April 17 - Wednesday catkins

Wednesday the catkins were coming down in like rain.  The willow oaks in our front yard produce enough catkins to completely cover the house and yard every year.  Like many natural processes the tree's reproductive season is very short and very intense.  The catkins emerge and unload their pollen onto the wind.  Before you know it they're done and fall off the trees, piling up everywhere.

Nature spends amazing amounts of energy to accomplish one task.  The process of creating all those catkins, spreading the pollen, and then dropping them only takes a few days but the payoff must be worth it or evolution would have changed the process by now.

Another example of nature's excess is the cicada.  This year the 17 year brood will be emerging once again.  Think of it:  These creatures spend 17 years underground, emerge, shed their skin to become their adult form, and live for one or two days to mate, then die.  The astounding thing is that they spend all those years underground storing up enough energy to change to their adult form.  That form is one of the largest, heaviest, flying insects in our area.  Not only do they have to have enough stored energy to fly, but also to mate ensuring the next generation.

After the catkins are gone we will be piling up shed cicada shells and a few days after that, dead cicadas.

Nature is messy.

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2010-04-10 Saturday - Front yard - The Carnage

Three years ago a good friend of ours dug a dogwood out of the woods behind her house in Waxhaw and gave it to us.  I planted it in the front yard and mulched it, and watered it through the drought.  It was small, but it had two branches full of leaves on a thin trunk.  I was hopeful.

Last year a squirrel pulled one of the branches off it which accounted for half of the tree.  I shook my fist at the squirrels (a regular event at our house), cleaned it up, and watered what was left.  It was unbalanced, but it was alive.  I was hopeful.

Saturday I was out in the front yard and noticed that a branch had fallen from the willow oaks (a way too regular occurrence).  Only one branch had fallen in the whole yard and it fell on my half a dogwood snapping the remaining portion off completely.  I shook my fist at the willow oak, shook my head, and threw the branch away.  I just pray that the dogwood will have the same will to survive that the hollies I am trying to eradicate exhibit and sprout anew.  I am cautiously hopeful.

To compound matters, I got another dogwood from my friend Nic (who also helped me plant it) and there is currently not one leaf on it.  Perhaps I am just not meant to have a dogwood in the yard.

I remain hopeful.

The perpetrator and the victim.

The victim, the carnage, the horror.

2010-04-07 Wednesday - Part I

Spring has sprung here.  The willow oaks in the front yard have leafed out almost overnight.  Just two weeks ago we had our sale on the front lawn and there was no shade from the trees.  Now they almost look like they do in Summer.

The azaleas are in bloom, the pollen has coated everything (and everyone), and the catkins have fallen off the trees --everywhere.  They pile up like leaves in Autumn and generally make a mess of things.  Now the maple seeds are falling and that will be the next mess we have to clean.  It really never ends. 

Willow oak leaves have popped.

Here's how it looks now...

...and here's how it looked just two weeks ago --no shade.

Have I mentioned that I like our lichen?

Azaleas are blooming like small explosions.

Lenten roses and azaleas in the front part of the yard.

Catkins everywhere.

They pile up in the gutters.

Man, that's some good lookin' lichen.

Close up of the azaleas.

Closer...

Hey, wait a minute!  There's tree pollen in those flowers.

(I told you it was everywhere.)

Catkins on the back deck.

The hostas in the saucer have unfurled.

(Thanks Becky!)

Binkley doesn't mind the catkins.

Pollen all over the mower.

Wild violets in the lawn.

Dancing azaleas.

Catkins falling from the willow oak trees.

2009-08-15 Saturday Fungus

Our willow oaks in the front yard threw some more limbs down at us last week and I finally got around to cleaning them up today. I took my trusty bow saw, cut them up and took them to the curb. During the course of my sawing I noticed some very pretty fungus growing on one of the logs and set it aside until I was finished and could get my camera.

I am familiar with all the lichen (photo), moss and fungi we have everywhere (we're even growing lichen on the concrete sidewalk), but I hadn't seen this species before. It looks like something you would expect to find on a coral reef, but there it was in our yard.

I'm constantly amazed without venturing beyond our 1/3 of an acre.

Coral-like fungus.

Detail of the middle.

Wider shot showing the immature ones (upper middle)
that are fuzzy and just starting to develop the ribbing.
Those green, grassy looking blades appear to be growing out of the fungus.