Nature | August

 It's time to round up this month's nature pictures.

My favorite is the close-up hibiscus flower. The petals look so velvety! 

Do you have a favorite from this gallery? Have you seen inspiring sights in nature this month?

My children ran to get me when they saw this freshly emerged cicada. They didn't want me to miss out on seeing it.

This sphinx month was very well camouflaged on our neighbor's mailbox post 

Knobby knees of the cypress. I loved getting to see these! There is a poem in this scene somewhere. Let me have a crack at it:

Knobby Knees of the Cypress 

A stoic people,

A stable people,

Watching the waves

Ever changing.

They stand,

Unmoved,

Never changing.

To shift?

Or to stay?

To shift 

For the wave is best.

To stay

For the knee knob is best.

A foggy morning.

I saw a beautiful morning. Drips of rain clung on all the leaves and branches. It could have been a heavy dew. It was hard to tell. The droplets were prisms everywhere! I was able to catch the effect in this picture.

First omen of fall.

This woolly caterpillar was so funny to me. Look at how his little grippers meet each other as they grasp all the way around the singular vein of leaf that is left. I imagine him worrying about where to find more food having eaten almost everything on this leaf. "What am I gonna do? I have nothing left. I'm starving!"

I am going to add a video of a monarch caterpillar changing into its chrysalis. It took f-o-r-e-v-e-r . I had my phone propped up on my knife organizer block all day because it offered a decent angle to capture this monarch caterpillar turning into its chrysalis. After 8 hours I have up and turned my phone off. I happened to be in the room when it finally split it's skin. I turned my camera on quickly to catch the rest of the "action". Doing science takes a long time! It's a slow burn. Don't feel bad if you getting tired of this video and don't finish watching. I can admit that it makes pretty boring cinema. Don't get me wrong, it is an amazing process and seeing it happening before my eyes was a real treat!

Ham And Cheese Braid

 My mom made these every year to pack for our lunch when we went to the State Fair. We'd walk around the fair for a few hours. We'd see the biggest pig and some teams of Clydesdale pulling polished coaches having a competition in the Coliseum or watch a demonstration of dogs doing long jumps into a big pool. There were so many things to see! The 4-h projects, a marching band, an old fashioned threshing machine, a historic village, fiber arts, giant fish in the conservation center, antique tractors, live music, mammoth pumpkins, and a specially carved pumpkin with a scene of the fair or something iconic about our state, large tractors driving shuttles that we'd have to scurry out of the road to let pass, and on and on. The lunch hour would come and then we'd head back to the van and have a picnic. We'd pull the cooler out, lay down a blanket and feast on slices of Ham and Cheese Braid dipped in horseradish sauce, homemade cookies, fresh grapes, and chips, maybe some baby carrots, too. After our bellies were full and the water bottles had been replenished we'd go back and see more of the fair. State Fair days were always long and hot and full of sights, sounds, and smells. The feeling on the drive home was so raw: I couldn't wait to get back to my happy, quiet home, but I was glad to have so many memories of the big, wide bustling fair in my mind. And I was just so grateful to have my family around me; of all the people that I had bumped shoulders with in the crowds during the day, I got to go home with the best people in the whole wide world - my favorite people - my family.

This year I made Ham and Cheese Braid to take to our State Fair. We don't do the whole picnic at the van. We bought corn dogs for lunch.  We had Ham and Cheese bread for a snack and to keep us from having to buy supper from the vendors, though.

I had fun making Ham and Cheese Braid after so many years. I thought it would be fun to make a video about the process and it was a fun project. Here is my little video. You can see how to make a Ham and Cheese Braid. My mom uses ham, provolone, and deli salami. I substituted summer sausage for the salami because I am too cheep to buy anything from the deli counter. Sorry for being so stingy. 

Nature | July

 I forgot to update you on our tadpoles last month. They took much longer to grow legs than I had expected. All of June they were growing. I first noticed back legs July 1st. After that they grew fast. They have all hopped out of the water and gone on their froggie way. It was a new experience for us to watch them grow from egg through all the stages to frog.

This weird little spiral of eggs (I think) was floating in the surface of the tadpole pool. You can see the dead fly for a size comparison.

I was amazed and flabbergasted by this bug that I saw one day on our house siding. I ran like I was on an emergency mission to go get my phone camera. This is a Wasp Mantidfly. I had never heard of it before or ever seen anything like it. It has arms like a Praying Mantis and a body like a wasp. But it isn't a wasp and it can't sting. 

I foraged and tried Woode Ear Mushrooms for the first time. I dried them first as recommended and then cooked them in a soup. I found the crunch and chewiness quite pleasant. I will keep an eye out for more Wood Ear Mushrooms.

This Sphinx Month gave me a nice shot. I kept my fingers in the frame for scale.

We visited a historic village and I was drawn to the period garden. I saw tobacco and cotton plants up close for the first time. The cotton really captivated my interest. At first I thought it was okra based on the structure. Once I saw the flowers I was even more convinced that I was looking at a plant closely related to okra. The flowers look like any mallow family flower.(Think Hibiscus, Rose of Sharon, Marsh Mallow, Okra,....) I had never imagined that cotton flowers would be so showy.

The funny thing about the tobacco is that I never would have guessed that it was a nightshade based on what it looks like. I saw no resemblance to the other night shades that I am familiar with; tomatoes, potatoes, black nightshade, horse nettle, ground cherries, and peppers.

This iridescent beetle crossed my path. It made me think of fancy hats in the old days that were decorated with pretty beetle shells like this. It made me wonder how they found so many of these iridescent beetles back then because I hardly ever see such beetles. Certainly there were people that studied them and figured out how to farm them for hats and stuff for profit back at the time. 

My favorite picture this month is this moth that I found on the window one morning. The lighting is good. The focus is good. The reflection on the glass adds some nice colors. And, best of all, the subject. This moth is captivating. It looks like bird poop, but weirdly in the most attractive way. And, it is holding out one of it's front legs like some kind of diva pose.

The smoke from the wild fires up in Canada and Minnesota have given us some hazy days. I liked the strangeness of the sunrises and sunsets during this time.

These next two pictures make me feel summer-in-the-midwest, especially the corn field. It leaves me with a nostalgic feeling for the fleeting youthful summers.

My son caught this lizard at a park. Unfortunately, he accidentally pulled the tail off while he was trying to catch it. Thankfully, lizards grow their tails back. It was very interesting to see the place where the tail broke. It looked like a connection joint for a lego or something similar, like it was perfectly meant to snap in that place.

I don't know what kind of flower this is, but I see it on my morning walks and I enjoy its beauty.

Do you have a favorite picture from this month? I have to say my favorite picture is the diva moth with second place being the driving by the cornfield and third place being the tadpole graduation.

I am ready for whatever August brings!

Nature | June 2026

 My nature experiences this June have included some underwhelming events. We found and watched a Common Buckeye caterpillar grow and change into a chrysalis. I was looking forward to watching the butterfly emerge, but we happen to be out of town when the butterfly hatched. One of the children found the butterfly in the house and released it outside. At that point I was so concerned with getting it to the wild that I didn't even try to get a picture. 

The neighborhood cat, Romulus, is quite regal and I do like aspects about him, but he is a terror to the local wildlife. He has killed countless shrews, which makes me sad, because shrews are not a nuisance creature. Shrews can hunt mice, which makes me like them very much. If Romulus would stick to hunting mice, I would be very happy with him. The other day I found a red breasted gross beak that he, no doubt, had killed. Life is full of conundrums. How can you love both cats and song birds? Can you? Or must you pick one or the other? 

We had a family trip to Wisconsin for a few days. I was able to take a memorable walk one morning. It was before 7 o'clock, but well after sunrise. I found some black raspberries. If there is anything that tastes like summer, it is black raspberries! The milkweed and elder bushes are in bloom this time of year, too.

I found an ant fortress yesterday and a very unique jumping spider. I have never seen anything like it before.

A toad and a green tree frog were seen. 

One of the evening skies while we were in Wisconsin was the most pastel and dreamy scenes I have witnessed in a long time.

After a storm earlier in June we saw this phenomenon in the clouds. Very unreal!

And some miscellaneous pics ...

Paw prints,

Rock stacks,

Cloudy sunrise,

Well marked wolf spider,

Playful otters at the zoo.

My favorite picture this month is one of the raspberry pictures. Honorable mentions are the toad and the pastel lake scene. Do you have a favorite?

Oh, and I don't know if you could tell, but I got a new phone and the new camera has been an improvement for my nature pictures.