Black Walnuts

Willow Oak Leaves

Of all the tree nuts, I’m the most conflicted by walnuts. Cashews are my absolute favorite, and I love filberts and pistachios. Pecans and walnuts, however are a bit more complicated. I like them well plain, just as they are. It’s also hard to resist such things as pralines or pecan pie. Walnut and maple syrup is a pretty amazing match-up, as well. When it comes to crushed walnuts on brownies, though, I’m a little less enthusiastic. I’m not really sure why. I obviously like the taste alright, and I don’t object to filberts or cashews combined with chocolate.

Anyway, most of the walnuts you buy in the store are from Juglans regia, the common walnut, also called Persian, English, or Carpathian walnut. What you see here are J. nigra, the eastern black walnut. They are a harder to get out of their shells, which are significantly thicker and harder than their more genteel counterparts from the old country. They also have a more intense flavor, however, making it worth the effort. Since there are so many of them on the ground in the empty lot next to my office, I went out and collected a big bag of them this afternoon. I’ll let the husks dry a bit, clean them off and then crack them in a vise.

The second picture here is not really related to the first except it was taken on the same outing. These are leaves of the willow oak, (Quercus phellos).

Red and Gold and Brown

With apologies to the late Mark Heard, I’ve given this post the title of one of my favorite songs, Appalachian Melody. It’s so sad when anyone dies young but we particularly miss those with exceptional talent. Mark was only 40 years old when he died in 1992 of a heart attack. I hum and sing this song to myself often, particularly at this time of year, of course. “How peculiar liking old dead leaves against the sky.” I do, because there is something more than meats the eye.

Actually, I think this photograph would make a really good jigsaw puzzle.

Appalachian melody drifting softly down
Instruments of gold and red and brown

You can read the rest of the lyrics to this song and to Mark Heard’s other songs on www.markheard.net.

Dried Samaras

Another beautiful day today. I had a meeting in the next building over and I decided to take my camera with me. On the way back I wandered a bit along the woods and took some pictures of colored leaves, some honeysuckle berries (Lonicera maackii), and these maple samaras. I like the pattern of the veins in their wings.

Dogwood Leaves

You can always tell a dogwood by its bark. But this time of year, the leaves are fairly easy to spot, as well, because they turn such a beautiful, deep, rich red. These are on a small dogwood that self-seeded in the front garden before we bought the house. It’s actually one of the few trees in our yard that I have no complaints about. It’s in a good spot for a small tree and it gives us a couple good seasons, with flowers in the spring and the wonderful fall color now. This one is a keeper.

Rose ‘Perle d’Or’

Most references I’ve seen list this rose as growing to a size of three to six feet tall and three feet across. With the mild winter we had last year and the hot dry summer, mine has grown to about seven feet tall and nearly as far across. Actually, it’s getting a little too big and I’ll probably prune it back fairly hard this winter. On the other hand, I don’t think there has been a time since spring when there weren’t at least a few flowers open on it and there have been a few times when it was absolutely covered. The fragrance is wonderful and strong. On warm, humid days (not too uncommon here) it hits you as you walk up to the front door.

I don’t think this is a great picture but I do like flowers with sunlight shining through them. It’s hard to capture, though. I wanted to get a back-lit bloom but without a lot of past-their-prime flowers around it, so there were only a few to choose from. This is the best I got without going in for secateurs. If I had done that I would have missed the light, in any case.

Fall Color

The wonderful fall weather has continued and the trees are starting to take note. There is still a lot of green but more and more yellow. Here and there are splashes of early red. I love the red trees. It used to be that I only really liked the bright, orange-red of (for example) the maples. Now I like the purple-reds, the clarets, the maroons, and even the deep rusty-reds of the oaks. Still, there is something to be said for a happy red maple on cool autumn morning. Even nicer that it’s right out my back door.

Ampelopsis brevipedunculata (Porcelain Berry)

What a beautiful day it was today. Cathy called and asked if I wanted to go for a walk during lunch time. We walked around the block from work, which is about a mile and a half around. I took a few pictures of deep red sumac leaves (both Rhus copallina and Rhus typhina), Virginia creeper berries (Parthenocissus quinquefolia), and, as shown here, porcelain berry (Ampelopsis brevipedunculata). It was named Vitis heterophylla but is now classified in a different genus to the grapes, which are similar plants.