinnias in your previous post...so bright and cheerful!!!

Iris Flavia said...

Yes, the days sadly are getting shorter.
When I was a kid we ate wild berries but these days... if you find them at all... foxes might´ve marked them and you get sick (reckon they did that back then, also, but we didn´t know, LOL).
Define weed, to me it´s beauty.
And I love the curly one! Found one similar and gotta share.

Yikes, poor fish! But, let´s still look up and down! Because, you are right, there is a lot of beauty!

Anca said...

When it comes to flowers I have the same skills as you do: pretty yellow flower and so on... I wish I could identify them, but I can, so I only enjoy their beauty. :)

Pam Richardson said...

Jeanie, one must be looking to find beauty and you are always keeping your eyes open. I love Queen Anne’s lace and trying to identify wildflowers. Enjoy your walks!

David M. Gascoigne, said...

I see that someone has identified Touch Me Not for you, also know as Spotted Jewelweed. It is a species of impatiens. Great walk you had, Jeanie, with many interesting wildflowers. Your walk could have been taken five minutes from my house, with the same species. Kudos for your attention to them and the great series of pictures.

Mae Travels said...

Your philosophy of enjoying the beautiful colors and forms but not necessarily identifying plants is a good one -- at least I share it. When it comes to birdwatching, I identify myself as an "in the moment birdwatcher." Meaning I just like looking at interesting and beautiful birds, maybe taking pictures, but not poring over id guides and memorizing them. Same goes for flowers and trees and other wildlife.

be well... mae at maefood.blogspot.com

La Table De Nana said...

You have lots of helpers here:) I hear crickets..I hear end of summer approaching even though it's stinkin hot!

Joanne Huffman said...

You don't have to know the names of flowers/plants to enjoy them.

The French Hutch said...

Jeanie, I enjoy Mother Nature's "wildflowers" when in bloom. Officially, they are just weeds in most cases. I'm not familiar with names but doesn't mean I don't enjoy the pretty blooms and colors I see usually along trails and paths in parks where I usually see them. Queens Ann's Lace is always lovely and so abundant in the south but so is Goldenrod!

Sami said...

We can find beauty everywhere we look.
I'm terrible with plant names too, but have an app on the mobile called "PlantNet" and you take a photo and it identifies the plant, although sometimes there are various options with slight differences. It helps me also to see how to care for that plant.

Rita C at Panoply said...

I enjoy taking notice of the subtle signs of the season, too, Jeanie, and have definitely been seeing some. I'll stop and take photos on our walks often. I keep them by year, Gardens, our neighborhoods. If we go somewhere special (so far not this year), I'll save them by the location. I picked up my first two acorns yesterday, and we've already heard the 'clunk' sound as they hit car hoods along our paths. :)

Arti said...

Interesting to see the curled up ball of the QAL. I never knew that. Also, I've an inkling about the fish, could be dropped there by a bird of prey... maybe not to its taste. :) Can't believe we're seeing yellow leaves already in the second week of Aug. Well, enjoy what you have. Have a great rest of summer, Jeanie!

Judy at GoldCountryCottage said...

Jeanie, I love wildflowers but like you I don't know their names. I don't see them so much anymore, guess I am not at the right place at the right time. I saw so many as a child playing in the woods near my grandparent's home..Stay well..xxoJudy

gretchenjoanna said...

I see what you mean about us seeing the same things at a great distance from one another. I don't know if I've seen the "little orange snapdragon-type flower plant" before, but it looked familiar, and I found out just now -- thanks to you I could procrastinate every other task and engage in one of my favorite activities! -- that it is Common Jewelweed. It's edible, and supposedly an antidote to poison ivy. But I didn't read long enough to become an expert on it. :-)

If you were to tie a little ribbon on to one of the Queen Anne's lace "puff balls" and watch it day by day as you walk past, I think you would see that it is actually the bud of the flower. I have taken hundreds of photos of those buds and blooms over the last five years that I walked by, because they are truly fascinating at every stage. https://gretchenjoanna.com/2017/07/13/effusions-and-fields-of-aromatic-lace/

I thought they would be a good subject for a time-lapse video demonstrating what I say, and I looked on YouTube for one just now, but unsuccessfully.

Thank you for once again broadening my world with your explorations from what sometimes is obviously a far distant country, but with occasional familiar sights of home.

DUTA said...

I hardly know names of plants and flowers, and make no effort about that. I just try to enjoy the sight of their beauty and variety when I'm out and about.
The dead fish on the road disrupts the idyllic picture, reminding us that there's evil and ugliness in Nature, not only beauty.

My name is Erika. said...

Those orange flowers are called jewelweed. I don't get poison ivy but my brother does and he says they are really good for relieving it. All the wildflowers are so pretty. And besides goldenrod, there are a few other signs of summer waning. Our days are definitely getting shorter-later sunrises and earlier sunsets. Is that true for you too? Hope all is well. Hugs-Erika

Little Wandering Wren said...

Always fun to see what is growing in different parts of the world - pretty weeds or not! I feel like I've totally missed summer this year by not being in the UK at all. So it's been brill to come on a wander with you Jeanie!
Wren x

Nikki - Notes of Life said...

I'm guessing the fish was carried by a bird but then accidentally dropped.

Lovely photos. I'm hopeless at identifying flowers/plats too, but I have downloaded an app to my phone called Candide where you can take a photo of the plant and it will suggest possible plants (including photos for you to check).

Ricki Treleaven said...

Beautiful flowers, and I love Queen Anne’s Lace! There’s an app for identifying plants called PlantNet. I think it’s free.

Cindy said...

My ferns are starting to turn brown too. My husband and I have been going on long walks lately and the wild flowers are spectacular! Thank you for sharing these.

shoreacres said...

Thanks for the mention, Jeanie! I'd love to have taken this walk with you, and met some of these unfamiliar plants personally. There are several I don't know. I smiled to see so many people ID-ing the euphorbia and adding the warning. I've never gotten the sap on my skin, but I've heard the same thing.

I noticed this week the shorter days. Unfortunately, we're still just as hot, and it's been ghastly at work this week, but a friend and I are braving the heat and visiting a new place tomorrow -- I can't wait!

Lisa from Lisa's Yarns said...

So so pretty! Thanks for sharing all these photos! We don’t really see wild flowers around here but I am always admiring others’ landscaping and thinking about what we should do with ours! I didn’t know about the various stages of Queen Anne lace! So cool!!

Carol @Comfort Spring Station said...

I blog on WordPress and pay for a host to house my blog on their server. I can tell you a few years ago WordPress introduced a totally new format to the blogging and I hated it. They issued a plug-in that makes it old WordPress and I've been using it ever since. I've never tried Blogger and can't compare. I sometimes wonder if it is better - it's very popular. Good luck!

Sketchbook Wandering said...

That's Jewelweed, Touch me not. One of my very favorites. When you touch it, it will shoot out seed!!! A little amazing wonder! I made my artist's book last summer on wildflowers. It's in my posts a year ago...

crackercrumblife said...

These are beautiful Jeanie! Thank you for sharing!

Divers and Sundry said...

What pretty flowers! I agree with whoever named your flower "bee balm". I have some on my patio that looks exactly like that. I'd be tempted to try a wild red roadside raspberry ;)

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