Red Sumac

Smooth Sumac

follow site Smooth Sumac © 2008

Buy Xanax Cash On Delivery Sumacs are famous for their red foliage and fruits throughout much of autumn.  The fruits remain over winter and even throughout the following spring, providing much needed winter food for birds. It’s not that the birds are particularly fond of the berries (the berries are really drupes as they have a pit, not a seed), but that it is one of the few available foods. Moose and deer, however, are more than happy to chomp on the foliage and fruits, and often crop the bushes quite close to the ground.

go I think the sumac is at its most attractive when the fruits are bright red, and the red berries are surrounded by foliage that is just turning from greens to blue/purples to reds.

Milkweed Fluff

Milkweed in Autumn

Buy Green Xanax Online Milkweed in Autumn © 2008

https://annmorrislighting.com/pbkw9mgso The Common Milkweed, a native plant in Wisconsin, has rough textured pods that contain thousands of seeds attached to strands of silky down. As the pods split in autumn, the seeds open like tiny parachutes and travel on wind currents to a new site to seed.

https://aaerj.org.br/2024/05/13/5z7ecdlk7jg This silky stuff has been used creatively throughout the years. Settlers in the 1700s and early 1800s used the fluff to fill their pillows and mattresses. In the 1860s, thread from the down was made into socks and purses. During World War II, schoolchildren collected milkweed pods and the pods were sent to central processing locations. The down was used to fill life preservers and to line the uniforms of the United States Air Force. Milkweed down is extremely bouyant and a few pounds of this spinnery stuff can keep a 150 pound person afloat in water.

Obscurity

https://emduk.org/8xmn2hbvv Life is a brief, small, and transitory phenomenon in an obscure corner, not at all the sort of thing that one would make a fuss about if one were not personally concerned. ~~   Bertrand Russell

Driving at Dawn

https://www.vertaglia.com/7ljk4cq44o3 I had a busy Saturday planned. I had an assignment to do some travel writing at a destination about 2 hours north of my home. The festival started at 8 a.m. with a tour of a National Wildlife Refuge, then a 10 o’clock workshop on nature photography by the Refuge Artist in Residence, and an afternoon trip to a cranberry bog. Plus a chicken dinner and the unveiling of this year’s edition of Whooper Brew after the bog trip.

https://grannysglasses.com/?p=g9gg2d5u9 (Hint: I went to the Crane Fest held in Necedah, Wisconsin, and I’ll share some stories and a few photos on the cranberries, the beer, and the whooping cranes in a later post.)

go site I haven’t been sleeping well for some unknown reason, and so when the alarm rang at 5:30 this morning I was none too excited. I managed to drag myself out of bed after getting maybe 2 hours of sleep, and I was rather grumbly as I got in the car. It was foggy and gray, and I was relieved I didn’t have to do the driving.

Wisconsin Countryside at Dawn

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https://aguasamazonicas.org/md8thzyxnge And then I blinked open my eyes as the skies lightened. Wow! I woke up pretty darn fast.

Wisconsin Farm at Dawn

Wisconsin Farm at Dawn © 2008

I fumbled around in the back seat until found my camera. Needless to say, we didn’t make it to the festival at the appointed time.

And Finally, A Rearview Mirror Sunrise

And Finally, A Rear View Mirror Sunrise © 2008

Finally, after we pulled over to the side of the road for the fifth time for just “one more photo,” the sun actually appeared, and the dawn was over – so we could get on with our drive.

Prairie Grasses in Wisconsin

Say the word “prairie” and many people visualize Laura Ingalls in her log cabin or rolling wagons crossing open prairie land, the wagons filled with settlers on their way out West in search for a better life. But I’m thinking most really have no idea of what a prairie looks like up close.

Sure, most know there are lots of sunflowers and yellow goldenrod wildflowers and some tall grass, but ever give thought to the hundreds of varieties of grasses that make up the tall grass and short grass prairie lands. Obvious, right?

Well, maybe not so obvious at all. It’s easy to overlook grasses. I mean, it’s just grass, right?  So let me show you just how different a few of these grasses really are.

Side Oats Grama Grass

Side Oats Grama Grass © 2008

This prairie grass is found in the high prairies in southern Wisconsin and extends to central Wisconsin in fewer numbers. It’s one of my favorite grasses to look for – I love the purply-blue fruits hanging in a row like someone pinned them on a clothesline.

When buffalo roamed the region, this was their main source of food. It’s an easy grass to identify – all those oats are hanging off to one “side”. So it is https://restoreredspruce.org/2024/05/13/04l6tnwwweu side oats grama grass. Grama is from gramen, the Latin word meaning grass.  1 1/2 to 3 feet tall.

Indian Grass

Indian Grass © 2008

Before agriculture and tended crops developed, source url Indian grass was second only to big blue-stem grass as the most important plant in the tall grass prairie, both in its numbers and in its nutritional content.

It is extremely drought resistant because of it’s extensive deep root system – typical of the prairie plants. The frequent prairie fires do not damage these grasses – they are highly adapted to the burns. This grass was one of the taller one,  usually standing 6 to 9 feet tall.

Canada Wild-Rye Grass

Canada Wild-Rye Grass © 2008

This is one of the most important grasses in the tall grass prairie. It acts as a nurse crop for prairie seedlings early in the growing season before it declines as the warm season grasses mature. https://thegreathighway.com/xw47nw7ts9 Canada Wild-rye Grass grows 2 to 5 feet tall and forms a loose sod. Native Americans used the seed for food, as did a multitude of large and small animals.

The grasses had other uses besides as food.They were used as fuels, and also the fibers were woven into mats for internal walls in small cabins, window coverings, and floor coverings.