Counting one’s blessings has a particular poignancy at this festival because, as we mark the longest day, we are reminded that from this point the year will begin to wane and the days will gradually shorten. Transience is a reality for all of us and so we learn that our capacity for joy and happiness — like an inner sun — must radiate from within. It’s worth taking a moment to ponder the mystery that at the height of summer winter plants its own seed. ~ Maria Ede-Weaving (The Essential Book of Druidry: Connect with the Spirit of Nature)
5.31.24 ~ North Carolina Botanical Garden common yarrow
May ended on a very pleasant note, with lots of sunshine, mild temperatures and no humidity! Since we knew these conditions wouldn’t last we went out for a walk, in spite of us both being sick with colds. Who knows when such perfect weather will come around again?
bronze fennel
And of course, it being ten days since our last walk, different things were blooming. It’s never the same garden twice.
golden tickseed
bee visiting English lavender
purple coneflower
When I watched the sun rise this morning, due east, I felt that the universe, the solar system, the earth, the year, the season, the day, were still in order, no matter what stupidities man might achieve today. It is good to know such things about the place you live. It is good to know that there are certainties. ~ Hal Borland (Hal Borland’s Book of Days)
hemlock cones
woodland pinkroot
crow poison (poisonous to humans and animals)
common sanddragon dragonfly
phlox
The single greatest lesson the garden teaches is that our relationship to the planet need not be zero-sum, and that as long as the sun still shines and people still can plan and plant, think and do, we can, if we bother to try, find ways to provide for ourselves without diminishing the world. ~ Michael Pollan (Food, Inc.)
Beltane is the joyous time of leafing and blossoming. This festival celebrates sex and the transformation that comes when we open ourselves to another at the deepest level. This alchemy can also happen when we allow ourselves to be profoundly touched by nature. When we open to and merge with our environment, we can discover sacred union with the world itself. ~ Maria Ede-Weaving (The Essential Book of Druidry: Connect with the Spirit of Nature)
As I step out and down the road I think how each individual human child will grow and be quite their very own being. And then I think how each oak tree also has its own individuality, its own essence in quite the same way, too. Each oak has a distinctiveness which may be seen, felt and known — as with my own children, as with every human that lives upon this earth. ~ James Canton (The Oak Papers)
In front of our vacation cottage was an amazing oak tree, adorned with plants growing in its fork and Spanish moss hanging from its branches.
resurrection fern
3 fan palms growing in the oak’s fork (thanks to Donna & Eliza for the identification)
Every morning when we left and every evening when we returned to the cottage I paused and wondered at the energy coming from this tree. It seemed to have a self-sacrificing essence, nurturing so many other lives besides its own. And I thought of my own children and what wonderful adults they became with their very different personalities, interests and talents.
It’s been a challenge getting outside with all the rain we’ve been getting lately. It was drizzling when we got to the botanical garden Sunday afternoon, even though the weather people had promised that the sun would be coming out. We decided to walk anyway.
Along the path we met a staffer named Lauren, who was out in the rain looking for salamanders. We fell into a nice conversation and when we told her about our hunt for seedbox a couple of weeks ago she suggested another plant for us to hunt down. A tiny pyxie-moss was flowering now. She showed us a picture of it on her cell phone, and gave us directions to its location. We found it!
By then it had stopped raining so I went back to the car and got my camera. What a treat to see this plant so rare and unique to the Carolinas!
A rare minute creeping subshrub of xeric areas in the Sandhills region of North Carolina. This is the smaller of our two species of pyxie-moss. Very range-restricted, the entire known range of this species is a handful of counties in North and South Carolina. … The tiny succulent evergreen leaves are less than 5 mm long. … The flowers rarely set seed and the seeds rarely sprout. ~ Carolina Nature website
After enjoying our discovery we went on to explore more of the soggy gardens. There is always something different to see. It was still a damp, gray day.
pretty sure this is a longleaf pine
This resurrection fern was growing abundantly on one side of a tall tree stump. On the other side of the stump it was all mushrooms.
I couldn’t get around to the back of the stump for a full all-mushroom shot, but you can see where the ferns ended and the mushrooms began in the photo below.
I close my eyes and listen to the voices of the rain. … Every drip it seems is changed by its relationship with life, whether it encounters moss or maple or fir bark or my hair. And we think of it as simply rain, as if it were one thing, as if we understood it. I think that moss knows rain better than we do, and so do maples. Maybe there is no such thing as rain; there are only raindrops, each with its own story. – Robin Wall Kimmerer (Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge & The Teachings of Plants)
lichens on a fallen branch
‘lemon drop’ swamp azalea buds
‘Spain’ rosemary flowering
Atlantic ninebark (rose family) seed head
Ozark witch-hazel blooming
witch-hazel marcescence
winterberry aka black alder
And you know the light is fading all too soon You’re just two umbrellas one late afternoon You don’t know the next thing you will say This is your favorite kind of day It has no walls, the beauty of the rain Is how it falls, how it falls, how it falls ~ Dar Williams ♫ (The Beauty of the Rain) ♫
Lauren had mentioned that rainy days are the best time to look for salamanders. On warm wet nights from January to March here in the Piedmont they emerge from their underground burrows and head for vernal pools to mate and lay eggs. A week after that artic blast it did get unseasonably warm. I wonder if she found any salamanders after we talked. We kept our eyes open but didn’t see any.
Our first winter holidays in North Carolina were amazing! Our walks were few and far between, though, due to all the other activities. Time to get back on track and back to the blogosphere.
Look back on Time, with kindly Eyes — He doubtless did his best — How softly sinks the trembling Sun In Human Nature’s West — ~ Emily Dickinson (The Poems of Emily Dickinson, #1251)
eastern bluebird
I think if I’m going to photograph more birds we will have to visit more gardens than forests. The trees seem to be so much taller down here and my zoom lens just doesn’t reach those high perches to capture the winged creatures that well. But I’m including this bluebird picture anyway to remind me how nice it was to see and hear a few of them, way overhead, that day. 🙂
Surprise! A gray catbird in December! North Carolina must be one of the places they migrate to in the winter. I’ve never seen one in Connecticut after September or before May.
He begins early, and makes up his song as he goes. ~ Mary Oliver (Catbird)
His black cap gives him a jaunty look, for which we humans have learned to tilt our caps, in envy. ~ Mary Oliver (Catbird)
oakleaf hydrangea
But it was a great day for a walk. A good break from busy, busy, busy…
We achieve some measure of adulthood when we recognize our parents as they really were, without sentimentalizing or mythologizing, but also without blaming them unfairly for our imperfections. Maturity entails a readiness, painful and wrenching though it may be, to look squarely into the long dark places, into the fearsome shadows. In this act of ancestral remembrance and acceptance may be found a light by which to see our children safely home. ~ Carl Sagan & Ann Druyan (Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors)
9.28.23 ~ Hollow Rock Nature Park Durham, North Carolina
The turtle reminds me that I owe my small human life to the generosity of the more-than-human beings with whom we share this precious homeland. The Earth was made not by one alone but from the alchemy of two essential elements: gratitude for her gifts and the covenant of reciprocity. Together they formed what we know today as Turtle Island, or North America. In return for their gifts, it’s time that we gave ours in return. ~ Robin Wall Kimmerer (The New York Times, September 24, 2023, “What Do We Owe Turtles?”)
We found a great place to walk with uneven terrain and only two people encountered along the way! We followed a trail around a large meadow full of wildflowers and humming with insects…
pearl crescent butterfly
cricket
And then we made our way into the woods and felt grateful for all the gifts it was offering on such a lovely day.
a huge beech tree
Tim spotted this box turtle ever so slowly swallowing its breakfast. I cannot tell if he was satisfied or not when he finally got that thing down. When we came back by to check on the turtle ten minutes later he was looking more alert and I was able to get the picture at the beginning of this post.
eastern box turtle
fruit of the American hophornbeam (aka ironwood)
What would a woodland be without squirrels scampering up and down the tree trunks?
eastern gray squirrel
eastern destroying angel amanita ~ poisonous
shaggy stalked bolete
The woods here have many similarities to the ones in New England, but they do have a different feel to them. The heavy presence of loblolly pines, not found up north, is one strikingly obvious difference. Likely I will start seeing more subtle distinctions as time goes on.
