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Sunday, March 08, 2009

Trout Lilies and much more!

Today Meg and I planted more in the garden. We found that the Spaulding Spinach (planted on Feb 14) was coming up, the first of any seeds I've planted. The peas are all up, yesterday Meg found a huge snail eating its way down a row, she kindly placed it elsewhere. Planted today were red(new) potatoes, fingerling potatoes, Golden and red beets, rutabaga, turnips, mustard greens, Nelson Carrots, Meslin mix and more Bright Lights Swiss Chard. We also spread wheat straw over everything including the grass seed we planted the other night after the snow.

After planting we took a nature walk around the property. The driveway had our first yard butterfly of 2009 a Mourning Cloak, it was actually seen in the same place yesterday. There was not much to see along the driveway where one should start seeing butterflies and dragonflies in the next week or two, so we headed down to the spring at the lower edge of our property. As soon as we entered the lower woods we could see lots of American Trout Lilies, Erythronium, americanum, there hundreds in bloom, not quite in full bloom yet.


American Trout Lily, Erythronium, americanum


Here is a Virginia Spring-beauty, Claytonia virginica that we found at the local park today.
Below is Rue Anemone, Thalictrum thalictroides this is sometimes called Windflower. Just a few of these were found along the creek below our land. One surprise was finding first a half mussel, then about 150 ft up the stream the other half that matched. This mussel was just under 6 inches long and I'm not 100% sure but I think it is a threatened Carolina Fatmucket, Lampsilis radiata conspicua. This creek is pretty small and has little areas one would encounter a mussel in. It might have came from the pond directly above the creek, I don't know much about mussels.
Here is an female American Toad, Bufo americanus we found down by the creek. Here is a link to hear the male calling a female Funny thing is meg found an American Toad at our friend Roger's water garden last night. Roger had just told me he'd had 10 species of frogs and toads there and American Toad was on he'd not had yet. So meg helped him tie our 11 species record, by seeing this toad.

An early find in our woods a leaf-footed bug.

Just for fun one of our neighbors donkeys that wake us up when their roosters don't. It was rolling on the hillside.

And the bad news both of us found ticks on us today.....
One last thing, today I took all of these photos with Meg's camera and my lens thinking it was mine. Duh...

16 comments:

  1. Sure like the trout lily and the other spring bloomers. Nice to see the toad out of suspended winter sleep.

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  2. I don't have these flowers, so it was pleasure to look at them on your pictures. Simple and beautiful. The toad and the donkey are good, but ticks - not good, you are right!

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  3. I was afraid the ticks would be out soon. I'll be on the lookout. Couldn't imagine all those trout lilies, how lovely.

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  4. Anonymous12:05 AM

    I love those flowers. Simple yet stunningly beautiful. And you already have visitors to your garden, a toad and a leaf bug ... Neat

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  5. Thanks for the little tour. The trout lilies are very pretty!
    I look forward to seeing more flowers and wildlife from your walks!

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  6. Eeeeeeeewww! I hate ticks, when I find one I always feel like there are more I don't see! I've never seen a Trout Lily before. :-)

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  7. Fist, the flowers are great. Still a little too much snow to go on a flower walk here. But it is coming. Second, Ticks....Ewwew. Thirdly, I love that donkey.
    -Heather

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  8. Beautiful little flowers! I wish we had a bit more wilderness around us to explore. Maybe one day!

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  9. The trout lilies look lovely! So do the other blooms. Thanks for sharing your nature walk. Great shots of the bug and toad--love the markings. The donley's cute!

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  10. Ohhh, thank you! You did say you have a whole field of those...and they do look lovely! As I said, I only planted 2! I have no idea whether they will even sprout up or not...I will tell you if they do! Lovely post--sorry about the ticks! And camera, whatever it was, but the photos still look terrific;)

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  11. The American Trout Lily is very pretty! I don't believe I've ever seen one. And nothing like a little friendly toad count competition with the neighbors. Heehee.

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  12. I hope my trout lilies bloom this year!!! This is my first time growing them. Watch out for Lyme disease - one of my neighbors got it!

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  13. Folks,
    Thanks for stopping by, the toads are calling tonight for the first time this year.

    More on the trout lilies we have about an acre with them in the woods, some places about 6 foot between plants other places lots of them. I'm told it takes ants to pollinate them and a plants grows for 7 years before in ever blooms, sorry Jan.

    As to the ticks we found 3 of them both of us got bit already, Meg was not very happy. I get bit maybe 20 times a year as I explore a lot.
    Randy

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  14. Toads, trout lilies, and Rue Anemome fill my heart with glee ... all welcome me in my humble garden. Thanks for sharing hopes of spring :)

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  15. Anonymous2:57 PM

    Love the donkey...sorry about the ticks, bleck! Kim

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  16. Randy how wonderful that you have so many Trout Lilies where you live. Currently I have one that I purchased from the NC Botanical Garden, and am waiting patiently for them to spread. :)

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