Monthly Archives: August 2017

Bee on Asclepias

Photograph taken on Friday, August 11, 2017 by Henry
Bee on Asclepias

Bee on Asclepias

I haven’t had a chance to look up this bee and I’m not sure this picture is good enough for a positive identification, in any case. There are a lot of little bees that look somewhat like this. This is the best of the pictures I got and it is still not very sharp. It’s a pretty little bee and I’m happy with the picture overall, though. I love the bright orange of the butterfly weed (Asclepias tuberosa). It generally makes a nice contrast to the dark colors of bees. I didn’t take a lot of pictures today, though, so there were not a lot to choose from.

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Raindrops On A Pond

Photograph taken on Thursday, August 10, 2017 by Henry
Raindrops On A Pond

Raindrops On A Pond

It continues to be quite busy at work but today was something of a turning point in the project I’m working on. I made a lot of progress and it’s starting to come together. There is still plenty more to do, but I’m a little less panicked now. At about 4:30 I decided to take a short break and go outside to take a few pictures. I got a few that I think are nice but as I was heading back to my office it started to sprinkle a little. There is a drainage pond near the sidewalk, just through the trees, and I made my way to it and took this picture of the raindrops softly landing on the surface of the pond.

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Lobelia siphilitica (Blue Cardinal Flower)

Photograph taken on Wednesday, August 09, 2017 by Henry
Lobelia siphilitica (Blue Cardinal Flower)

Lobelia siphilitica (Blue Cardinal Flower)

After being off a week, it’s shaping up to be a very busy week at work. We’re three days in and I’m definitely ready for the weekend. But I’m sure I’ll make it through, as I usually do. After work I went out back and chased a monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) for a while. He wouldn’t let me get close enough for any decent sort of picture. So, I moved on to the blue cardinal flower (Lobelia siphilitica) growing in the back bed. That didn’t have any problem with my presence and I got a few nice pictures. Then I noticed that the monarch was back and I managed to get a few pictures, but the die was cast and I’m going with the Lobelia picture.

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Cathy and Black-eyed Susans

Photograph taken on Tuesday, August 08, 2017 by Henry
Cathy and Black-eyed Susans

Cathy and Black-eyed Susans

Cathy and I relaxed in the back yard this evening and I took a few pictures of her with the black-eyed Susans that are having the time of their lives this year. Actually, this year is nothing special, as they are pretty spectacular every year. In fact, I’m not convinced we wouldn’t have the entire yard full of them if we allowed them to spread uncontrolled. The goose-necked loosestrife (Lysimachia clethroides) would give them a good fight and might actually win out, as it spreads considerably more quickly. But the black-eye susans (Rudbeckia fulgida) spreads fairly readily.

You could argue that our garden doesn’t have enough variety and you might have a point. On the other hand, the parts of the garden that do have variety tend ultimately to be dominated by whatever plant is the most vigorous. Either that or nothing is vigorous enough and the weeds take over. I have plenty of Canada thistle (Cirsium arvense), pokeweed (Phytolacca americana), American burnweed (Erechtites hieracifolia), and goldenrod (Solidago species) to deal with (just to name a few). But where the black-eye susans are growing well, very few weeds have a chance to get started. That’s pretty nice. And, they’re pretty.

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Oak Leaf Skeleton

Photograph taken on Monday, August 07, 2017 by Henry
Oak Leaf Skeleton

Oak Leaf Skeleton

A few years ago I planted a few fastigiate English oaks. The English oak, Quercus robur is a handsome tree with beautiful, gracefully lobed leaves, similar to the white oak, Quercus alba of North America. The trees I bought were a cultivar that grows very narrow and upright (which is what fastigiate means). I bought a bunch of small trees and planted planted them in various places around the yard, assuming some would not live but hoping at least one would. There is one growing to the north of the house and another in the back of the back yard. This leaf is on the second tree, in the back, and something has been eating the bulk of the leaf, leaving a skeleton and actually one surface of the leaf intact. I think it’s kind of beautiful, in spite of the fact that this is insect damage. There are enough untouched leaves that I’m not worried for the tree.

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Ariana and Kyle

Photograph taken on Sunday, August 06, 2017 by Henry
Ariana and Kyle

Ariana and Kyle

Kyle is a pastoral intern at our church’s mother church and he came to preach today, covering the fairly well known story of Daniel during the reign of Darius the Persian. Kyle’s message was good and it was also wonderful to meet his new bride, Ariana. After church, as we do the first Sunday of most months, we had a fellowship meal together. The weather was so wonderful we went outside and ate in the shade of the large trees around the Senior Center. After the long drive yesterday, this was a relatively relaxing way to spend the early afternoon. Certainly more relaxing than Daniel’s day with the lions (spoiler alert…that turned out alright, as well).

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Family Reunion

Photograph taken on Saturday, August 05, 2017 by Henry
Family Reunion

Family Reunion

We drove home from the beach today. The relatively long drive home is not one of the best aspect of a week off work, but it sort of has to be done and it can’t really be done any time except at the end. Today’s drive was broken up into two segments, each of about 250 miles with a family reunion in between. That did make for a longish day but seeing cousins (first and second as well as variously removed) makes it worth while. I had a really good time visiting and as usual, took a few pictures. Lyn organized a short time of group pictures today. Not as many groupings as we’ve done at times but he did manage to get everyone in the room together for a large group photo (although a few folks had left by then, so they didn’t get included). I can name most, although not quite all of the folks in this picture without any help. And I’m working on learning the last few. Special thanks to the cousins who organized this get-together.

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Mostly Empty Beach

Photograph taken on Friday, August 04, 2017 by Henry
Ocean Isle Beach, North Carolina

Ocean Isle Beach, North Carolina

The beach was mostly empty this morning. This picture was taken at about 9:00 AM when the beach is usually beginning to get fairly crowded but the drizzle this morning kept most people indoors. It cleared up quite a bit later on and more people were out but nothing like the last few days. It was also much more humid than its been, although it was still quite cool. It was our last full day at the beach and it was fairly restful without not a lot happening. We did manage to finish a pretty tricky puzzle before the end of the day and we were all pretty pleased with that. Three puzzles over the course of six days, one of which was finished in a single day. The house we were in didn’t really have a good table for puzzles other than the dining table, which was somewhat inconvenient. But we managed.

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Ocean Isle Beach, North Carolina

Photograph taken on Thursday, August 03, 2017 by Henry
Ocean Isle Beach, North Carolina

Ocean Isle Beach, North Carolina

Just an average day at the beach. As I mentioned in a previous post, the weather this week was quite mild. Yesterday it was actually cool enough that you wanted to stay mostly underwater when you were out. I like to float on my back when the water is calm, as it was all week, but when I did my toes got cold. Today was a bit warmer but still not hot. Today also brought a few larger swells in addition to the small waves that broke too far in for us to ride. So, today was the best wave-riding day of the week. This picture was taken just before 1:00 PM and it shows the beach at about its most crowded (well, at high tide it was more crowded because everyone had to move up, but about the same number of people). This picture was taken from about the same place as the sunrise picture from yesterday and looking in roughly the same direction.

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Sunrise, Ocean Isle Beach

Photograph taken on Wednesday, August 02, 2017 by Henry
Sunrise, Ocean Isle Beach

Sunrise, Ocean Isle Beach

When you plan your beach trip months in advance, you never know what sort of weather you’re going to get. Some years it’s very hot and muggy, others, relatively cool and pleasant. This year was a cool and pleasant year, a rare but welcome occurrence. I think it barely broke 85°F the whole week. This morning was the only day with a sunrise worth getting up for. The other days either had completely clear or (on Friday) an entirely overcast sky. Today’s sunrise made up for the other days’ lack, though. There were a lot of folks out on the beach at 6:30 watching it, looking for shells in the sand as the tide ebbed (high tide was about two hours previous to this picture).

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Brookgreen Gardens and Lowcountry Zoo

Photograph taken on Tuesday, August 01, 2017 by Henry
Live Oak (<em>Quercus virginiana</em>)

Live Oak (Quercus virginiana)

A bunch of us went to Brookgreen Gardens today. Seth, Iris, and Tsai-Hong stayed until about 1:00 before moving on to the lowcountry zoon and then headed back to the beach. Cathy, Dorothy, Jonathan, Dot, and I had lunch and then did a bit more walking in the gardens before hitting the zoo. I took a lot of pictures of sculpture and a few of dragonflies and grasshoppers (the huge eastern lubber grasshopper, Romalea microptera). I really enjoy both the sculpture and the setting. It was hot today but not really hot by South Carolina in August standards. In the shade it was actually pretty pleasant. This first picture is of my favorite tree at Brookgreen gardens. It is in the corner of the Palmetto Garden and really is part of the Live Oak Allée that’s just across the wall. I think it’s magnificent.

Black-crowned Night-Heron (<em>Nycticorax nycticorax</em>)

Black-crowned Night-Heron (Nycticorax nycticorax)

Of course we also went to the lowcountry zoo where we saw black-crowned night-herons (Nycticorax nycticorax) as well as a few egrets and an ibis. The otters were very active and we enjoyed watching them swim around for a while. It was actually feeding time at the alligator pond but the alligator we saw must be well fed because he was pretty blasé about the whole thing.

After leaving Brookgreen, we drove to Murrill’s Inlet for an early dinner at Nance’s. Dorothy, Jonathan, and I shared a half bushel of steamed oysters while mom had soft-shell crab and Cathy had a crab cake.

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