slatsz' wildflower walks 2012 #3: September 14, 2012

50 Minutes. Hot but not impossible. 64 exposures. 17 keepers … not counting a lot of ‘illicit landscaping’ photos from ‘extended’ north-side backyards. I won’t reproduce them here. I’ve put them away for now. There is a large number of shrubs and herbs introduced there.

I drove to the west end of the park to check on the tall sagebrush. Nothing was happening. No change.

I walked over to read the tag on the newly planted tree. It’s a quaking aspen, Populus tremuloides.

I was mostly after exercise. I did want to photograph the south pond bottom for the record.

I made attempts to photograph ‘long rock ridge’ that sort of divides the park. I suppose it’s a second divide, the 2 ponds are also a sense of divide.

I would need a step ladder to get the sense of long rock ridge, and that might not be enough height. No. It is unlikely that I could get the curl in the north end … the whole ridge with the curl in one image.

I decided to attempt a photo of the Asparagus officinalis patch east of north pond. When I went in to get close-ups of the fruit I saw a grass-hopper that seemed to be feeding. I only got one exposure before it leaped away but I was lucky.

I got the photo I wanted of the floor of south pond thick with Xanthium strumarium, cocklebur.

I put some energy into a record of the children’s secret place. I wonder if children hung the swings themselves.

When I took off my shoes I saw the bug on my sock. I put it in a pill bottle to wait for daylight.

The cloth under the bug is what seems to be a tightly woven washcloth so you can see that the bug is quite small.

I walked it down to the river bank and liberated it in some blackberry bushes.