Virginia Creeper: Blood Red
Now there’s a scary name for a plant. The Virginia Creeper. Sounds like something you’d want to stay away from around Halloween, for sure. It’s a native American plant that’s common in wooded areas, and it grows so prolifically that you’d think it would be easy to encourage it to grow in your backyard, but like all wild things, it’s tricky to domesticate. Wildings have a tendency to grow where they darn well choose, living life on their own terms, ignoring humans’ best efforts to pamper them. I’ve tried to lure the Creeper up my trellis, get it to drape...
Read MoreFunkins
Funkins. These are not only artificial pumpkins. They are artificial pumpkins that you can carve. You carve the plastic shell with a knife, and make a face in the plastic side of the plastic pumpkin, and then I suppose you light it with an electric candle. What is our nation coming to when our youth can’t muck around with sharp knives, play with matches, and get slimy with pumpkin guts? No seeds to roast. No sharp smell of smoke as the candle burns the top of the pumpkin lid. No chance to watch the pumpkin slowly decompose during the week after Halloween as the smile turns into a...
Read MoreViper’s Bugloss: Snake in the Grass
This lovely snake is not a viper, far from it–a more harmless and gentle little creature never lived. It’s a grass snake, also known as a green snake, who crossed my path on a hiking trail in New Brunswick, and obligingly posed for photographs before melting into the ferns on the side of the trail. Funny, when I parked the car at the trailhead, I noticed a beautiful blue plant lurking next to the garbage can–viper’s bugloss. A strange name. It’s a Eurasian import, and “Bugloss” has ancient Greek roots meaning ox tongue, which probably refers to the...
Read MoreTis the Season: Halloween
I just love Halloween. I can’t wait till October 31 for the spooky season to begin. I’m starting now. If we have to have a holiday that lasts for weeks and weeks, why can’t it be Halloween? Halloween carols, Halloween cards…but please god no shopping for Halloween presents. I’ve been trying to figure out what there is about Halloween that enthralls me so. I don’t like blood and gore. I don’t like movies about crazed killers wearing hockey masks. I don’t like chainsaw massacres. I like mystery. For me, that’s what Halloween is about. It’s the season of fog. The season of darkness coming...
Read MoreThe Dishevelled Cardinal
Thanks to Diane Hale Smith for this photo of a female cardinal having, as she put it, “a bad feather day.” Look at that beak–built like a nutcracker to crush the hard shells of sunflower seeds. Cardinals love feeders as much as we love watching them. Their bright red plumage seems made for inept birdwatchers like me who can never spot the little brown birds hiding high up in the branches. Cardinals don’t flee the snow and cold, they hang around all winter, brightening up the drabbest months. It’s hard to imagine this tiny morsel of a bird surviving subzero...
Read MoreConnect with Anita
Recent Comments