Chambers County Lake

 

 

 

I always enjoy a trip over to Chambers County Lake, but especially in the fall. We used to go when the children were still at home and just wander around and look for bugs and leaves, etc. We never fished as far as I remember. We did picnic a couple of times, and usually fabricated some excuse for dabbling in the water in the spillway. The reflection of the trees in the water is a beautiful sight anytime but the colors of fall make it extra special. Sweetgums are great fall trees. There can be a myriad of colors on one tree, as there are on the one in the top picture. Purple, almost black, bright and dark shades of red, orange, and yellow, with some green thrown in for good measure. The bottom two pictures are of the race to the spillway. You can see and hear the water in the spillway by going here.

Flatworm

 

The other day while moving some plants into the greenhouse for the winter, I discovered a flatworm under a pot. I do find them occasionally under pots and have often thought of experimenting on them. As I remembered from biology you could cut them in half and the one without a head would grow a new head. But memory being somewhat faulty, it turns out that growing new heads is largely limited to the planeria, which are members of the flatworms, but not the kind like this.More than half of flatworm species are parasitic, causing some serious troubles like Schistosomiasis, tapeworms and other type flukes. The one pictured here is a free living flatworm, found in shady moist areas like leaf litter and rotting wood. I suppose they eat detritis or other equally unsavory things, but an interesting thing about them is that many kinds do not have an anus. They push undigested food back out their mouths. Don't be too hard on them though, because they are a very primitive organism and lack either a respiratory or circulatory system. They just do the best they can. I made 3 videos of this one crawling about. The first one is somewhat fuzzy, while the other 2 are clearer.

Video 1

video 2

Video 3

Pumpkin on the Edge of Compost

 

I have taken quite a hiatus from my these entries. It's not that I haven't been thinking, I just haven't been recording anything which for many purposes is tha same as not thinking. (If nobody knows of the thought, was it really there?) but most things I think (as well as most other people ,I suppose) is not really worth knowing about.This is one of the many reasons that I would not want to be a teacher:someone who talks all the time is bound to say some goofy and untrue things. Sometimes you are bound to have your mouth engaged while your mind is in neutral.
Mother died on October 24th, 2 1/2 years after her stroke. She held on as long as she could , but in the end she was completely used up, and prayed for God to take her. After a rough period of hours, she stopped breathing in her sleep.I have been at peace about the situation because I knew she was ready to go. She had lived a good and long life (92 years) and was well loved by her family,church and community. I think she loved me as much as anyone can love me, and she never waivered as far as I know in her Christian devotion or her prayer life. Her prayers are the thing that I will miss most.
Halloween has come and gone and as is my habit, I have set the jack-o-lantern to watch over the compost until such time as he takes a dive into it himself.I suppose this is a somewhat macabre, but I watch his face as the smile gets more crooked and his chin slowly folds under. In the end he will become good compost....

White Angel Trumpet

 

My white angel trumpet blooms late in the season. In fact when I see the buds on it, I know frost cannot be far off. I got it a number of years ago from a neighbor of my mother-in-law. I always assumed that it was late blooming because its genotype fitted it for a longer growing season than we have 200 miles north.
There did not seem to be any frost around my house last night. I get a lot of protection from the trees. But it is time I got moved back in the greenhouse and I seem to have a lot more and bigger plants than I thought. This happens every year. Why am I surprised?
The way I have it worked out is that I will just get as many plants in as I can in the time that I have available and try not to get overly concerned. It is obvious that I have far more plants than I can sensibly keep so some of them are going to have to succumb to frost. I do not really need 2 dozen of each plant, now do I? If I try to keep too many, the bugs and fungi will have a hey day. Everything will be better off not crowded.
I do wonder why my greenhouse sign down at the intersection of County rd. 21 and SR 147 keeps being stolen. The county road mowers seemingly take great delight in mowing the sign over and ripping it to bits or flattening it with the tractor tires. When that does not happen, someone steals it. I wish I had some kind of device that would make a loud explosive noise if anyone touched it, but that failing, I am looking for a real world solution. Got any ideas?

If you need a giggle, look here.

Gulf Fritillary Butterfly

 

This gulf fritillary is sipping on dog pee. I declare I saw it happen. I have often seen butterflies (usually swallowtails) sipping from damp sandy areas. This is a documented phenomena called puddling and the butterflies are getting minerals from the soil. The male especially needs these minerals as they are enclosed with the sperm in a spermataphore, and the minerals help the female produce and lay her eggs. As it happens, both urine and dung are excellent sources of minerals.

Fun Way to Get More Exercise

Now this is a fun idea!

For all you X-filers

The truth is out there. Click here to see what I mean.


Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us.
- Bill Watterson