Rain rain rain

So, I go on vacation for a couple of weeks, with brown Colorado in my rearview mirror, and I come back...and everything is green! It rained. Asters (white and purple), gayfeather, big bluestem, little bluestem, blue grama, all are blooming and perking along as if there never was a problem. Grass is green. However, the trees haven't really recovered.

On a more somber note, I understand that the fungal blight on theaspens may reduce our display this year. We shall see.

Earwig damage to corn

Very icky. In the top one you can see that the anthers have been completely chewed off the top (no pollen no corn!). The other photo shows how the leaves get chewed at one end and sort of wrap into a cocoon that is full of squirming earwigs.

I never really loathed them before, seeing them as harmless detritivores.

Another walk after the droughty park

Since it is now pouring here (!) I will reminisce about the hike up the Boulder Creek Canyon, briefly.

The air was hot and dry (at 7 AM!) on August 2nd, when Chuck and I (and the damn dog Buddy) worked our way up from Eben Fine park to the end of the trail. However, the beneficial proximity of the creek was obvious. If you peered up the hillside on the north of the trail you could see a lot of dried out plants withering away, but along the trail things were flourishing (albeit a tad sedately). I got some shots of living Eriogonum and actually some prickly poppies that had not been chewed up by bugs. Prickly poppies don't often seem to be as chewed on as I have seen them this year, maybe because they have that awful icky sap. Not being a bug, i can't tell if the flavor slows them down or not!

Anyhow, we came back pretty tired from the heat (another scorcher in the 90s!). I look forward to some more temperate weather.

Drought

We took a long walk this morning on the trails above Chatauqua Park. Early in the morning (7:30 AM) it was already hot outside. It was a pretty depressing walk, because everything was pretty crispy crunchy from the drought and heat. Oregon grapes were thin on the plants. Sulfur flower blooms were crisp to the touch. The grass was sere. The prickly pear plants were shriveled with tiny or skinny fruit. Very sad.

As we were walking back down Mesa Trail, we crossed one of the small creeks, which today was pretty much just puddles. There was a loud buzzing in the air, and I thought: "Oh, there are bees!) But as we walked past, I saw that there were thousands of wasps, hovering over the small pools of water in the rocks, and flying all about. Needless to say, we hastened on down the trail.

Tomorrow we walk up Boulder Creek. Hopefully it won't be so sad.

Blooming Asteraceae

While you are wandering around in the fields of flowers, take a look at how composites bloom. Some have blooms that open up, as you expect, and others have their blooms just sort of grow out from the stem. Echinacea, Mexican Hat, Indian Blanket do the growing on the end of the stem bit, Scotch thistle does the bud to bloom thing...Interesting

Vegetable garden and those earwigs

We started a vegetable garden and had severe earwig issues. I will take a photo of what these lovely critters do to corn, so you can understand our frustration. I think this year we will have corn about 3 feet high at best...but it is setting ears, finally.

You don't really expect to have to battle so strenuously when you do home gardening. It is even more difficult when you are trying to do it all without petroleum based pesticides, and organically.

It is really hard sometimes to be PC

Fireblight--Boulder CO

The last three years I have seen a lot of fireblight on the wild plums and chokecherries, although it doesn't seem to affect my (very wormy) ancient apple trees. It did kill a pear tree we had in the back yard about 5 years ago.

Intrusion of the blue jays in Boulder, CO

Much to my surprise this past week, there have been several blue jays (Cyanocitta cristata) hanging around our home. I haven't seen them in Colorado before, although I understand that they sometimes stray this far. I think they have set up nests in our nearby trees, and will be watching to see what happens.