Gathering Haycorns

I think Sigyn and the human female must be part squirrel.  There is something acquisitive in them that compels them to pick up every shiny round haycorn and stuff their pockets with them.  (I suspect the human female stuffs her cheeks with them as well, when no one is looking.)

There is a plentitude of haycorns about–it has been a good year for them.  The actual squirrels are fat and happy.  The human female is also plumping out her sweaters in a way that adds weight (weight–Ehehehe!) to my theory about her secretive munchings.  At any rate, as Sigyn says, “Hooray for oak trees!”

(later)

A number of haycorns seem to have followed us home from the park.  Now it’s time for—Great Frigga’s corset!  What is the human female doing with those things?  Is she making some sort of pauper’s haycorn soup?

Ah.  Sigyn has explained that these haycorns are from water oaks, a species the human female would like to have on the property.  This is apparently the “float test.”  The ones that float have been nibbled internally by bugs and would not sprout.  The ones that sink are still good.  She’ll put them in something damp and tuck them away in the cooling box for a nap and plant them in the spring.  (If she remembers–she has a long and distinguished record of stashing seeds in there and forgetting them entirely.)

Oh, too bad.  A large number of them are floating and there will only be a few to plant.  Human, you have chosen poorly.

However, Sigyn can make excellent use of the remnants.

Mais oui, mon amour, ton petit chapeau est très, très charmant.

>|: [

A Brief Winter Walk

It’s been foggy a lot in this part of Midgard lately. The humans have ventured out on a rare sunny day to see what’s going on in the local woods.

By Idunn’s little apples!  There is a ubiquitous abundance of holly berries this year!

¡ǝlƃuɐp pooƃ ɐ ɹoɟ ʇods ʇɔǝɟɹǝd puɐ ʎɐp ʇɔǝɟɹǝd ɐ s,ʇᴉ ʇɐɥʇ sʞuᴉɥʇ uʎƃᴉS

It’s not just hollies that can be dangled in.

Camphorweed does just as well.  Sigyn is beyond excited–we’ve been here scarcely a quarter of an hour and she’s had the chance to dangle in plants with both her favorite colors!

(poke, poke, poke.)  Not all plants are large enough to climb in, though.  This one is growing right in the middle of the trail, and it’s very, very teeny.

Sigyn has fallen in love with it.   Don’t hug it, Sweetie.  The human female says it can have spiny fruit.

Oooo!   We have found A Mysterious Hole in this creek bank!

I wouldn’t go in, if I were you…  But, human female–you feel free to stick a finger in and tell us if there’s a snake or sharp-toothed rodent or something in there, all right?

We’ve been walking and poking at things for a while now.  Time for a rest.

My sleep number is “moss.”

Clever Sigyn has found a different moss.

Sigyn doesn’t know if this one’s a moss or a liverwort.

All this green stuff looks alike to me.  Possibly one of the human female’s plant-nerd friends could sort them out, but I really don’t care.

We’re headed to the Sedge Meadow.  I like the Sedge Meadow.  It’s all green and dapply.

Sweet Glittering Bifrost!  What’s this?

I had heard the City was Doing Something, but I wasn’t sure what…

But, since I’m a god, barricades and notices don’t apply to me.  Come along, Sigyn.  Leave the puny mortals here obeying all the signs like good little sheep and let’s you and I keep going.

Have fun staring at the signage!  We’re going to go pet sedges.

>|: [

A Very Colorful Fall Walk

The recent local weather (hot cold hot cold rainy sunny cold hot again), while making wardrobe deliberations a maddening ordeal with at best a 50-50 percent chance of success, have had an unexpected effect.  The local flora, famous for not giving a fig for seasonal expectations and remaining green until January, has decided, for once, to oblige Sigyn’s longing for a colored autumn.

We have therefore embarked upon a tour of the yard, the surrounding neighborhood, and the park at the end of the street, in order to take in all the offerings on this bright and sunny afternoon.

crapemyrtle

cedar elm

pecan

woolly bucket or gum bumelia (both ludicrous names)

upland swamp privet (an oxymoron if I ever heard one)

yaupon holly

post oak

aster

winged elm

farkleberry

bitterweed

more asters

more yaupon

ditto (can you tell Sigyn really likes holly?)

greenbriar

a whole galaxy of asters  (Time for a little rest.  Dangling is hard work)

white mulberry

miniature dragon

poison ivy  (Go on, human female, pat the pretty plant!)

more mulberry

copperleaf (Aptly named, I’d say.)

More elmage

honey locust

bald cypress

yet more elms

many shot of a truly splendid farkleberry

blackjack oak

They say some medieval craftsman invented stained glass.  I’m not so sure.

>|: [

A Fall Scramble, Part II: Thar She Blows (Whatever The Heck That Means)

The human female is becoming a bit concerned because she hasn’t seen any of her rare flowers  yet.  I think it is one of those things, though, that you have to see the first one, and then, once your eye is trained, you start to see them everywhere.

Augh!  Now she’s squealing abominably.  I suppose that means she’s spotted some.  Yes, there they are, hiding in the tall grass.

Sigyn says she has learned how to tell the rare ones from the common ones.  The flowers can be the same color on both, but the common ones have wider leaves, and the flowers have almost no stalk at all.  It’s an over-all thickish sort of plant.

The rare ones have very narrow leaves and long flower stalks, so that the whole plant is open and airy, sort of tricky to spot if it’s not in flower.

There are some differences in the flowers, too, but you have to be as big a plant nerd as the human female to understand.  I don’t pretend to, nor do I listen when she rattles on and on about “anther placement” and “calyx sinuses” and “stigma color.”  As  Future Ruler of Midgard, such details are beneath my notice.  I’ll have minions for that.

Odin’s eyepatch! Now that she’s spotted them, the human female now proposes to walk over every inch of the outcrop and count the rare plants.  I don’t know whether to hope that there aren’t very many this year so that this will all be over quickly, or to hope that the rare plant is having a good year, even knowing that it will mean listening to the idiot woman try to remember what comes after “threety-eleven.”

This is, unfortunately, going to involve some clambering.  Sigyn insists on doing it all herself.

But my love, would you not appreciate a magical boost?  Maybe just a little one?

(a bit later)

We have reached the top and completed our survey, having counted about one hundred plants, which makes this a good-ish year, though not a great one.  Now we are free to look about at other members of the flora.

This wafer-ash is also known as hop tree, presumably because of the flat fruits.  (Apparently someone thought it looked like beer-brewing hops and the name stuck.  I don’t see it myself.)

It is very good for dangling, though the foliage is looking rather tattered.  The human female says this tree is a relative of oranges and lemons and, as such, is considered  yummy by the giant swallowtail caterpillar.  Sigyn says she would like to see one of those caterpillars.  However, they are camouflaged to look like bird droppings, and I’ve no real desire to go poking piles of bird poop to see which ones are wiggly and have legs.

But here is a good one for you, love!  (No poop-poking required!)

I actually learned this one because it has such marvelous horns.  It is the larval stage of the pipevine swallowtail.  It ought to be munching on pipevine; I’ve no idea what it thinks it is doing with this greenthread.

There really is a splendid view from up here.  I can see a good portion of the county, though the removal of a few junipers would improve the vista even more.

Sigyn and the human female are still oohing and aahing and speaking in slanty names, enthusing over fall favorites such as this blue sage.

I, on the other hand, propose to divest myself of my hot and heavy (though noble!) helmet and relax on this pat of moss while they fossick about.

Who knows?  I might even doze.  Being magnificent and knowledgeable about caterpillars is hard work. Wake me when it is time to go home.

>|: [

A Fall Scramble, Part I: Here We Are Again

It is Autumn here in the northern part of Midgard–or at least, that’s what the calendar says.  I’ve been tinkering with the weather, alternating hot and cold days so that everyone has the sniffles and no one knows what to wear or what to serve for dinner.  Woolly hat or shorts and flip-flops?  Cool salad or hearty stew!  Ehehehehe!  The mortals are all cOnFUseD and there’s no end to the see-sawing in sight.

But, by the calendar, the rare plant that the human female discovered, and which she keeps an eye on, ought to be blooming.  She’s grabbed her boots and sunscreen and insect repellent and is heading for the outcrop in the next county over where the plant is to be found— if it’s up.  It is one of my warm days, and I could certainly do without being cooped up in the car with the human female for twenty minutes each way, but Sigyn really, really likes “botanizing,” so she is going.  And if Sigyn is going, I am going, because I don’t trust the human female in the field one tiny little bit.  With me along, there’s a much better chance that my sweetie comes home in one smiling piece.

(laterish)

And here we are at what the human female calls, “an outcropping of calcareous Oligocene sandstone of the Oakville formation” and what I call, “a tilty chunk of inconvenient climbiness.”

The first plant to greet us is the very conspicuous, electric blue dayflower.  It’s fairly common in this part of Midgard.  There are even some back at the house.

They look better out here than coming up around the compost heap, though.

The human female is checking to see if the “usual suspect” plants are up where they normally are.  The redwhisker clammy-weed is right where it is every year.  The bright sun is washing out the pale pink of the petals and the bright red of the stamens.

It really is very sticky to the touch.  Sigyn, be careful as you go—I don’t know how well the sticky comes out of red velvet.

Ugh.  It really is uncomfortably warm and bright today.

Here is a plant I don’t recall seeing out here before.  Look at the fat, funny leaves!  The human female says it’s a cousin of the moss roses that people grow in pots.

Step into the voluminous shade the human female is casting, and let us see if we can get a better photo.

Those really are tiny flowers!  Sadly, too small for Sigyn to try on as a hat.

Great Frigga’s hairpins!  If you thought that was a tiny flower, dearest, come look at this one!

“Heliotropium tenellum.”  It just rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it?

This one’s not much bigger.  It’s one of the broomweeds, the human female says, either Gutierrezia texana or Amphichyris dracunculoides.

I’m of the opinion that if she’s going to call herself a botanist, she should KNOW which one it is.  She’s making noises about tiny “pappus” this and “receptacle” that and saying that she needs to look at various bits under a microscope.  Flimsy excuses, woman, and if you need a microscope, you bring it on your various traipse-alongs, because I am not going to tote it for you.  Nor will I waste my magic summoning something you should have thought of in the first place.  Besides, I think you make up all those slanty, sciency names anyhow.

Time for some climbing!  Autumn is definitely the season for yellow daisy-family things, and here is another.  If you can believe the human female, it is part of the whole golden aster mish-mash, and it goes by the improbable name of Heterotheca subaxillaris.   The common name, camphorweed, is much less of a mouthful.

Sigyn, after sniffing its gland-dotted foliage, confirms that it does, in fact, smell a little granny’s-closety.

Stand over there next to that pale purple one, my love.

Look at that!  The flowers are more than a Sigyn long!  If it didn’t have just the one blossom, I would pick it for you and make you the pointiest hat ever!

Norns’ nighties!  Are we really only halfway up?  This hill goes on forever.

>|: [

You Never Know What You’re Going to Find on a Walk

After a few days of heavy thunderstorms, the sun has finally come out.  Sigyn and I, having contracted a near-fatal case of cabin fever, are going for a walk.

Fisi, back off a little, will you?  No one likes hot hyena-breath down the back of their neck.

Sleipnir’s fetlocks!  Where is that brainless carnivore going now?  Fisi!  Come back here!

What have you got in your mouth, you stupid beast?

Oh, no!  Where did you find a kitten?  Don’t look, Sigyn!

Drop it, Fisi!

Bad hyena!  No biscuit!

(poke, poke, poke.)  I’m sorry love.  I… I think the wee little thing has joined his no-doubt valiant ancestors in Kitty Valhalla.

Or maybe not.  I guess the furry morsel was just a little scared!  Give it a good cuddle, my love, and let it toddle off home.  There are too many felines in our house already.

I don’t see any toddling happening.

Only bonding.

Aw, Sigyn, for Frigga’s sake don’t feed it.

Sigh.  I should have known that this was one battle I wasn’t going to win.

>|: [

The Pitter-Patter of a Thousand Tiny Feet

If my aching head is anything to go by, the humans have been having a fun visit with the female’s mother and sister, who were successfully fetched from the Big City to the West.  They’ve done nothing but laugh screech and cackle, talking a thousand miles to the minute, sunup to the wee hours and then repeat.

And eating!  Sleipnir’s fetlocks–the eating!  The human female made bacon rolls and orange sweet rolls; her mother brought a big batch of braised beef and carrots, frozen, along with two long loaves of bread; and they’ve all waddled over to the trough where we had the french toast biscuits.

Today, however, we are trying to accomplish a little peace and quiet and some exercise to offset all the loafing and munching  (and munching on loaves.)  We’ve come out to the local woodland in Lick Creek Park in the hopes of dodging the showers and seeing some blossoms.  It’s been such a cold and rainy spring that there isn’t much in flower.  The birds are singing, though, so that’s something.

Wait!  Sigyn–did you see something move?  Look–right there!  We appear to have stumbled upon some very industrious hymenopterans!

I’ll just magic a video link up there so other people can see, too.

I wonder what they’re going to do with all of that foliaceous confetti?  And I wonder if they could be induced to follow us home and commit snippage on the human female’s landscaping?

>|: [