Mother's Day Rainbow and More

May in Christian County, KY

I saw this beautiful, full rainbow on Mother's Day about

6:30 pm. On the left side, a double rainbow is slightly visible.

The farm buildings here (and those in the rainbow photo)

are Mennonite-built. Their distinctive, consistent

building style is easy to recognize, once you know it.

This crow was perched on one of the big lights in the

mall parking lot in Hopkinsville. If this photo had

sound effects, you'd quickly turn down the volume.

 He was very noisy! When he saw me paying
 attention to him, he flew over to the highest point

of the mall's roofline and sat there -- still cawing!

Sweet peas in a cemetery fence row, and

overhead, branches and cones of Virginia pine.

I took this photo of our neighbor's field in early May.

Now, many wheatfields are nearly ready for harvest.

We are happy for recent rains because we've had a dry.

spring. But heavy storms right now could lay the wheat

plants down, making harvest difficult and reducing yield.

Most of our wild roses are pink, but this one is very white.

There might be a very slight hint of pink in the buds.

"O, the month of May, the merry month of May,
So frolic, so gay, and so green, so green, so green..."

--Thomas Dekker (c. 1572 – 1632))

Butterflies and Coneflowers

Summer sights

As I was photographing these butterflies, they were completely oblivious to my presence. The only thing on their minds was checking each flower for nectar. I really enjoyed seeing them!

Rowe Sanctuary Crane Cam, 2011

Experience the migration!

The spring Sandhill crane migration has begun again, and the Audubon Society's Rowe Sanctuary has its Crane Cam running.

Rowe Sanctuary is located on the Platte River in central Nebraska. Thousands of Sandhill cranes gather on the Platte before flying northward for the summer. It is one of the great natural spectacles of North America.

Right now on the Crane Cam, I can hear many bird calls in the background. The Platte appears to be running briskly. It has snow on its banks, and some chunks of ice are floating in the water. What a marvelous thing to see and hear those things while sitting at my computer in Christian County, Kentucky!

Facebook users can "like" the Rowe Sanctuary at this link. However, it would benefit the Rowe Sanctuary much more if you showed your support with a monetary donation, even a small one.

Thanks, Carolyn and Fred, for reminding me that its time to post this link again.

----------------------------------------------------
Read more about Sandhill cranes in the Prairie Bluestem archives:
Sandhill Crane Webcam 2010
Sandhill Crane Cam 2009
Rowe Sanctuary's Crane Cam 2008
Sandhill Crane Webcam 2007

Mushrooms, Mottled with Purple

Unidentified Kentucky mushroom

Dozens of these brown and purple mushrooms have sprung up under the old maple tree. I suppose that the spores were lying on the ground, waiting for perfect conditions, and the several quick, hard rains of last week  activated them. Obviously, they like hot, steamy weather.

I have searched the internet for a couple of hours, trying to find an identified mushroom that looks like these. I've looked at photographs of hundreds of mushrooms, but I haven't found a single one that resembles these at all. Maybe these mushrooms are an unusual variety. Or maybe I'm not recognizing them when I see them in someone else's photograph..

It could be that I'm just not searching with the right terms. It's hard to describe them. Are they orange, copper, brown, or tan? Purple or violet blotches, spots, or mottling?

It wouldn't surprise me to learn that these mushrooms are usually found around old trees whose roots are rotting. Our old maple tree is in decline. It has taken a beating in several ice storms and it's leaning southeast. That's a good direction, if it must lean; our house is on the west side of the tree.

UPDATE 6/30/10

Here are a couple of views of the bottom of one of the mushrooms. I really had to search around to find one that was still fresh. All of them have gone dark brown on their top skins, and I only found one little mushroom that hadn't gone brown on its underside. It is smaller than any of the mushrooms in the photo at top. Isaac brought home a pocketful of Euro change from Germany, and the coin in the photo is one of those -- more or less the size of a half-dollar coin.

The flesh is yellow all the way through. The little dip in the outer margin of the mushroom cap seems to be a feature of the species.  In some of the larger mushrooms that I pulled up while trying to find a fresh one, the stem seems to be set to one side, because the dip was deep and spread-open.

Beautiful Weeds

Maybe they're flowers?

God made dandelions for little children. They needed a flower they could pick without anyone scolding them!

I think the small, purple flowers are henbit. The plant seems to thrive in fields where the ground was worked during the previous year.  This time of the year, some fields are purple with masses of the tiny flowers. It grows during cold weather, blooms in early spring, and makes its seeds fast. By the time the field is worked, henbit (if that is indeed its name) has already accomplished its life mission.

Daffodils are Blooming

Spring glories

Spring Wildflowers

"They toil not, neither do they spin."

These wildflowers are blooming along the backroads of Christian County right now. I saw them in several wooded areas today. This clump is growing on a high bank above a creek. The blooms are violet in color, but the plants aren't violets. I think they might be a type of phlox.

Biggest Moon in 15 Years

Spectacular moonrise

Have you noticed that the moon seems large and bright tonight? It's not your imagination. Tonight's moon is closer that it has been in 15 years. It won't be this close again until 2016. High tides are expected.

You can read more about this astronomical event in the National Geographic news:
Sky Show Tonight: Biggest, Brightest Full Moon of 2008.

I took this photo in Hopkinsville when I left work about 5:00 pm. The moon was clearing the treetops on the eastern horizon. I should have waited for the cloud to pass across the moon's face, but I was impatient.

The house in the photo was the clubhouse for the Skyline Golf Course until it closed six or seven years ago. Now it's a sports bar. But years before its rather frivolous modern history, it was a farmhouse, just a mile or two southeast of Hopkinsville.

The house has a name, but I can't remember it. I've searched all my Hopkinsville history books twice and can't find it.

I would have looked it up in the Kentucky New Era archives, but sadly, the Kentucky New Era made their archives inaccessible in a recent facelift to their website. Their puny little search engine now only gives results (including classified ads) from the last week or two.

If you know the proper name of this old house, please let me know.

Corn Silks and Tassels

Tasseling and detasseling

About three weeks ago, I stopped along Old Highway 68/80, east of Hopkinsville, and took this photo of the Little River Valley. In the distance, a field of corn is growing in the rich bottom land along the river. It appears as a yellow patch because all the corn plants were tasseling (blooming). The tassel is the male flower of the corn plant.

The cornfield was also full of female flowers (little corn ears-to-be), though they aren't visible in the photo.  Each one had its silks (ovary extensions) ready to receive and transport the pollen. Each silk was connected to an ovule (kernel-to-be) on the ear that began to grow as soon as it was fertilized.

Pollen grain germination occurs within minutes after a pollen grain lands on a receptive silk. A pollen tube, containing the male genetic material, develops and grows inside the silk, and fertilizes the ovule within 24 hours. Pollen grains can land and germinate anywhere along the length of an exposed receptive silk. Many pollen grains may germinate on a receptive silk, but typically only one will successfully fertilize the ovule.

Source: "Silk Emergence" at the Corny News Network

When hybrid seed corn is grown, two varieties of corn are planted in a field, but only one variety is allowed to tassel. The tassels on the other variety are removed manually (often by teenagers who need a summer job) and/or by machine, or sometimes a corn variety with sterile tassels is planted.

The ears that grow on the detasseled plants will have hybrid seeds (kernels) -- a cross between two varieties. All of the corn kernels from ears on the tasseled plants are simply "chips off the old block", now a little more inbred.

After the corn tassels, the whole energy of the plant is devoted to growing the ear/s of corn and filling the kernels with all the nutrient and genetic material it will need for germination. The plant will not develop any more leaves or get any taller.

Hummingbird Nest

Great photos

Over the weekend, take a few minutes and visit a hummingbird nest. There are five pages in all, with photos that document the eggs in the nest, the birth of the fledglings, and finally, the empty nest.

The empty nest is the most impressive photo of all. It's so very tiny.

Special thanks to my cousin Alta who sent this link.

Just Ditch Weeds

Green and blooming

I don't know the name of these plants. For this post, I'm calling them "ditch weeds" because they are growing along the ditch. (They are ditch weeds, not "ditch weed" which is a name that's often given to wild hemp.)

Their flowers are underwhelming when inspected closely. But don't they look fresh and pretty, growing in a clump on the banks of the ditch? Even the weeds have their moments of splendor.

Beautiful Sunset

Heavenly color in the western sky

Isaac and I watched a beautiful sunset last night while driving home from Madisonville, KY. In about half an hour, the western sky changed from shades of pink to intense reds, roses, and purples. I kept wishing I could pull over and snap a photo, but traffic was heavy. Finally, we had a chance to stop on the shoulder just south of Crofton, KY, and Isaac took this picture from the car window.

Milkweed Pods

Seeds bursting out, just as they should

Milkweed seeds ready to fly away

This milkweed plant, growing in the ditch, reminds me of walking home from country school when I was a child.

In the fall when the weather was nice, I was either reading a book as I walked along, or I was watching for interesting stuff in the ditches.

I loved the milkweed plants when their pods burst open and their seeds spilled out into the wind. The fuzz on their seeds was as soft and delicate as a fairy's wings. Later, when the seeds had flown away, the dried pods were very smooth on the inside.

I still like milkweeds. I suppose some people would call them weeds, but I call them wildflowers. Their blossoms have a lovely fragrance. Smell one, and you'll understand why the butterflies love milkweeds. Bees like them, too.

With all those wind-borne seeds, I suspect that milkweeds are sometimes called invasive, but I don't really care. More milkweeds means more bees and butterflies. In fact, the very existence of Monarch butterflies is dependent on milkweeds.

During the summer, female monarchs look for milkweed plants in meadows, along roadsides, and abandoned farmers' fields of the northern United States and southern Canada. Females lay their eggs only on milkweed plants, and each female lays about 400 clear green oval eggs. The monarch egg is no bigger than the head of a pin, and is attached to the underside of a milkweed leaf. Within a few days, the egg hatches and a yellow, black and white striped caterpillar emerges, beginning its life cycle.

Source: Monarch Butterfly Facts

This article also explains that a certain chemical accumulates in the Monarch caterpillars as they eat the milkweed leaves. It produces the bad flavor that later helps to protect Monarch butterflies from being eaten.

I'm happy to see the milkweed pods exploding into seed again. It reassures me that some things are still right in this world.

Technorati tags: Monarch butterfly, butterflies, milkweed, milkweed pods, wind-borne seeds

Incognito

Discovered by touch

I was going to pluck a leaf off this tree, and then I felt a turgid little lump in my hand along with the leaf. I don't know what sort of caterpillar it is.

Technorati tags: caterpillar, disguise, camouflage

Black and Yellow Garden Spider, 2007

Argiope aurantia

I've taken dozens of photos of these black and yellow garden spiders over the years. I don't like spiders much, but the bright colors of this species and their big webs are irresistible to my camera clicking finger.

We start seeing lots of these spiders in the garden and flower beds in early fall every year. It's one of the signs of the season.

This is a female. They are much larger than the males. The males approach with caution, and communicate by strumming the threads of the web.

When a hapless insect strays into the web, Her Ladyship springs into action. She injects him with a liquifying agent and wraps him in silk. Then she leaves him to soften up while she waits patiently for the next catch.

It's quite similar to the way Frodo was bundled by Shelob in the Lord of the Rings.

Garden spiders are very interesting creatures. Here are a few websites with more information about them:

Black and yellow argiope
Black and yellow garden spider
Yellow garden spider

Technorati tags: garden spider, Argiope aurantia

Butterfly Moment

More About Birds and Animals...

This beautiful black butterfly was basking in the sunshine at the edge of the road this morning. Or maybe it was looking for a drop of dew caught in a leaf. It gave me just a moment to photograph it before it flitted away.

Honestly, I'm no expert on butterflies. Maybe Collagemama will set me straight if I'm wrong, because she seems to know butterflies much better than I do.

I am quite sure it's a swallowtail of some sort. It might be a spicebush swallowtail. The blue patches are the right shape and color. The wing shape seems right. The border of white spots seems right.

The one thing that's making me wonder is those two little yellow spots on the lower inner edge of its wings. Those spots are bright orange in most photos of the spicebush swallowtail that I examine. In fact, bright orange spots in that location are one of the identifying characteristics of the species.

So I am not sure. Maybe it's a juvenile spicebush that just recently emerged from its chrysalis. Maybe it's a spicebush with a natural variation of color. Or maybe it's an entirely different butterfly.

I do know one thing though -- a person sure can waste invest a lot of time in looking up non-vital information on the internet.

800-Year-Old Arco Valley Pearl To Be Auctioned

Some Interesting News...

An interesting pearl auction will soon take place in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. One of the world's largest natural pearls, the Arco Valley Pearl, is being offered for sale. The auction house Lifestyle Auctions suggests in the catalog that this famous pearl might bring $6 to $8 million.

Here's a description of the event from Lifestyle Auctions' homepage:

Featuring:

A SPECTACULAR EVENING AND AUCTION OF EXCLUSIVE PEARLS;

AN EVENT OF AFFLUENCE, SOPHISTICATION, STYLE AND BEAUTY.

A GLORIOUS REVIVAL OF PEARLS INTERNATIONALLY AND LOCALLY, REPOSITIONING ABU DHABI ON THE INTERNATIONAL MAP OF THE PEARL INDUSTRY AS AN ACTIVE CENTRE.

The auction was supposed to take place today (May 3, 2007), but due to a death in the Abu Dhabi royal family, it has been postponed. This unfortunate and unforeseen complication does allow anticipation and interest to continue building until the auction finally happens.

All of the 24 auction lots are pearls. Some of the pearls are set, some are loose, some are small, some are large, and one is HUGE! The huge one is, of course, the Arco Valley Pearl. Can you imagine? It is 3.1 inches long, and it weighs 575 carats (115 grams or a little over 4 ounces.)

The Arco Valley Pearl has a wonderful history that dates back to the 12th century in Mongolia. In a list of famous pearls, it says that the Arco Valley Pearl was "offered by Marco Polo to Khubilai Khan, emperor of China." However, most current newspaper articles about the pearl are saying that Kublai Khan gave the pearl to Marco Polo as a gift.

The pearl is named for the Arco Valley of Austria where a prominent family owned it. The whereabouts of the pearl during the centuries between Marco Polo and the Austrian family are unknown.

The current owner of the pearl is an Abu Dhabi jeweler, who bought the pearl just a few weeks ago from a French person who wishes to remain unknown.

It will be interesting to see how much the pearl sells for and who buys it. If a private party buys it, it is quite possible that they will not want their name published. The nation of China is said to be interested in it; they see it as a treasure that should return to China.

Just one photo of the pearl seems to be available on the internet, and it is the same photo that you can see in the auction catalog for Lot 21.

If you're in the mood to look at beautiful pearls, you will enjoy the Smithsonian online exhibit, The Allure of Pearls. The largest of the pearls in that exhibit was 125 grams smaller than the Arco Valley Pearl.

The largest pearl ever found (that we know of) is the Pearl of Lao-Tzu, also known as the Pearl of Allah. It weighs 14 pounds, and it was found by a Philipine diver in 1934 in a giant clam in the Palawan Sea.

Technorati tags: Arco Valley Pearl, pearls, auction, pearl auction

Small Bluets (Hedyotis caerulea)

Life in Christian County, Kentucky... More About Trees and Plants...

A large patch of these tiny wildflowers have been blooming on the bank
above the old roadbed on the south side of our little property. They are so tiny that you could easily overlook just one plant in bloom, but when they bloom in mass, they make a splash of color that you can't miss.

These are small bluets, also known as Quaker ladies. This variety (Hedyotis caerulea, formerly known as Houstonia caerulea) is common to western Kentucky (according to my Kentucky wildflowers book and the online wildflower guide to the Land Between The Lakes area of KY/TN.)

They must be tough little flowers, since they are flourishing in an area of our yard that bakes to a crispy crunch every August. They are annuals, so probably their seed has already matured before the hot dry weather of Kentucky's late summer arrives.

Some other varieties of Quaker ladies have yellow centers, but our Quaker ladies have violet hearts to match the outer edges of their petals. They are so petite that you'll probably never see them in a bouquet. They're just sweet little flowers of the field.

Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come, the cooing of doves is heard in our land. --Song of Solomon 2:12

Related site: Bluets (with music) --very nice.

Technorati tags: bluets, small bluets, Hedyotis caerulea

Wild Plums Are Blooming

Beautiful wild shrubs

A branch of wild plum, covered with blossoms

The wild plums have been blooming this week on the "south bank" of our small rural property. I love to walk through that part of the yard. The fragrance of the blooms fills the air all around the little plum thicket.

On that south bank, the plums always bloom a little too early and are nearly always frosted. There are never enough plums to make jelly. But to me, they're worth having just for these days of spring when they are blooming.

I wish I could post the fragrance of these plum blossoms!

Related posts:
Wild Fruits of the Nebraska Sandhills
Springtime in Christian County, Kentucky

Cattle Breeds in the U.K.

Native cattle of the British Isles

A Highland cow (Image courtesy of Wikipedia)

For my readers who are interested in such things, here are some interesting facts about cattle in the U.K. The following figures show the predominant cattle breeds in the U.K. currently and the number of registered cattle in each breed.

Beef Breeds:
687,382 -- Limousin
332,098 -- Charolais
222,290 -- Aberdeen Angus
221,670 -- Simmental
186,730 --Belgian Blue
307,387 -- Other breeds

Dairy Breeds:
579,617 -- Holstein Friesian or Holstein Friesian crosses

Source: "Limousin is UK's Largest Numerical Cattle Breed" by staff, published March 10, 2007 on Trumpline Stackyard.

I suppose that the registration of every animal is part of their program to eradicate Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), more commonly known as mad cow disease.

The article where I found these statistics quotes the president of the British Limousin association. He says that the Limousin are "easy care, added value cattle" and that the "flexibility and predictability of Limousin cattle is providing a marked and demonstrable premium" for farmers. He almost sounds like a politician.

In the list above, the only truly native UK breed is Aberdeen Angus, a black cattle from Scotland that is also a popular U.S. cattle breed.

Limousin and Charolais cattle are of French origin. Simmentals are from the Simme valley of Switzerland. The breed is the result of crossing the native cattle of the area with larger cattle from Germany.

Belgian Blues were developed in Belgium, but their bloodlines go back to a cross of Shorthorns (of the British Isles) and Friesian cattle.

I decided to compile a list of some of the UK's other native cattle breeds that didn't make the popularity list. Here it is, and each link should open a new window with images of that cattle breed.

• Ayrshire - a dairy cattle breed from the County of Ayr in Scotland.
• Chillingham - One of the old breeds of white cattle. This one is a wild native cow from Northumberland, small with upright horns and red ears. A very rare breed, with only about 100 animals left.
• Devon - a cattle breed from the Devonshire, England area, once used as draft animals as well as for dairy and beef.
• Guernsey and Jersey - dairy cattle breeds from the channel islands, Guernsey and Jersey
• Hereford - a breed of red cattle that originated in western England and Wales. Once used as draft animals. Has been a popular beef breed in the U.S. for many years.
• Highland - a hardy, shaggy, long-horned native breed from the highlands of Scotland. There were once two strains of this breed (Kyloe and Highlander), but in modern times they are all known as Highland cattle.
• Shorthorn - an old breed mentioned in recorded history as early as the 1500's, probably descended from a short-horned ox known to be in England in the days of the Roman Empire
• Lincoln Red - probably brought to the British Isles by the Vikings.
• English Longhorn - Brindle cattle with long horns, once used as draft animals.
• British White - An old breed of white cattle with "dark points" that can trace its history back 800 years; originally from the wild white cattle of Great Britain.
• White Park - Another old breed of white cattle, smaller with larger horns, that can trace its history back to the Druids of pre-Christian Ireland. The White Park breed also has a long history in England, Scotland and Wales.
• Dexter and Kerry - descended from the Celtic black cattle of the highlands of southern Ireland.
• Galloway and Belted Galloway - a old breed descended from the long-haired black cattle of the Galloway region of the Scottish lowlands.
• Welsh Black - an old breed of horned black cattle from Wales, used for meat and milk.
• There may be other breeds as well. These are just what I came up with fairly quickly.



Chillingham Cattle (Image from The Graphics Fairy)