Tag: blackberries

Posted on

02/03/2024 Lexington WMA walk

Briar the german shepherd dog solemnly waits in the car for her adventure to begin as I load the car.
Ready to go!
Briar the german shepherd dog smiles up at me, wearing her orange safety vest, from a wash filleed with brushy and little bluestem. the dam of Lake Dahlgren is in the distance.
We looked around behind Lake Dahlgren. Here is all I put on iNaturalist. I put a few of the prettiest ones here in the post directly too.
I'm holding the dried stem of the plant "seedbox". Its two visible seed pods are a distinctive cubic shape with a hint of roundness on each side, and a hole in the middle top.
I recognized Seedbox (Ludwigia alternifolia) from its fun pods! We have some in our garden.
Briar the german shepherd, wearing a blue harness and a bright hunter-orange safety vest smiles down from a ravine top at me.
liverwort leaves on damp brown sand
Liverworts!
I point at a tiny green patch of moss on sandstone while Briar sits baffled but smiling nearby.
Dog for scale next to moss.
Briar the german shepherd dog stands in her orange safety vest on a big exposed ridge of sandstone, with bluestem grass and cedars and oaks in the background. she is looking out of frame and smiling.
The clouds came and went. It was cool and breezy but I did okay with just one layer of long sleeves.
Splitbeard bluestem seed tufts lit up by sunshine against red sandstone
Splitbeard bluestem is so pretty with its tufts. I think this picture would be a fun puzzle.
eroded red sandstone leaving nodules. bluestem and goldenrod and other dead plants at the top of the eroding edge
Nodule habitat
round red and dark brown sandstone nodules in softer sand
Close up
I found some nodules in the sandstone!
a blackberry stem and leaf, the stem has whitish speckles
Blackberry stem
close-up of blackberry stem and a bud, showing the white patches with dark centers
Maybe not lichen
I thought this blackberry stem had lichens, which would have been unusual, but I think maybe it was a fungus.

Posted on

06/13/2023 around the yard

Paula’s Escobaria vivipara cactus continues to bloom beautifully in the daytime. It was cloudy. I’m not sure if that matters for it to bloom.
A very frilly summer iris begins… I think this one is from Judy?
The standing cypress is really going now with multiple plants in full bloom!
The Chef made a delicious pizza with fresh basil and oregano from the yard.
I believe this is a safflower that sprouted from the bird seed.
I believe these are our two different sunflowers species. The one on the left has narrower and wavy edged leaves; we think/hope it’s Helianthus petiolaris (both Mom and another friend have given us seeds). The one on the right has big broad leaves and I think is an offspring of the Helianthus annuus that volunteered last year.
Ironweed is starting to bud.
Greeneyes is about to bloom!
The blackberries are starting to ripen! These are wild volunteers dug from Mom and Dad’s house.
Last but definitely not least, on Tuesday morning I woke up and emerged to find Gram happily snuggling the Doggie. Briar seemed to understand she could not move as is the cat rule. She was not unhappy though. Eventually he got up to look out the newly opened window so she was released so she could scratch an itch haha.
Posted on

05/14/2023 more rain!

We got even more good steady rain this morning and there’s a bit of standing water in what we are calling Leon’s prairie to distinguish it from the original prairie block. Leon is the late great gray tuxedo cat who now has been reincarnated as an aggressively thorny blackberry plant which is adjacent to this meadow.