Orthodontics begins

Yesterday I had spacers inserted between my 3 back teeth, both sides, top and bottom. By evening I was very sore, couldn't chew on anything, and felt groggy and a bit inflamed. So I'm back on liquids: pureed split pea and ham soup for dinner with extra broth. I think I'm already adjusting though. So, another milestone: the start of the orthodontic treatment. My crowns are all repaired with lab processed temps made to last about 2 years, until everything's straightened out.

I still have trouble imagining the orthodontic process though: teeth move? Roots travel about? Like a tree taking a walk through rocky soil?

Back to the Spot

This is a photo of goldenrod leaves, cleaver seeds, and all that shimmer is spider web. It's very hard to get a camera to focus on spider web and spider. Here's another try -- if you look hard you might find the spider:

A few sit spot postings

I've been busy, away, etc so haven't been to my sit spot much. But, here it is:

Thurs Jun 25. 9:45 AM. Been a month mostly of clouds mist and some rain. Today continues. But the clouds I hear are off the ocean and it's in the upper 60s, and everything smells good. Lots of birds this morning, maybe 6 different calls? Hard to sort out. The bedstraw and bittercress/plant X have gone to seed. The bedstraw climbs the bittercress. The bittercress, like celandine, produces long thin upright seedpods in ranks off a main stem, so it makes a half decent trellis. Its leaves are dying back. Some cleavers are flowering. The grass seems less present, the creeper, bittercress and bedstraw most prevalant in the immediate surroundings. The bedstraw has very cute little round seeds or seedpods that come in green pairs, covered with little white hairs or bristles. Each about 1/2 inch across. A little further away patches of goldenrod are hip high now, and a lone aster flower has appeared, as well as some fleabane further along. The quince is sending out new shoots of leaves, they're fuzzy to the touch, and its rather copious fruit is about 1.5 inches across now. A lone wisteria leaf pops out a few feet in front of me. A fly with a very black shiny body and butt lands. A spider is weaving on a bittercress stalk. Some tiny bugs are floating about. One mosquito. A steady drone from somewhere nearby. A sort of moth on the underside of a leaf. A few clunks from the bull frogs. Crickets.

Tues Jun 9th, Just went and stood for a few minutes in the drippy world. Wasn't actually raining. No mosquitos. No trillers. A few plunks from the bull frogs. Got 1/3 inch rain the previous night and rather misty and cool, in the 50s. Peonies blooming despite being choked by weeds. Also the late lilac. Some beech leaves are convex, some concave.

Mon Jun 8th. Went down in the dusk with long sleeves, gloves, mosquito net on head. Lots of mosquitos. Looked up and saw probably 100s of small flying insects silouhetted against the sky. Here and there big chubby insects were flying about, perhaps fireflies. Something else droned by. It's a 3 dimensional world! The sky was cloudy, high clouds, some cirrus. Small gusts of wind here and there. Looked up the triller frog: it's a grey tree frog. Another sunny hot day, mid to upper 70s.

Sit Spot Jun 7

Sun June 7th, 8:30 pm. Within a minute of sitting down (less) 10 - 20 mosquitos appeared. Warm evening, cloudy. little wind, occasional light rain. After a sunny hot day. Friday it threatened rain all day and seemed to rain for a while in the evening, but it was another .1 inches to show for it. Fri eve I sat, and Sat at almost 10 pm in the dark, and now this evening. I retreat into the beech tree, climb up 8 or 10 feet and the mosquitos are gone for quite a while. I can see the hay, very high now, we venture into it rarely. Last time it was up to my shoulders in places. The pond is thick with water lilies, with patches of open water here and there, but small ones. Tonight there're no peepers, an occasional chuck or call of the bull frog, and mostly the strident ones, or trillers, I haven't discovered their name. The beech leaves are a very deep purple brown, papery to touch, and slightly concave as though to carry a little water. There are 1 inch patches of lichen on the trunk. On the way out I discover a vine is working its way up a stick into the lower branches: divided leaflets. Wisteria. (really). Where I usually sit the Virginia Creeper has formed a little forest with a canopy and, underneath, the wild basil here and there. The grass, cleavers, bedstraw, goldenrod and golden alexander surmount it. The grasses are moving through their flowering and setting seed, some of the heads have separated, some show anthers and will release a cloud of pollen if brushed. I've been contentedly sitting with the huge old dictionary and learning grass vocabulary before I go on identifying them: lemma. caespitate. obtuse. terete. awn. branching distally at nodes. viscid. distichous.

Great documentary

This is a really good documentary, both visually pleasing and an excellent overview of some questions and answers facing our local farms. 48 minutes, well worth it.

Farms for the Future

Tick

This shows a tick hanging on the end of a blade of grass. My camera isn't terribly good at close-ups. A little later s/he was crawling up my shirt.

Other than that, 2 interesting sitings: an electric blue dragon fly, and a six-leaved Virginia Creeper, right in front of me.

Cardamine Impatiens

Plant X has a name: Cardamine impatiens. aka Narrowleaf Bittercress. It's cruciferous and a Brassica and it tastes pretty good, with a slight mustard tang. It's the auricles that give it away, little bits of extra leaf stem that stick out and partially surround the main stem.

The snake pictured in the last post has dots behind its head. A red-bellied snake. Storeria occipitomaculata. Now I know what a keeled scale is.

I'm distracted from my sit spot by the lower field, it's got all sorts of things going on and the dog loves it down there.


(Click to enlarge images)