6.30.11 Spin the color wheel and it lands on Yellows: Yellow Loostrife aka Swamp Candles (Lysimachia terrestris) and Canada Lily (Lilium canadense). Then one from yesterday: Motherwort- the only alien in the bunch - in close-up, the profile is a definite clue as to the origin of the scientific name, Leonurus cardica. I can hardly wait for tomorrow's finds!

6.30.11 In the pink! Pipsissewa crowd a mossy bank; Partridgeberry, pink form, in damp moss: both were photographic challenges for me in the intermittent strong breeze.

6-23

Venus's Looking Glass - so named because its tiny black seeds resemble hand mirrors - opened a single flower to the rain today.

John

6.22.11 Some flowers look great in a warm summer rain. Such is the attractive Foxglove Beardtongue found along an otherwise dry bank.

6.20.11 A morning roaming Maple Valley turned up a few unexpected finds. Ladies' Tresses, Round-leaved Sundew, and Blue Toadflax pictured here were some of the visual treats. Coming upon two foraging grouse families and a fawn bedded down among the tall ferns added to the wonders.

A black bear prowling around the house at 7:45 p.m.. Sniffing the ground underneath the bird feeder that is up on a second-story deck. It finally took out its frustration on a bird house and ate baby chickadees for dinner.

6-10

Parasitic one-flowered Cancerroot AKA Ghost Pipe was flowering today in a samp, shady fieldside thicket in my neighborhood.

John

9:00 p.m. trip to the compost pile where i beaned a skunk on the nose with a watermelon rind. I didn't stick around for a closer "sighting."