I Love Plants

 
Just in case you didn't know it already, I love plants. Plants that are in bloom are a special treat, but I'll take 'em in any old stage.

Here are two more from Loda Lake. First is a pink lady slipper orchid in bud.



Followed by one of the many Galium or bedstraw. They all have rather insignificant white flowers later in the summer. I have trouble remembering which is which without my book. This one has six leaves in most of the whorls, and it was completely smooth. That leads me to the conclusion that it is fragrant bedstraw, Galium triflorum.



Did you know that one of my ridiculous personal goals is to be able to recognize any wild plant in the northeastern US in any season? Quite possibly impossible, but I might as well aim high. I really need to work on those Galium. I think there are two of them that I really know without the book.

Now lets come home to my flower gardens. They are pretty pathetic. Lousy soil, neglect, no budget for improvement. Pretty much the plan is that whatever agrees to live gets to stay!

Here is fleeceflower. It was a freebie a number of years ago. Not particularly exciting, but still living.



The blue behind it is Ajuga or bugleweed. It's pretty much a ground cover staple. This was bronze Ajuga when I got it, which means the leaves were purpleish-brown. It's pretty much reverted to regular. Quite successful... I have to rip a bunch out each year or it will crowd everything out.



Here's the biggest shocker of the bunch. I paid real money for this Japanese painted fern about 20 years ago. Most everything I paid money for is dead or so small it's hard to find. This should be. They are supposed to be fussy and want a particular kind of environment and blah, blah. I don't think it should be happy where it is. But every year, there it is again! Works for me.



The good news is that I have the entire front flower bed by the house weeded. Incidentally, all bets are off when it comes to knowing all the garden plants available. There are simply too many varieties of ornamentals for me to learn them all.

	See Michigan's Common Orchid
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Another Gorgeous Day!

 
Worked at the paper in the morning, and then out doing cases this afternoon. I could whine that I didn't have time to do one single thing in my flower beds, but why bother? Look what I got to see instead!

This is 3 1/2 Mile Road. It seems to be growing a collection of new summer homes, but so far has retained its character.



I was hoping to bring you some beauty in ordinary things, but most of those photos didn't have good focus. I did manage to get the sun through a new beech leaf.


How about a close-up of a wood anemone blossom?



While I was focused right there a fly came and settled right in the flower! I'm no entomologist. I have a request in to Bugguide.net to learn what kind it is.



My favorite picture of the day, despite the stupid wires, is this late afternoon light on the roadside trees. I turned around and went back to get this picture.



Back to work in the morning, but it's no hard task at all to find beautiful things in plain sight!

	See A Collection of Lovely Spots
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A Collection of Lovely Spots

 
I was out doing cases all day long, and visited many beautiful sites! No particular theme to them all except that I like them.

This is the Pentwater Channel marker from the north. Lake Michigan was looking really nice today.



This is my favorite picture of the day. Lake Michigan through shadbush. This was high on a dune in a private development. I love getting to see places that are off limits to "unofficial" people.



On any day I go south there is a crossing of the Pere Marquette River. This one is at Hawley Road. I thought I was going to link to a picture of the same spot in winter, but either I never took one, or just didn't use it on the blog.



Here's one of my favorite roads, near Hamilton Road where I was last week. This is Oxtail Drive. It's only a snowmobile trail in winter, but I like to travel it in the summer (if we haven't had a week of rain). Roads leading off it include Ox Path, Ox End, and Oxeye. All surround Oxbow Lake.



And here we are at Oxbow Lake.



It was a gorgeous day! I have no complaints about driving around in it for hours.

I'm still working on reports, so I'd better get back to work!

	See On Hamilton Road
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Practically Perfect in Every Way

 
Ester is already home now, but before she had to leave we packed the day to the max. And after a slow start the weather turned out to be drop-dead gorgeous.

First we went to Loda Lake Wildflower Sanctuary in White Cloud. It's about an hour away and I will write about it for this month's newspaper column. I arranged for a tour for us from the Loda Lake Garden Club president. She was able to point out some of the plants that I might have missed.



This is the only Wildflower Sanctuary in the entire National Forest system. It is 77 acres which used to be private. Here's Loda Lake, itself.



I last had a tour of the area in 2012, and the link below shows you some pictures from that trip. This time, we did not see some of the special plants we saw that time, but did see others. Of course, to really see wildflowers, you have to keep going back to the same area over and over. A one-day excursion is nice, but it's a complete crap shoot as to what might be blooming.

Some of my pictures are good, some not so much. So today you'll get to see one common flower, but I finally got a good picture. This is starflower, Trientalis borealis.



And one that isn't so common. This has been planted as part of a prairie restoration they are working on. The land was donated by a family who had a farm and summer home on the property in the early 1900s. The area around the old barn foundations is open and perfect for starting a small prairie area. This is prairie smoke, Geum triflorium.


Dogs are allowed on leash, so Jade got to walk with us too. We spent about two hours exploring and taking tons of pictures. Maybe I'll feature a few more another day.

After that, we got some lunch and then treated ourselves to Jones Ice Cream in Baldwin. I had lemon custard, and Ester had black cherry. Outstanding!



When we got back here she left so she'd make it home before dark. So I spent some time weeding my flower beds.

Wonderful day! Tomorrow, it's back to work.

	See Some Special Plants from Loda Lake
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Play Day!

 
It's Ester who is here!

We didn't do anything very special today. It was pretty cold to play outside.



We took Omer and went out to eat.



Other than that, we fooled around a lot. What can I say? We just had a lot of fun being together.

We do have actual plans for tomorrow.

	See Ester and Joan
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