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Borrego Springs, CA

Sunday, June 23, 2013

A Sunday pot-pourri

It was raining once again as I awoke this morning.  Seems to do that a lot on my days off.  The bright side of staying inside the rig most of the day is that I haven’t had to pluck any ticks off of my body!  I guess there’s always a silver lining to every cloud.

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                                                                            Blue Flag Iris

Tonight’s photos are from the trip yesterday to check out the Breeding Bird Survey route.  Last Thursday, Janice the volunteer coordinator gave me a cloth sack full of field guides that she had put together for each RV volunteer to use.  I certainly had time today to use them, so I can actually identify the wildflowers in this post. Smile  What a great idea that is.  I wish other refuges thought to do the same thing.

White Admiral

                                                                   White Admiral Butterfly

When I take Emma for her first outs in the morning, I hook her up to her tie out and then dig the bird feeders out from the basement bin.  As I stood up with the feeders in hand, a small fox popped out of the wet tall grass not 20 feet from me.  As Muffy commented on yesterday’s post, perhaps it was coming to control the woodchuck population.  Either that or it wanted a quick breakfast of one of the numerous 13 lined ground squirrels.  A little movement by me, and it sped off back through the grasses.  It was a nice sighting to start the day.

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                                                      Tufted Loosestrife

This afternoon, I finally got one of the mosquito traps that Merikay sent me put together.  I don’t keep a supply of yeast on hand in the motorhome, and I kept forgetting to pick some up when I was in town.  It’s a mixture of water, brown sugar and yeast that you put in the bottle to attract and trap those nasty little things.  The recipe called for 1 gram of yeast.  I had bought one of those Red Star three pack yeast things.  Turned out each packet contains 7 grams.  Okay, so how much is 1 gram?  I had to guestimate, and just added one big pinch to the mixture.  As per the directions, I’ve put the container outside a little ways from where I sit in the evening.  Last night, I wore shorts when I went to bring Emma in, and was brutally attacked in less than two minutes.  So the control is set in this experiment.  I’ll let you know how it works.

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                                                                   Showy Lady’s Slippers

Wildflower wise, this batch of Showy Lady’s Slippers was the best find of the day on yesterday’s excursion.  They have just begun to bloom.  This is the official state flower of Minnesota, and is the largest and most impressive of the orchids found in the state.

73 Tamarac NWR, 20132

They are just downright beautiful!  It’s worth putting up with the ticks, and mosquitoes, and deer flies just to see these blooms.

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The last thing I’m throwing into the mix tonight is a website that my son, Daniel, sent me.  He thought you readers might enjoy it.  I agree.  If you have time, check out the rather short you-tube video on this                rainforest moth cocoon.

I think it’s about 4-5 minutes.

Thanks for stopping by… talk to you later,  Judy

24 comments:

  1. The Showy Lady's Slipper orchid is indeed beautiful. We have them here too. In fact we just went to see them last week. There were only about 30% of them in bloom at the time.

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  2. Wow. I got to see beautiful Lady Slipper orchids AND a beautiful cocoon...no wait...maybe it wasn't a cocoon. Darn. Maybe I'm not getting smarter every day. I will go watch that again.... :)

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  3. Wow. I got to see beautiful Lady Slipper orchids AND a beautiful cocoon...no wait...maybe it wasn't a cocoon. Darn. Maybe I'm not getting smarter every day. I will go watch that again.... :)

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  4. I am reading a book right now that you might enjoy...One Square Inch Of Silence by Gordon Hempton. It is more about noise contamination over the NPS but lots of reference to birds...how they are being affected by noise. "In Europe, where natural quiet no longer exist. Entire populations of birds are adapting their songs to be heard above the din of noise pollution. It is all so interesting to me...thought you might like it.

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  5. I agree those Lady Slippers are the most beautiful of wild flowers. I really am curious if the mosquito trap will work. I sure hope it does. I will need to make one with 55 gallon barrels,as we have so many mosquitoes this summer.

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  6. The video on cocoons in the Amazon is really fascinating to me. Please thank your son for the clip - the camera work was awesome.

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  7. Your camera work is amazing...the orchids are perfect!
    We saw lots and lots of the blue flag iris in the La Sal Mountains.

    Hope merikays sweeter getter works...

    Hugs to Emma!

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  8. Love the Lady Slippers - so pretty. I need to find out more about that mosquito trap and how to put one together. I could certainly use one. Those pesky bugs make it impossible to enjoy being outdoors.

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  9. Beautiful lady slippers ... waiting to hear about the results of your skeeter experiment.

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  10. In your part of the woods they are called Showy Lady's Slippers and here they are known as Lady's Slipper of the Queen. They are beautiful.

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  11. Lovely photographs! We tried that mosquito trap..it did not work for us..we used white sugar..maybe that made a difference. They seem to adore my husband..he eats bananas and I do not:)

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  12. Beautiful! I, too, am anxious for the results of the mosquito trap experiment. Those little buggers just love me!

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  13. Oh those lady slipper pictures are sooo beautiful. I agree, I would put up with lots of bugs to see that many in one place. Love that the fox has staked out the ghogs hopefully. I couldn't watch the video on my current signal but I'll check back when I get outside of Boston surely it will be strong enough there. Like mother like son????

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  14. I am anxiously awaiting your mosquito experiment results!

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  15. Beautiful header photo.

    The moth cocoon is so cool.

    Good luck with the experiment.

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  16. I agree. . .discomfort is okay just to have the privilege of photographing those fabulous lady slippers in their natural setting. . .just fabulous!

    Janice
    ReadyToGoFullTimeRVing Blog
    FaceBook.com/ReadyToGoFullTimeRVing

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  17. Judy & Emma ... I just had to write and thank you for this blog. I live and travel full time (for the last 3 years) with my husband (Mr Wonderful). We are originally from Pennsylvania. We pretty much cover the country, but have found ourselves spending more and more time far west of the Mississippi. I will not be getting any closer this summer, and after spending the entire winter and spring in the Tucson area I was longing for green, green things. We are in Taos now, and that is a bit better ... but the bright, springtime green I needed was only to be seen in your photos. It was great medicine ... Thanks! I check your site every day, by the way. Give Emma a good scratch for me.

    Carol S

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  18. Boy, I think we are ALL waiting for the results of the mosquito experiment! I always thought that an "attractant" object/machine/light, etc.---for wasps, ants, etc. would attract MORE bugs to wherever you've hung the repellent so they would still be a problem passing you as they make their way to it. :-) Can't wait to hear!

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  19. Awesome Showy Lady Slippers, all the flowers are just beautiful. Thank you son for the video I really enjoyed it.
    Hope the mosquito thing works. I have some really bad bites from noseeomes that I got when I went camping.

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  20. Although we just LOVE our Thermacell ($20 at Walmart, it REALLY works!) this would be a little cheaper and more 'natural'. Hope it works.
    Have to agree with everybody; beautiful, beautiful 'slippers'!

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  21. Nice flow through ventilation on that cocoon. I guess when you live in the hot rain forest, you need every breeze you can get.

    Too bad Merikay's skeeter trap didn't work. Maybe it's designed to just work on Californian pests? ;c)

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  22. Those lady slippers are gorgeous... if a person believed in fairies and such those flowers would just have to be there. I'd never seen that tufted loosestrife before... see that it's in the primrose family and not closely related to the dreaded purple loosestrife.... I love reading other's blogs... sure learn a lot!

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  23. Beautiful pic of the lady slippers. I will be very interested to know how the mosquito test goes. That was a cool video what an interesting chrysalis

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