Little Critters

I've never gotten a picture of one of these butterflies before. This is the American Lady, Vanessa virginiensis. It's on the moss phlox in my rock garden. At the link below there is a Painted Lady, Vanessa cardui, also enjoying the rock garden. The Red Admiral is also a Vanessa, Vanessa atalanta. I just learned that the White Admiral is not in the same genus! Huh. It is in the same family, but not that close a relative. Common names are so problematic!

I'm still fighting the bees- I'd love to have them except not in the house. But I caught one with its pollen baskets full, so that is fun.

And, no pic, but I looked up from my chair this morning to find a squirrel staring in the door at me. I'm glad the door was shut. Last year, a chipmunk kept coming under the flexible screen and running in the house. Not sure I care to have a squirrel doing that!

And I saw my first Monarch butterfly of the year this week, too.

Did the usual stuff, and went shopping, and did errands. Went to four garden centers. I bought one plant. You'll see it soon. Found another one I would like, but they wanted $20 for it. We'll see. I have to think about that.

More weeding, more discovered casualties. C'est la vie.

See A Couple of Critters

Caught Mr. White

Completely filled the afternoon with back to back activities. Went to hike in the School Forest and Methodist Church trails. Then I spent about an hour with Betty. Then there was bell practice.

Best picture from the hike? I got a pretty good one of a white squirrel. We have a fairly good size population of them here, but it's still hard to catch a picture. You can clearly tell in this shot that it's not albino (eyes are black, not pink). It's a color morph of the gray squirrel, and it's a recessive gene, so once you get a population, if both parents are white ones, they will only have white babies.

Some websites are calling this a variation of leucistic coloration. Anyway, they are nifty. I would think this coloring would make them more susceptable to predation, but, as I said, we have a good local population.

Did my regular work in the morning.

I hoped to hike 3 miles, but I didn't feel like walking that fast, and it was sort of raining. Anyway, I got in 2.8.

Miles hiked in 2025: 459.9

Ludington School Forest and Methodist Church Trails, various. 2.8 miles

See True Blue Gumby II

Caught Some Critters

Ludington School Forest has lots of squirrels. In fact, I'll bet if I checked back, most of the squirrel pictures I have taken are from there. Gray squirrels, anyway. And gray squirrels include black and white squirrels which are color morphs. They are all pretty jumpy, and hard to catch a picture of while you are walking fast through crunchy leaves. No chance to sneak up on one.

Today I caught a gray one...

...and a black one.

Oddly enough, the trees are not turning colors very much in the School Forest. This is the same tree (from a different angle) I showed you weeks ago, the one that turns red early every year. There is some yellow and a lot of the leaves have come down, but not much color.

I stole this idea from someone else. I didn't work very hard at it... like to find more leaves of the same kind. Long after I took the first picture, I found an orange maple leaf that was even bigger. If I had held on to the leaves until the end of the walk, I could have had 5 in that stack. But what I wanted to do was hike 3 miles in the hour before bell choir, so I needed to keep moving.

Did I succeed? Not quite. I ended up with 56 minutes to hike and made it 2.8 miles. So, I probably could have done those other two tenths in the four minutes. (A 20-minute mile is one-tenth in two minutes, so I am not fudging the pace.)

Got a lot done today on projects and editing in the morning. Finished the mowing in the afternoon, then bought screws, walked, and went to bell choir. That filled the day!

Fall just keeps being glorious! I will have more pictures for another day.

Miles hiked in 2025: 413.2

Ludington School Forest, miscellaneous trails, 2.8 miles

See Pepper and Salt

Saugerties Lighthouse

  There are 8 remaining lighthouses along the Hudson River. More than 24 were built from 1826 to 1921, coinciding with the rise in night use of passenger steamboats. This is Saugerties Lighthouse, built in 1869 to replace an earlier light at this location from 1835.

This is looking down the Hudson River toward New York. I'm not sure I've ever taken a hike before where you had to check the tide table before setting out. The Hudson River is actually a tidal estuary, affected by the tides as far north as Albany. At the trailhead to this short walk, the tide table is posted with the days and times that the trail is underwater!

There are two items of note here. First is the bouy with something on top. It's an osprey nest. If you look closely, you'll see a baby's head.

Squint even harder, and you'll see a bridge just to the right of center. That's the Kingston-Rhinecliff Bridge that Marie and I walked across in March 2023.

I learned a new plant, but it's a bad one. This is Water Chestnut, Trapa natans. It was brought to the US in 1884 by a plant collector. Of course it escaped into the Hudson River. It forms large mats that clog waterways. Animals do eat the large seed pods.

This is a fun plant, but I haven't seen it for a while. It's Dodder, Cuscuta sp., a parasitic plant that looks like someone draped orange silly string over other plants. It has to tap into the vasuclar system of another plant for nourishment. It will sometimes bloom, and I have pictures of that from back when my pix were 35mm.

Also, we saw what appeared to be an ordinary squirrel. However, on closer inspection it appears to have been crosed with a lemur. Just kidding, but I don't think I've ever seen one with stripes on its legs like this.

In other news: We sent for our FLT 50 and FLT Branch Trail patches. We bought paint. If it ever stops raining (not constant, but enough to keep things wet), we have a DIY project to do.

The reason I'm blogging late is that one of Ed and Marie's very shy kitties (two rescue cats) decided to sit on my lap for a long time. Previously, (like for several years previously) she has not even let me touch her. The other cat won't let anyone touch him. I mean, when a shy cat parks on your lap, you just can't get up and blog.

Miles hiked so far in 2024: 351.1.

Trail to Saugerties (NY) Lighthouse and back, 1 mile

See Sort of a Foodie Day

A Random Visitor

  This is not my favorite visitor, but I guess it's better than the red squirrels. This is a fox squirrel. S/he has been running across the deck rail all month. No good pictures. The only advantage to a fox squirrel is it's not trying to get into the house like the red squirrels did.

Lousy picture, but I am trying to stay focused on work today, not pictures

I am having to go through the campsites list yet again and change some format because I need to cut down the total number of pages. Just full-out panic mode now. Back to work. Tomorrow, I have to get ready for the Muskegon Lakeshore Art Fair on the weekend. I'll have some time for the book, but not all day. I am not at the goal I was shooting for.

Hey, I just discovered the sky is really pretty right now, so that's quality!

See Just Hangin' Out

Pepper and Salt

 Yes, I usually say it in this order. It's because we read left to right, and so left is pepper and right is salt. This is the way I remember that left is port and right is starboard on a boat. Now you have a glimpse of how my convoluted brain works.

Remember those cute little pepper and salt sets of black and white Scottie dogs? I have a cute little set for you today. Here is pepper.

Here is salt. Note that the eye is black.

This is not albino, but simply a white gray squirrel. The black ones are black gray squirrels. This is why I like to use capitals for animal names- it makes more sense when you see black Gray Squirrel, right? However, the mucky-mucks say that we should not use capitals unless there is a proper name involved, like Canada goose or Nuttal oak.

Now I'm questioning whether the squirrels I saw in 2021 are albino. Their eyes look sort of red in the pictures, but it's hard to be sure. We are getting a significant number of white squirrels in the area.

This was in Ludington School Forest. I walked 2.4 miles there before bell choir practice. The project is moving along, but I'm not sharing more just yet.

Total miles hiked in 2024: 82.4 of which 7.7 is North Country Trail.

Ludington School Forest. Various trails. 2.4 miles

See Albino Twins SeeYour Next Hint

Cleveland/Bradley County Greenway

 Lin and I went for a walk this morning before it started raining. Cleveland, TN, is quite a large city, and they have a greenway that runs pretty much the entire length with some branches.

The trail follows Mouse Creek for a long way. It's the wrong season for really pretty pictures, but this one isn't too bad.

Every kind of trail has advantages. As much as I loved yesterday's hilly, natural walk, today we could walk fast and cover some ground. We did a total of four miles.

There were also some interesting trees and shrubs planted. I'll save some for another day, but here's another of the Mahonia bushes. This is the one which is sometimes called Oregon-grape or holly-leaved barberry. It's Berberis aquifolium, which basically means it's a barberry with holly-like leaves. duh. Maybe I'll catch on and remember this one the next time I see it. It's not the same species as was at the Dallas Arboretum, but I did see this one in Alabama once before.

I tried to get a picture of a mockingbird, but he didn't want to pose. However, this squirrel just sat up and said, "Take my picture."

The best wildlife sighting of the day was out Lin's back door. They've seen sandhill cranes fly over, but never had them land before. They stayed long enough to really watch them a while.

Joe made yummy potato leek soup for dinner, and then we got out a puzzle. I'll show you more about that tomorrow.

Cleveland/Bradley County Greenway, Cleveland, TN. Mohawk Drive to Keith St. and back. 4 miles

See Lin and Joe

Gray and Black for Christmas?

I went for a walk today before bell practice in the Ludington School Forest, and then along some streets. The gray squirrels were not wearing little Christmas sweaters, but I suppose they can be forgiven.

He was playing with his cousin the black squirrel. These are all the same kind of squirrel, just a different color morph. No sweater on him either!

I decided to do part of the walk on streets to try to find some more nice Christmas decorations. I guess this part of town likes to keep things understated (it's a nice section). Almost everything was confined to subtle wreaths or a string or two of lights. However, I did find one Santa walking his dog. These inflatable decorations are not my favorite, but it's one of the two things of interest I found.

This was the best. There was a line of these stars along a porch edge. I am not sure what these are made of, and they have fewer points, but they are similar to the Polish Porcupine Balls I made a number of years ago.

In other news: I edited, I did a minimal amount on the pantry, I had bell practice, and I did a bit on a Christmas craft for this year. You'll probably get to see that later.

3 miles, Ludington School Forest and streets

See White Polish Porcupine Ball

Little Humid Walk

  I finished some errands a little early for bell choir so I did a short walk in the woods by the Methodist Church. Very humid and weirdly warm for October. Lots of mushrooms! This is some polypore. Nothing special, but it was looking quite handsome.

Best find is another of the purple mushrooms. I'm pretty sure this is Heliotrope Webcap. Blotchy with yellow and really slimy. Cortinarius heliotropicus. Definitely not one of the purple ones I've shown you before. Second guess is Purple Coincap. Of course it seems to be right for some features of each but not all.

Here is the underside. No sign of the "web"- the remnant of the veil, but it may have dropped off.

How about a cute yellow one? I have no idea what this one is. Too many choices.

These mushrooms at the base of a tree are past their prime, but they almost look like flowers.

Got a nice picture of a black squirrel.

And the leaves are starting to change- quite late this year- the sassafras are getting yellow.

Methodist Church trails, Ludington, MI. 2 miles

In other news: I edited all day. I did a few errands and went to bell choir practice. I didn't get to cross off a single item. Big List is still at 73 entries with 28 crossed off, leaving 45 to go in 49 days. Chop, chop!

See Purple Mushrooms

Fox and Gator and Squirrel

  Nifty fox in the woods yesterday that held still for me nicely. I think it's sleeping. I actually like this a lot.

The aligator is probably out of its range, but there is a real aligator refuge in Michigan. I guess those abandoned pet have to live somewhere.

And now for a real wildlife sighting. This is from Tuesday. Not one of the albino squirrels from April 5, this one lives about 6 miles farther north. Since albinism is a recessive trait, once it gets established in an area there will be a significant number of white animals that appear in the population. This is true in the Hamlin area of Mason County. I have to say that not only did this one pose very nicely for me, the camera cooperated and focused on the correct thing. It's interesting that these animals seem to do all right. The bright coloring makes them more susceptible to becoming prey for hawks, maybe bobcats, etc. But we always seem to have a few of them around.

In other news: I stayed home and edited all day. Fried brain. Ok, I also ordered new underwear. Isn't that exciting?

See Albino Twins

Albino Twins

  I had been told there were two albino squirrels in the development where I am painting. Today, they came out to play where I could see them.

Even though they didn't seem to be aware that I was watching, they were very good at keeping their backs to the houses.

These pictures are taken through a patio door, so the focus could be better, but they aren't terrible.

The bright white coloring contrasts with the background, so you can see their feet and positions better.

Bye, bye!

In other news: I painted for almost 5 hours. Other than that, I'm having a tired and hungry day.

See Albino Deer