Wildflower - Marsh Woundwort

While the Marsh Woundwort (Stachys palustris), also known as Marsh Hedgenettle or Hedge-nettle, is an attractive/showy wildflower, this member of the mint family is taking over my raspberry patch and garden. I'm not sure how this weed got into my garden since its typical habitat is marshes and damp meadows.



Marsh Woundwort is another non-native plant from Eurasia that has made its way to North America. Like other members of the mint family, it is a difficult weed to get rid of because of its persistent tubers. Roto-tilling this weed will chop up the tuberous root and create more plants. I may have to kill all the plants in my raspberry patch with Glyphosate to get it out of my garden.




Although the Marsh Woundwort has little fragrance, it is very attractive to bumblebees. This plant would look very nice in a collection of wildflowers, but not well received in my raspberries.

Wildflower - Elderberry

The Elderberry bushes are starting to bloom in the neighborhood.



The Elderberry bush produces clusters of very small flowers that produce dark purple to black berries. Each berry has a juicy interior with 3-5 small seeds. The small fruits are edible when they are fully ripe and can be used to make elderberry jelly, pie, and wine.



A close-up view of a flower cluster.

Turkey and Bears

I was in the kitchen this morning having my cup of coffee when I saw this turkey walking up the road in front of our house.



After a few photos through the window, I went out on the porch and took some more photos. This turkey didn't seem to mind me or the traffic. The turkey continued to feed (on left in photo) along the road even as a car went by.



When I got in my truck to head to our barn the turkey walked into the tall grass. Less than an hour later Mary saw two bears walk up the road and followed the same path as the turkey.

Mary's Flowers

I'm more into wildflowers and growing vegetables, here are a few of Mary's flowers.

Lollypop Asiatic Lilies



The white peonies at our cabin are starting to bloom.



A red rose at our house.

Fawns Exploring the Neighborhood

I found this fawn out during the middle of the day in the neighbor's lawn.



Found this pair of fawns playing in the township road this evening.

More Rain in the Forecast

I was late getting my garden in due to the spring rains and after almost an inch of rain over the weekend and 0.80 more inches of rain today, my garden is saturated.



Today's rain caused a small wash-out in my vine crop area that I finally planted last week.

Wildflower - Hawkweed

As the warmer days of Summer approach, the Hawkweed starts to bloom. In our neighborhood we have the yellow Field Hawkweed and Orange Hawkweed, also known as Devil's Paintbrush.



Both the yellow and orange Hawkweed flowers are only about 3/4 inches across but can form compact clusters of 1 to 50 flowers on one stem.



The orange Hawkweed is bright reddish-orange with a yellow center.

Wood Frog

The weather forecast is at least a 50% chance of rain each day for the next week, so yesterday I decided to mow the lawn before the rain gets here. I just started to mow and this Wood Frog thought it was a good idea to get out of the path of the lawn mower. It doesn't take too much effort for me to stop mowing and take pictures of something. It doesn't surprise me to find frogs living in our lawn with all the rain we've had. (Almost another inch of rain today)

Wildflower - Nightshade

I tend to find a lot of wildflowers while I'm mowing my fields and lawn. Today's find was Nightshade, also known as bittersweet nightshade, bitter nightshade, blue bindweed, Amara Dulcis, climbing nightshade, fellenwort, felonwood, poisonberry, poisonflower, scarlet berry, snakeberry, trailing bittersweet, trailing nightshade, violet bloom, or woody nightshade.



Nightshade is a semi-woody vine, which climbs over other plants, and is capable of reaching a height of 12 feet. The flowers are in loose clusters of 3–20, with five purple petals and yellow stamens. The fruit is a red berry that is edible for some birds, but is poisonous to humans and livestock.

Today's Pollen Count - HIGH

Due to this year's rain and wet conditions I'm about 4 to 6 weeks behind my mowing projects. The grass is now tall and putting out pollen and seeds. My tractor started to overheat today while mowing and when I opened the hood I quickly found the problem. The radiator screens were plugged with grass seeds and pollen.



These screens were clean a couple of days ago when I started mowing. This could explain why I feel congested.

Quick fix, clean the screens and back to work mowing.

Wildflower - Beardtongue

I was mowing a wildlife food plot at our cabin property today and noticed a tall white wildflower towering over the clover and grass in the field. As I made my first pass around the field with the mower I found this large concentration of the wildflower Beardtongue.



This wildflower is native to North America and is also known as Foxglove Beardtongue, Tall White Beardtongue, Mississippi Penstemon, Smooth White Beardtongue, Talus slope Beardtongue.



The common name of Beardtongue comes from the hairs that are found on the staminode, which looks like a tongue.



The tubular flowers of this plant attract long-tongued bees, such as honeybees and bumblebees.

Daisy Spirals and Mathematics

The center disk of a Daisy is formed by hundreds of tiny flowers known as florets which appear to form spirals outward from the center. There are two sets of spirals, one which appears to spiral to the left as you move out from the center, and one which appears to spiral to the right as you move out from the center.



If you trace each of the left and right spirals you will notice there are more spirals in one direction than in the other. Here's the same photo where I traced the left-handed spirals in green and the right-handed spirals in blue. There are 21 left-handed spirals and 34 right-handed spirals.

What is special about the numbers 21 and 34? There is a mathematical number series called the Fibonacci Series. It starts with 1,1 and then each consecutive term is formed by adding the two previous terms. Thus the Series is 1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21, 34, 55, 89 ….

The numbers of left hand (21) and right hand spirals (34) are consecutive members of the Fibonacci series. This feature is found in many sorts of natural objects: the spirals on a pineapple fruit, on a pine cone, or on a head of sunflower seeds.

I also counted the spirals on a pine cone and got the numbers 3 and 5, which are also consecutive members of the Fibonacci series.

Daisies

The Daisies are starting to bloom along the neighborhood roads. Our common daisy, also known as an Ox-Eye Daisy, was introduced from Eurasia and has naturalized throughout North America.



The flower heads consist of yellow disk florets in the center and white rays around the outside. The center disk is formed by hundreds of florets which are each tiny flowers that produce seeds.

Doe & Fawn

Whenever I cross the bridge over Wysox Creek I slow down to look for wildlife, today I found a doe and a young fawn in the creek. It looked like the doe was trying to get the fawn to the cross the creek, but like young children the fawn wanted to explore the creek.



The fawn waded in the water and continued to walk toward the bridge while the doe waited in the brush along the shore. Eventually the fawn returned to its mother in the brush.

Turkey in Lawn

It was another typical late spring day, it was cold, wet and rainy. As I was standing in our driveway a hen turkey walked across our lawn about 40 yards away.

Strawberry Bandit

I haven't eaten too many of my strawberries this year, but the neighborhood chipmunks think these strawberries are great. I found this little guy had made a home in the driveway retaining wall next to my strawberry patch.



This little guy was very curious about me and as we played "Peek-a-Boo" for 5-10 minutes, it would gradually move closer and closer to me.



As I sat on the retaining wall within a few feet of the chipmunk, it quickly dashed into its burrow and returned with a strawberry and proceeded to eat it as I watched.

At War With Roses

There are several different wild roses growing in our neighborhood, such as this wild Dog Rose growing on our cabin property. While most wild roses are a pleasant sight, there is one invasive rose variety that I work to eliminate ...



Multiflora Rose is an invasive species with arching branches and fragrant blossoms that bloom in the late spring. While it can be attractive while in bloom this rose can quickly take over fields and form dense thickets that crowd out other plants. On average, a multiflora rose plant produces one million seeds each year, and each of these seeds is viable in the soil for up to twenty years.



Multiflora Rose gets its name from the multiple blossoms that form at the end of each branch.



Multiflora Rose can grow to over 15 feet in height with very large thorns on the stems. These thorns are hooked and point backward like the barb on a fishhook. If you get caught in a Multiflora Rose bush, the backward hooked thorns make escape difficult.



A Multiflora Rose bush that has taken over an old McCormick-Deering reaper behind our barn.

Planting Corn

After weeks of cloudy/rainy weather, Bob Wilmot was able to work the fields on the south end of town and take advantage of a couple of days of nice weather to plant some corn. I was up at daybreak this morning disking a 20 acre corn field for Mr. Bob as he prepared the corn planter.



This is a small time operation by Iowa standards, and he will be only planting 35 acres today, which includes 7 acres of our property that he farms.



A lot of farmers in this area still can't get on their fields to plant because the ground is still too wet to drive on.