Nature post... and other assorted things...
I haven't had much time to get outside, unfortunately, and now I've got tendonitis in my hip flexor and I am supposed to be resting it for a week, so I am annoyed because it's been raining and I want to look for mushrooms. Oh, well.
I only have a few things from my last walk, but some of them are pretty cool, and one I had NEVER seen before!
This is a giant leopard moth, and she is quite large.. about two inches long. She is also in fairly bad shape... this is apparently normal when they have been mating. They stay locked together for about 24 hours and during that time will meander around and rub the scales off each other's wings. Not that it matters... in many moths, the adults are fairly disposable and exist basically for mating purposes. Most of the growing and eating is done by the caterpillar, and some adult moths never eat anything.
Pretty places... mossy rocks are slippery but fun to climb around on.
Not sure what these pretty ones are... I think there are several related ones that turn themselves up like that as they age. I assume it's to make sure the spores all get released, but it's also lovely to look at.
This tree is thoroughly colonized by the fungus that is producing these fruiting bodies... I'm not sure exactly what they are but these sort are usually commonly called "conks". They are polypores, releasing spores through many little pores on the underside.
I stopped back to check on the deer remains I found last time, and they had been disturbed a bit by some flooding and heavy rain, but that had also moved the bones around and I found something I hadn't noticed before... hooves, with the tiny bones that go inside of them. These are the very tips of what would be our fingers, if we only had two of them and our fingernails turned into a hard shell over the tips.
I found Ganoderma tsugae last time, but this time they were more mature, and I found some new ones as well. I can only imagine I never stumbled upon them before because my lake isn't a good habitat for hemlocks... they need consistent damp.
Looks a bit like a sunny-side-up egg trying to escape in slow motion...
Tiny pretties. No ID on them either... there are so many little mushrooms!
And THESE! They were the real oddity, and they were all over the place! I had no idea what they were... thought they were possibly the base of some kind of fern (ferns are very strange plants and if you've read my explanations of their deeply bizarre life cycle you'll know you can expect just about any sort of weird thing from them). They are NOT ferns, but they are plants...
Specifically, they are Conopholis americana, otherwise known as bear corn (easy enough to see why) or American cancer-root. The latter name comes from the fact that this plant is completely parasitic on the roots of living oaks and beeches. Their parasitic attachment to the tree's roots cause large, knotted, tumor-like malformations of the root. They do not have leaves... these structures were flowers and are now making seeds.
I was surprised to find it everywhere in this particular place when I'd never seen it before, but descriptions specify that it has a strong preference for wooded ravines, which is exactly what this is. Nobody says why, but I wonder if the rocky slopes of this kind of terrain keep the tree roots close enough to the surface that these parasites can get themselves above ground.
ANYWAY... that's all the nature I have at the moment, sadly!
This is currently my craft table. The fact that this is my entire crafting space means things do get put on top of each other...
Have been stencil-painting on some old jars, just for something to do.
Also decided this wine bottle needed to be decorated.
And...
I got a fidget cube. It is supposed to keep my hands busy so I will stop destroying everything on my desk by disassembling it while I'm distracted on the phone. It is very satisfying to play with, but I've only had it one day and the hipster marketing kid is already trying to steal it.
AND...
Loki is not impressed with this, but Nova thinks it's pretty great. Nova is getting BIG. Loki is staying tiny.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAND...
Honey and I have a new TV show addiction, which is good, since "Walking Dead" has been boring for like three seasons now and we quit watching...
And this is proof that although I do have a "type" when it comes to guys, whatever it is that defines that type is seriously fucked-up and proof that there is something WRONG with the sexual attraction part of my brain. Because apparently besides the whole bow-and-arrows thing, the only other thing I can identify as a "type" is usually of slim build, preferably tattooed, probably smokes, is deeply sarcastic, and is at least a decent part of the time either is (or plays the role of) an asshole with questionable mental stability. And kills people.
OK, so not all of those things at once, usually. But it's not an appearance thing... while I usually like thin guys, I can appreciate Hawkeye's nice arms and Thor's nice... well, everything... and so on and so on. But this latest one I can't explain AT ALL, but...
We have been watching "Preacher" on AMC... we watched the first season in a couple of nights and then the first two of the second season on Sunday and Monday when they aired. If you don't know, "Preacher" was a really, really excellent comic that has taken a long time to become a TV show.
I sent Honey this today, and it just proves he knows me really, really well.
So, there's the attractive guy who plays Jesse, the preacher. But noooooooooooo... I am unreasonably attracted to a skinny, drug-addicted, alcoholic Irish vampire who smokes attic insulation and gets angels naked in hot tubs snorting coke and is by far the funniest character I've seen in a very long time.
I have sooooooooo many issues.
Fortunately, my taste in random attraction to TV characters has no relation to the sane, reasonable, normal person I actually married...
That is probably waaaaaaaaaaaaaay more than enough.
.
.
.
I only have a few things from my last walk, but some of them are pretty cool, and one I had NEVER seen before!
This is a giant leopard moth, and she is quite large.. about two inches long. She is also in fairly bad shape... this is apparently normal when they have been mating. They stay locked together for about 24 hours and during that time will meander around and rub the scales off each other's wings. Not that it matters... in many moths, the adults are fairly disposable and exist basically for mating purposes. Most of the growing and eating is done by the caterpillar, and some adult moths never eat anything.
Pretty places... mossy rocks are slippery but fun to climb around on.
Not sure what these pretty ones are... I think there are several related ones that turn themselves up like that as they age. I assume it's to make sure the spores all get released, but it's also lovely to look at.
This tree is thoroughly colonized by the fungus that is producing these fruiting bodies... I'm not sure exactly what they are but these sort are usually commonly called "conks". They are polypores, releasing spores through many little pores on the underside.
I stopped back to check on the deer remains I found last time, and they had been disturbed a bit by some flooding and heavy rain, but that had also moved the bones around and I found something I hadn't noticed before... hooves, with the tiny bones that go inside of them. These are the very tips of what would be our fingers, if we only had two of them and our fingernails turned into a hard shell over the tips.
I found Ganoderma tsugae last time, but this time they were more mature, and I found some new ones as well. I can only imagine I never stumbled upon them before because my lake isn't a good habitat for hemlocks... they need consistent damp.
Looks a bit like a sunny-side-up egg trying to escape in slow motion...
Tiny pretties. No ID on them either... there are so many little mushrooms!
And THESE! They were the real oddity, and they were all over the place! I had no idea what they were... thought they were possibly the base of some kind of fern (ferns are very strange plants and if you've read my explanations of their deeply bizarre life cycle you'll know you can expect just about any sort of weird thing from them). They are NOT ferns, but they are plants...
Specifically, they are Conopholis americana, otherwise known as bear corn (easy enough to see why) or American cancer-root. The latter name comes from the fact that this plant is completely parasitic on the roots of living oaks and beeches. Their parasitic attachment to the tree's roots cause large, knotted, tumor-like malformations of the root. They do not have leaves... these structures were flowers and are now making seeds.
I was surprised to find it everywhere in this particular place when I'd never seen it before, but descriptions specify that it has a strong preference for wooded ravines, which is exactly what this is. Nobody says why, but I wonder if the rocky slopes of this kind of terrain keep the tree roots close enough to the surface that these parasites can get themselves above ground.
ANYWAY... that's all the nature I have at the moment, sadly!
This is currently my craft table. The fact that this is my entire crafting space means things do get put on top of each other...
Have been stencil-painting on some old jars, just for something to do.
Also decided this wine bottle needed to be decorated.
And...
I got a fidget cube. It is supposed to keep my hands busy so I will stop destroying everything on my desk by disassembling it while I'm distracted on the phone. It is very satisfying to play with, but I've only had it one day and the hipster marketing kid is already trying to steal it.
AND...
Loki is not impressed with this, but Nova thinks it's pretty great. Nova is getting BIG. Loki is staying tiny.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAND...
Honey and I have a new TV show addiction, which is good, since "Walking Dead" has been boring for like three seasons now and we quit watching...
And this is proof that although I do have a "type" when it comes to guys, whatever it is that defines that type is seriously fucked-up and proof that there is something WRONG with the sexual attraction part of my brain. Because apparently besides the whole bow-and-arrows thing, the only other thing I can identify as a "type" is usually of slim build, preferably tattooed, probably smokes, is deeply sarcastic, and is at least a decent part of the time either is (or plays the role of) an asshole with questionable mental stability. And kills people.
OK, so not all of those things at once, usually. But it's not an appearance thing... while I usually like thin guys, I can appreciate Hawkeye's nice arms and Thor's nice... well, everything... and so on and so on. But this latest one I can't explain AT ALL, but...
We have been watching "Preacher" on AMC... we watched the first season in a couple of nights and then the first two of the second season on Sunday and Monday when they aired. If you don't know, "Preacher" was a really, really excellent comic that has taken a long time to become a TV show.
I sent Honey this today, and it just proves he knows me really, really well.
So, there's the attractive guy who plays Jesse, the preacher. But noooooooooooo... I am unreasonably attracted to a skinny, drug-addicted, alcoholic Irish vampire who smokes attic insulation and gets angels naked in hot tubs snorting coke and is by far the funniest character I've seen in a very long time.
I have sooooooooo many issues.
Fortunately, my taste in random attraction to TV characters has no relation to the sane, reasonable, normal person I actually married...
That is probably waaaaaaaaaaaaaay more than enough.
.
.
.