Fighting Invasives

A few years ago this area of the Cowles Bog in the Indiana Dunes was covered with cattails. After years of hard work pulling invasive plants out and replanting those plants that are native to the bog, the area looks completely different.

The diversity of the original bog provides the food and habitat for the wildlife that depends on the bog for survival. Frogs, birds, small mammals, and some plant species that are only found in the Dunes area are what all the work is about.

Signs requesting visitors to stay on the hiking paths and off of the paths into the bog that are used by volunteers and staff in removing invasives and replanting natives are placed so that tiny seeds picked up by hiking shoes are not carried back into the bog destroying the hard won habitat for the birds and other wildlife.    

Wind Blown Tresses

As from our dream we died away

Far off I felt the outer things;

Your wind-blown tresses round me play,

Your bosom’s gentle murmurings.

And far away our faces met

As on the verge of the vast spheres;

And in the night our cheeks were wet,

I could not say with dew or tears.

As one within the Mother’s heart 

In that hushed dream upon the height

We lived, and then we rose to part,

Because her ways are infinite.

Parting by George Willam Russell

Collecting Pollen

This good looking guy was too busy collecting pollen to pay much attention to me. He just ignored me as I got in close to take his picture.

Ball of Buttonbush Flowers

Buttonbushes are sporting fall colors this week.

The wetland plant flowers in balls of flowers---tightly compacted and about the size of a golf ball. The flower balls start out cream colored, but this time of year they change to a pinkish red.    

Buggy Cotton Candy

Walking along the path in the Indiana Dunes last weekend I noticed some leaves covered with a fuzzy looking white stuff.

Sticky as cotton candy, it wasn't until later down the trail that I found the culprits---insect larvae living inside.

The Last Flowers in the Garden of the Year

Dearest, we are like two flowers

Blooming last in a yellowing garden,

A purple aster flower and a red one

Standing alone in a withered desolation.

The garden plants are shattered and seeded,

One brittle leaf scrapes against another,

Fiddling echoes of a rush of petals.

Now only you and I nodding together.

Many were with us; they have all faded.

Only we are purple and crimson,

Only we in the dew-clear mornings,

Smarten into color as the sun rises.

When I scarcely see you in the fiat moonlight,

And later when my cold roots tighten,

I am anxious for the morning,

I cannot rest in fear of what may happen.

You or I—and I am a coward.

Surely frost should take the crimson.

Purple is a finer color,

Very splendid in isolation.

So we nod above the broken

Stems of flowers almost rotted.

Many mornings there cannot be now

For us both. Ah, Dear, I love you!

Frimaire by Amy Lowell

A Miniature World

 Milkweed plants line one sunny part of a trail going into the Indiana Dunes. I like to hunt Monarch Caterpillars on Milkweed but discovered a busy miniature world this weekend.

It appears that milkweed bugs have been busy---for a quarter of a mile just about every milkweed plant looked like this.

And the miniature world gets even more interesting and busy the closer you get:

Might be the Monarch larva I was looking for in the middle

Kind of cute aren't they?

Nurturer or snack?