Life on Salem Road

Blue Winged Wasp on Tall Thoroughwort  in Chicken Yard 8/19/2020 Now there's a lot to unpack in this picture.  I snapped this in the Chicken Yard when I noticed that the plant -- which I now know is Tall Thoroughwort -- was covered by these amazing-looking wasps as well as a number of bees.  If you look in the upper right of the picture you'll see one of The Ladies -- I believe she is one of our California Whites.  Moving down the picture, you'll see two wasps:  the one on the left may be a Great Black Wasp, but I'm focusing today on the wasp on the right, a Blue Winged Wasp.  And lower in the picture, you'll see an unidentified species of bee.  I knew this plant that I had saved when I mowed and the chickens had allowed to survive in their Yard was a power pollinator and I had to know more about it! When I sat down to write this morning, out came my beautiful hard-back copy of Carl Hunter 's Wildflowers of Arkansas .  (When I put it on my Christm...

Buttonweed in lawn 8/10/2020 This project is all about LEARNING about and NAMING the life I see every day, so I've chosen Buttonweed, a tiny wildflower that is currently blooming in my lawn.  It would be easy to walk by it and step on it and never even take note of it, as I have doubtlessly been doing for the 26 years we have lived on Salem Road. Now, "lawn" is a lofty term for the grass in our yard, as I strictly share my daddy's attitudes about lawns -- water, fertilizer, and pesticides (insecticides or herbicides) are for crops, not grass.  We're not farming grass here.  And science agrees that we need to stop treating lawns like crops. Steven and I are extremely sparing in our use of pesticides here on Salem Road anyway, as we are concerned for our pollinators.  And our "lawn" is a laissez faire mixture of pasture grasses and weeds.  One of my goals is to move it more toward a natural lawn that supports our native species of plants and animals, but ...

Poison Ivy at base of tree 7/10/20 Unfortunately for me, this was the plant getting the most attention around the house on Salem Road last week. We were eating tomatoes, potatoes, summer squash, cucumbers, peppers, basil, and blueberries from our garden, but I had a close encounter with Toxicodendron radicans while weeding and mowing at the edge of our small patch of woods.  As soon as I saw it, I gave it the deference anyone with my experience with poison ivy does, and left it unmolested at the bottom of the tree where it was growing.  What I did not do -- and almost certainly should have -- was go immediately and scrub down with lye soap.  Two days later, I realized that the "bug bites" on the back of my legs had spread to my face and that it was almost certainly a poison ivy reaction.   More than a week later, the rash has dried, I'm back at full force, and I've snapped a picture of the culprit to post here.  And I'm plotting my revenge.