Early this afternoon, I stopped at a patch of daisy fleabane along Piney Woods Church Road, discovering a variety of flying creatures busily at work gathering nectar and pollen and, in turn, pollinating the daisies. Perhaps daisy fleabane is merely a common weed to many, but right now along this stretch of roadway, it is virtually the only flower actively blooming, providing much-needed nourishment for bees and flies alike.
I hobbled my way down Piney Woods Church Road today, having pulled a muscle in my leg a couple of days ago and managed to pull it a second time for good measure earlier this morning. I was restricted to what I could see at eye level (sitting down being out of the question), and I only traveled part of the road, from Rico Road to the (dry) drainage ditch at about the halfway point. I found more spiders and other insects. I also noticed the brilliant red of new growth from a roadside red maple sapling (Acer rubrum). We tend to think of new growth as happening in early spring, but many trees continue to put forth new leaves well into the summertime.
More than a month after the wisteria blooms have shriveled and petals fallen onto the roadbed, the Chinese wisteria along Piney Woods Church Road is putting all its energy into producing large, fuzzy green seed pods. Except for in one isolated spot, where a plant that appears to be out of step with all the others has produced a single cluster of blossoms. As our climate warms, perhaps there will someday be two blooming events for Chinese wisteria in Georgia every year. This might be a harbinger of things to come. But for today, I will just appreciate it for its rarity and lovely colors, and try not to let any other thoughts come to mind.
In this humble photograph, a lone tree catkin dangles from a barbed wire fence by silken threads. It is Day 150, and there is so much more of the commonplace yet to be encountered — things like this catkin that I continue to pass over every day, until one day I will glimpse them, as if for the first time.
This tiny, rather nondescript purple flower carries a grand name indeed — Clasping Venus’s Looking Glass (Triodanis perfoliata). It is an annual herb, native to most of the eastern North America. I recently glimpsed a couple of isolated individuals, each bearing aloft a single five-petaled flower about half an inch across, near the Piney Woods Church Road intersection with Rico Road. They offer practically the only patch of purple along the road right now, surrounded by a sea of green leaves. Scotts Lawn Service offers to “fight” this plant with “systemic weed control,” “killing it completely, root and all.” Am I the only one that is baffled by this assertion? There are so many battles we need to engage in throughout our lives — fighting against injustice, poverty, industrial air pollution — but is this really one of them?
A yellowed leaf, possibly privet, lies on the roadbed — an early windfall.
On Day 148, I set out shortly after 9 am in search of something new and intriguing. A new horse fence is being installed along Piney Woods Church Road, and I was also distracted by various frustrations, so I found it more difficult than usual to focus on all the beauty around me. Still, I found this lovely common persimmon (Diospyros virginiana) leaf, glowing with the morning sunlight. It is quite sufficient for the day.
Red clover (Trifolium pratense) may be a widespread European immigrant, but I am confident it is of noble stock. It is a flower worthy of kings and queens, now gracing pastures and lawns across North America. This photograph was taken along Rico Road, on my way to Piney Woods Church Road this morning.
On my walk today I glanced down onto the ground beside the roadway and saw this forewing of a Luna Moth (Actias luna) — a memento mori, a reminder of how fleeting nature’s beauty can sometimes be. It makes me realize that my single walk down Piney Woods Church Road each day isn’t nearly enough to take it all in — I am missing so much that happens during the many hours that I am not there.
Today I stopped to photograph a fairly ubiquitous yellow flower, very dandelion-like but much taller, with a slender green stem. The flower is almost certainly Two-flowered Cynthia (Krigia biflora), a wildflower in the Aster family native to most of the Eastern US and north into Canada. The flower head is quite lovely when viewed-close up — not as similar in form to a dandelion as I had assumed at first glance.
