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Here and There…Now and Then |
Redbud Seed Pods
Although it’s continued to be busy at work I decided to take the time to go out and take a few pictures early this afternoon. In the empty lot beside my office are a bunch of redbud trees and they are now covered with seed pods, which make for a pretty, green picture. I also noticed the raspberries are nearly ripe (I found a couple that were ready to be eaten, so I ate them). I’ll definitely need to go out next week, as there should be a lot of them.
Asclepias tuberosa ‘Hello Yellow’
On Tuesday, May 22, 2012 I posted a photo of Asclepias curassavica (Mexican Butterfly Weed) which I initially labeled incorrectly as Asclepias tuberosa. It has a beautiful bi-color flower with orange corollas and yellow corona lobes. It is really something beautiful. That’s not to say that Asclepias tuberosa isn’t worth having, as well.
In general it’s flowers are a sort of mottled orange with the same color on both corollas and corona lobes. This variety is called ‘Hello Yellow’ and as you can see, is a bright yellow version.
Asclepias tuberosa ‘Hello Yellow’
We have both this and the standard orange version in our back border and they are doing very well. I particularly like this yellow version, though.
I think at some point I’ll get very close and take a few pictures of individual flowers or parts of flowers. The problem with doing that outside is that the slightest breeze makes it nearly impossible to get it into focus long enough for a good picture.
Also, I need to figure out how to get the color temperature set right when I take pictures of predominately one, bright color. Pictures of a blue sky with only sky and clouds tend to come out an unnaturally intense blue. Pictures of bright yellow flowers also shift the auto-white balance unnaturally.
Dorothy
Dorothy was invited to another formal dance this evening. She didn’t really feel like having her picture taken before leaving but I insisted. Of course I’m her father, but I think she looks very nice.
Lysimachia clethroides
Lysimachia clethroides, better known as gooseneck loosestrife, is described in one plant catalog as “vigorous to the point of invasiveness.” That’s actually a little bit of an understatement. At our old house we had this and St. John’s wort growing together just outside our front gate. Cathy thought it would be interesting to see which would do better. I was constantly pulling this up to give good old St. John a fighting chance. We have it in a few places in out new yard. Cathy actually dug some up this year, not to replant it but to make room for something else. It doesn’t like to share its space and will basically choke out anything and everything else. But it does have these elegant little flower spikes.
Water on Day Lily Petals
Here’s a second rain-related picture for today. As I mentioned, we had a good bit of rain today, although I hardly noticed. It’s been very busy at work and I’ve been struggling with a particularly tricky bit of code. It’s working now and I took some time after work to stop and smell the roses, metaphorically speaking. This is a day lily growing just outside our back door. It’s a pretty flower on its own but the water droplets add to it’s beauty, I think. A man once said that if there is any magic in the world, it’s contained in water.
Reflections
I am really fascinated by reflections but they are surprisingly hard to turn into good pictures. There are some that are reasonably easy, a glass building or even trees and the sky reflected on a clean and shiny car. Puddles are a bit harder, I find. It rained quite hard today and there was a fair amount of water on the parking lot at work. This picture was taken looking almost straight down. The dark area is actually a reflection of me. I think of it more as an abstract, though, a pattern of light and dark and texture.
Landscape Roses
In general, I don’t see the point of growing roses that don’t have any fragrance. If nothing else, how do you stop and smell the roses if they don’t have any smell? On the other hand, azaleas and camellias don’t have any noticeable smell and we grow those. Also, if you have a lot of different roses, having a few that are fragrance free is fine, I suppose, just as you might grow some that bloom only once rather than all summer long.
These rose flowers, which are almost too red for the sensor of my camera, are at my mother-in-law’s house. I have to admit that they are quite beautiful, particularly when they are covered with flowers. They are “in between” flushes right now, but they will come back and bloom again and again until it gets too cold, probably well into October or possibly even November. It’s hard not to like a plant that blooms so well, even without the fragrance. And what a red.
D, Jenny, and Donna
It was graduation Sunday at church this week and we recognized two high school graduates. We were at Timothy’s graduation on June 1, so he’s already had his picture posted. This is a picture of the other graduate, Jenny, with D and Donna.
All together now, “Jenny’s in the middle, ha ha ha ha ha ha!”
Campanula Flowers
I posted a picture of a syrphid fly on a campanula stamen but thought it might be nice for you to see the flowers as well as the flies that they attract. Cathy got these from Janis last year or the year before and they are doing well in a spot under a large silver maple in our back yard. It’s in open shade and gets a fair amount of light although not a lot of direct sun. This was taken this morning before the shade of the tree fell on them and I think they look lovely against the blue of the sky. Fortunately the grass wasn’t too wet, as I got down on my back to take this.
Campanula Flowers
The plants are about four feet tall and don’t seem to need any staking. From our kitchen window they are seen against the grayish brown trunk of the maple, which helps them show up, particularly in the early morning and late afternoon when the slanting rays of the sun hit them.
So, if you are looking for something to brighten up your garden, you could do a lot worse than getting some campanula. I’ve even grown it from seed in the past, which is about the easiest and cheapest way to grow anything (short of having someone else give you the plants and put them in the ground for you, of course).
Cathy with her Flowers
As you can see, Cathy is fond of them.
Toxomerus marginatus (Syrphid Fly)
I’ve posted a picture of one of these before (see Thursday, April 05, 2012) but I like them quite a lot. They are a little tricky to get a good picture of because they are so small. Even with my macro lens focused all the way in they don’t come close to filling the frame. This is an uncropped shot, though, and it’s about as close as I can get with that lens. It helped that there was not the least bit of wind because it means that the plant was not moving, which only adds to the level of difficulty. The fly in this picture is on the stamen of a campanula of some sort. They seem to like this plant quite a bit, as there were a bunch of them about. While the adults feed on nectar and pollen, the larvae are “voracious predators of aphids, thrips, small caterpillars.” Any predator of aphids, thrips, and small caterpillars is a friend of mine.
Mulberry Leaves
I love the color of leaves when the light is coming through them. I could sit or lie on the ground for a long time and just look up at the leaves against the sky. They are only more beautiful in the fall when they turn all different colors but even when they are all green they are such a huge collection of colors that it’s spectacular. In this case, I was sitting at a little picnic table outside my office looking up through mulberry leaves. They were not in full sun, so the shadows were not sharp edged and the brightness range was manageable.
Julia, Dorothy, and Elijah
It was the last day of school today and Dorothy is now a junior. She and some friends have a tradition for the last day of school. They get together and burn homework from the year. Here they are after their annual homework burning.
Rainbow
As the sun was getting ready to set this evening I happened to notice how it was lighting up the tops of the trees in the back yard. The lower parts of the trees were dark but the tops were a beautiful, bright green. We all went out back to enjoy the colors and then it started raining. It wasn’t a heavy rain but just enough to let you know it was there. We moved to the front yard to see if there would be a rainbow and sure enough, it appeared. It wasn’t a particularly intense rainbow — the rain wasn’t strong enough for that — but it was there. It’s in the upper right, just above the trees, in case you can’t see it right away. The roses in the bottom of the picture are ‘Perle d’Or’.
Yponomeuta multipunctella (American Ermine Moth)
Since I thought I had been denied the chance to see Venus silhouetted against the sun, I decided to take a few pictures in the yard when I got home. While I was doing that, Cathy came out and we chatted about this and that, going over our days. I sat in a lawn chair which happened to be near the driveway and while we were talking I noticed this little white moth on the side of our car (which, as you probably guessed, is red). At first I identified it as a Mimosa Webworm Moth, Homadaula anisocentra, which is native to Japan and China and was first found in the U.S. in Washington D.C. in 1943. After a little more research, though, I decided that it’s much more likely to be an American Ermine Moth (Yponomeuta multipunctella). As it turned out, I was able to get a picture of Venus, as well, even if it wasn’t a particularly great picture.
Venus in Transit Across the Sun
Like a lot of people, I was excited about the transit of Venus across the face of the sun. Knowing that the chances of me living to be 157 are pretty slim, I figured that this was my one chance to see it. When I woke up this morning and it was mostly cloudy, I thought, well, you never know what the sky will look like in twelve hours. As it turned out, the clouds got heavier as the day wore on and I had pretty much given up hope of seeing it. When I got home I decided to take some pictures in the yard and while I was doing that, the sun peeked through the clouds for less than two minutes. Since I had my camera in my hand, as well as a tripod, I was able to move out from under the trees and get a few pictures before the clouds covered it again. Of course it was too bright and I was working too fast to really see what I was doing. I just set the camera to an exposure of 1/8000 second at f/32 and this is what I got. It’s not all that sharp and I’m sure we’ll be able to download pictures that are much better but I took this one, so I’m happy. You probably won’t be able to see it until you click on the image to enlarge it. Venus is just to the right of 12:00 just under the upper edge of the sun. It only started its transit a little after 6:00 local time so it hadn’t gotten very far by 6:39, when this picture was taken.
Hydrangea quercifolia (Oakleaf Hydrangea)
A couple years ago I planted an oakleaf hydrangea in a reasonably shady spot in our front yard. It’s doing well and has been blooming for a little over a week now. The flowers are an antique white sort of color and are in large panicles about a foot long. This shrub is only about four feet tall but it’s growing nicely and should fill in over time. I particularly like the fall color of the leaves, which is a rich, deep, claret color.
Fiona's Balloon Hat
There are balloon hats and balloon hats. This, however, is a serious balloon hat. We had absolutely perfect weather this afternoon for a church picnic and we made the most of it. Thanks to Hannah for making balloon hats as usual, to the cooks who grilled burgers, dogs, and chicken, and most of all to Jewell for organizing the entire event.
Cathy on Wheels
We helped organize a surprise roller skating party for my sister-in-law this morning. Albert went through some pretty involved steps to provide an excuse for use to pick them up at 9:30 and then to drive towards Baltimore. We “took a quick detour to run an errand” and managed to get pretty close to the rink before she was on to us. Even then, I think she was surprised by the number of people that had gathered to celebrate her birthday. We all had a good time skating. After a slightly shaky start, it came back to me pretty well and I felt comfortable enough to take my camera out on the floor. I took some with flash and some without and I like the blurred pictures that show motion best, although this one is arguably a bit too blurred to qualify as a great picture. It is Cathy, catching up with me. It was particularly nice to have the rink to ourselves for two hours so it really wasn’t at all crowded.
Timothy's Graduation
We went to a graduation ceremony today. We knew a few of the graduates but it was Timothy’s family that specifically invited us so I picked their picture for today’s post. Congratulations, Timothy and all the best for your year ahead. We’re mightily proud of you. Well done also to the rest of his graduating class, Jessica, Emily, Micaela, Seth, Emmalee, Evan, Jacob, and Justin.
Reflected Sky
I asked a friend at work for a ride to pick up my car from the shop this afternoon. I was outside a couple minutes before she was and I took a few pictures while I waited. The sky was a beautiful, brilliant blue and the green on the trees complemented it wonderfully. Then I noticed the reflection of the sky and trees in her black SUV. I love the richness of the colors in this picture. It’s nice that she keeps her car so clean.