More Fall Finery

These pictures were all taken yesterday. Today was mostly gray and rainy although not nearly as stormy as was predicted. We only had 0.2 inch of rain. I walked around outside a bit, but not really enough to call it a hike.

At the west side of the cemetery a row of Ailanthus (Tree-of-Heaven) is growing in front of the maples. The Ailanthus is invasive and should be removed, but meanwhile it has nice color and texture contrast.

This is the line of trees on the edge of the cemetery. I've shared it a lot because it almost always looks nice in the fall. There are lots of aging sugar maples in the cemetery which usually produce good color.

Not all fall beauty has to have vibrant colors. Sometimes neutral tones are just fine. Here are faded flower heads of New England Aster with the Rabbit Tobacco in front.

I really liked the textural interest of this one! In the front is the fully mature Fall Witch Grass, with a field of asparagus gone to seed behind that.

I had brain fog this morning, but managed to reclaim most of the day. Even wrote in Vacation from DMS a little bit.

See To the Tunnel of Trees

Will Walk for Vegetables

 I've been trying really hard to walk almost every day, but it's hard to motivate myself to do roads. Also, I'm trying not to drive very far. Today's compromise was that I drove part of the way to a friend's house and then walked there and back to the car.

I went for a few tomatoes, but look what I came home with! Tomorrow... soup.

Neva did not want to be in the picture, but here is a tomoato plant. I'm telling you, there are not many smells better than veggies picked fresh from their plants. She wanted me to take more, but I don't want to get more than I can reasonably eat.

She also has a beautiful row of zinneas.

Moving on to local agriculture. Here's an asparagus field gone to seed. Very common here- lots of asparagus farms.

And more on the ever mysterious passtime of identifying wild asters. These are very similar except the white one has smaller flowers than the blue one. Yes, the second one is light blue. The blue of flowers often doesn't register well with a camera.

The white one is probably Small White Aster, formerly Aster vimineus or Aster racemosus, now Symphyotrichum racemosum. The flowers are larger than Calico Aster and the leaves are different. The stems are smooth and dark purple, and the leaves tend to curl downward at the edges. I'm never sure I'll remember all these details. And... so much for my opinion. The Michigan Herbarium does not show that species in Michigan. Possibly Panicled Aster Symphyotrichum lanceolatum although that one does not seem to have purple stems. I guess if I really care, I'll need to go back with a hand lens and take better pics.

Aster ID is fraught with issues. Decided I would leave my thought process as instructive.

Pretty sure this is Bushy Aster Symphyotrichum dumosum. Anyway, it's a pretty shade of light blue.

You know how it goes. I worked in the morning on projects, then walked in the afternoon. My gardens are being watered right now. I'm sure I won't walk as far tomorrow, but today I did 7 miles. Thankfully, there were patches of shade on some of the roads because it was pretty warm. Oh, and I did a load of laundry.

Miles walked in 2024: 418.2

See Bushy Aster