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Little alligator trying to ambush the frog. They never got it. Seen 4 baby alligators today.
Woodear mushroom.
I’m not a gamer by any means. But every now and then I play snake on Roki. My cats always enjoy it.
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Wow I’m surprised they were able to eliminate the quaking aspens. I grew some for many years but they like to spread around and I cut out every attempt. So this spring I had them cut down. But these suckers don’t give up and I’m still poisoning every new attempt but I don’t think they’re anywhere close to giving up. I wish I knew their secret. Oh and I hope you’re not sorry with your new saplings. 
The raspberries look yummy. Around here the only wild berry you’ll find is Himilayan blackberries. But they’re good too.
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I caught this little guy hard at work this morning.
This is out front along the street. The Verbascums with the yellow flowers I grow from seedlings each year so the foliage will look better. It and the red flowering plants, Dicliptera suberecta, are very well adapted to getting by in the reflected heat off the street and sidewalk with no or rare irrigation.
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That is cool that you can walk in to work from your home, especially through such open country. Dawn is favorite time of the day.
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It is beautiful country. Sorry, I sure put that wrong! I was actually walking towards my clinic from the parking lot. . It is beautiful though. I drive through similar fields to get there, and there are some great views. I like dawn, too. Thanks.
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Your aspen problem sounds like sassafras for them who wish to clear them. Maybe a combination of less-than-ideal environmental factors prevent mine from taking over. Lousy soil (thick, dense clay) is common throughout my county. Many things that will grow, don’t thrive. There is also a good deal of competition in that spot, particularly from sassafras with the same m.o., daughters of a crazy fertile pin oak, and lots of smaller bushy plants I haven’t identified. Plus all the no woody weeds. They will have to fight to make it.
I need to go out after work today to find more ripe berries. They are like candy.
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Verbascum, or something very like it, grow wild all over around here. They are often taller than me, and not pretty at all. Yours are lovely. Growing from seed looks like it makes a huge difference.
Very nice bee.
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Swamp milkweed-a bit blurry, unfortunately, but it was beautiful. It was near where my wife and kids are camping this week.
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A monarch’s best friend.
How fun for the kids to go camping with mom.
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Something I think I want to try to do, which still realistically means six months to a year out , is create a interior moss filter that’s like 6x6. Basically frame up a stand, or wall mount and then frame up the box. All kinds of designs. Spread the store bought or homemade “ moss milkshake” and let it grow. It does not need actual irrigation lines though you can connect it to your pipes and use a mister. But many just use a bottle and spray it it a few times a day. Repeatedly online resources are saying a 6x6 moss wall can filter the air as much as 175 trees. The plant I work in got shut down for the rest of the day because the other plant that melts down the metal had some kind of small explosion. Was weird. I could not hear it, but felt everything vibrate for like 1 second. No one was hurt. They actually say the way most people get hurt is from leaning on something super hot or a machine cuts something and someone grabs it slicing the hand. The next most common accident is people spilling acid on themselves.
Maybe one day the podcast will have someone on that specializes in green interior spaces lol. Though you can find a lot of them in building science podcasts.
Mosses are really cool but I never actually studied them out a lot. I can only identify like 3-6 Moses and lichens. I can’t tell the difference between any hybrids or subspecies though. When looking at mosses and lichens online it’s crazy how some cost so much. There was some Japanese store that sold like football to larger watermelon size stones with different mosses on them and when side by side you could see bluish green vs yellowish green vs grayish green mosses. Some of them had this slightly bluish green moss that was like $500 for the stone.
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A moss wall sounds super cool.
Although I always wonder about allergies.
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Luckily outside of black mold and typical stuff like poison ivy and some medications I essentially have no allergies. I can stand under a long leaf pine sapling that’s 16 feet tall and shake them making half a bucket worth of pollen fall on me making me yellow and then hike all day with no issue. Some friends can’t even be within half a mile of it or they start sneezing like crazy. I have not heard of too many moss spore allergens though. I’m sure it exists though.
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We have pretty much all clay and rock, with shallow bedrock, so comparable.
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A farm in the sunrise on the way to work. Did you know they are going to get rid of those rolls of hay in favor of the old fashioned, block kinds? Farmers are concerned their cows can’t get a square meal.
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That was terrible, Randy! 
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Here is a video I took in April of 2020, walking out our side door and then heading out around the corner into the back garden where I stop to film a hummer feeding on the long red racemes of Salvia wagneriana and orange flowers of Lobelia aguana across from the pond. April is a good time for the garden here.
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Beautiful garden!
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My husband and I celebrated our anniversary with a little get-away to Grand Rapids, Michigan, and we went to Meijer Gardens. It’s an overwhelming place with many different garden areas, hidden nooks and art everywhere. I can’t imagine the workforce it takes to keep this place in such a state of perfection. We spent most our time in the stunning Japanese Garden. I’ve never been anywhere like it before.
I wish I were a better photographer. At least the subject matter helps a lot. The links above will take you to better photos and a video about the Japanese garden.
A small section of the big lake, from the top of the viewing hill. There is a spiral path up the hill, so you automatically view the garden in all directions as you walk to the top. Brilliant.
Scott admiring the bonzai trees. There were about 20 on display.
Many of the pink granite boulders had poetry or beautiful phrases carved on them. Some were impossible to see well enough to read. They were just there being.
Scott down on one of the tiny docks
The main sculpture garden is focused more on the sculpture than a sculpted landscape. This is one of my favorite pieces in the sculpture garden. I find it an approproiate metaphor for what we do here in the Forum. Of course, it is open to many interpretations, I have in mind that, while we attend to each other, we know each other from distances, make ourselves known to each other as much or as little as we choose solely through written communication, providing only the scantiest idea of ourselves to the group, and that image we control and fail to control in ways that communicate to others in various ways. We can be/be seen as both transparent or vapid at any time by any other reader. We are open to interpretation and interpret each other as well.
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Mark, your garden amazes me every time you share pictures of it. Your skills, vision and hard work shine through. It’s a stunning work of art.
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