A Sea of Color

               

                We are so enjoying our yard. It seems like everyday it gets more beautiful.

Lazy Sunday

Today we went to a book release signing party. The much awaited, Birds of Hocking County, Ohio was written by a colleagues/friends and we were excited to support their endeavor. We then came home to get the pups out for their nightly exercise and played in the yard.  You can most likely find us in the yard anytime the weather is decent and we are free.

Field Outing

Took the family to Battelle Darby Metro Park today to see the work Andrew has done in the past 15 + years in restoring former farm fields to native prairie. The prairie was in peak and full bloom and we had an enjoyable day visiting the nature center and going to dinner at Ann and Tony's Italian Restaurant followed by a trip to Rita's Ice when we got back in town.

Common milkweed

Queen Anne's Lace

Purple Coneflower, Gray-headed Coneflower

James with a "flight" of ice from Rita's Italian ice.

A Yard Work Kind of Day

Prepping for company and detailing the yard.  It was a beautiful day to be out and our gardens look the best they ever have in the 18 years that we've lived here

.

Fridays Off

Yay I have Friday's off during the summer.  Spend the morning at Darby walking the trail and looking at the work Andrew has been doing over the past couple years in the park.  Prairie flowers were starting to bloom and it was a nice morning.

Pearl King

One of my favorite places, located in Madison County, OH

Today on the edge of a storm front.

Combining Forbs

I asked Andrew for a narrative on these photos last night. He said-"we're just combining for forbs".  I told him a needed a descriptive narrative.  Twenty minutes later after I wrote the following. he said, "well I guess it's not just combining for forbs is it"?

Combining forbs (wildflowers) at Pearle King Savanna with a 1973 Gleaner combine that was bought used and has paid itself off numerous time with the forbs that have been picked with it. Jack M. (RIP) and Gordon M. started picking seed at PK in the 80's and used that seed to start parts of the prairie restoration effort at Darby. As the plots at Darby got larger, the resource management team and a variety of volunteers including Inniswood and Jack's family picked seed from those plots over the years which has further expanded the prairies so there was enough seed to bring it back to Pearle King in 2007. That year Tommy S. and Andrew planted a 6 acre buffer around the original savanna remanent. The process has now come full circle as last month James J. and Andrew harvested forbs from plants that may have been part of the original remanent savanna that helped started it all. The forb seeds will be dried and used to expand the Darby Plains prairies even more. At one time the prairies covered most of Madison County and provided habitat for a wide range of wildlife. Come out to the prairies at Darby and see the bison, the savannah sparrow, bobolinks, and even for the first time this year the sand hill cranes have stopped by in the Kulhwein wet prairie. You never know what you are going to see. It's just beautiful.

 Forbs

Seed drying area

The Darby Wetlands

A perfect day yesterday for an outing to the Darby wetlands in Madison County. DH wanted to check on the prairie grass that he planted last season and also the burr oak trees to be sure the deer hadn't rubbed them.  I love clouds and the ones yesterday were spectacular; as were the fall colors which were at their peak.

 A field of prairie grass

 Woolly worms everywhere-gonna be a cold winter!

 The burr oaks are wrapped in the orange deer guards. One tree was lost to deer out of the 25 or so planted

 poison ivy berries

 dove feather

 beautiful fall color

 the waterfowl area

puff ball spewing spores

Summer Yard

Our yard looks better this year than it ever has. Fifteen years in the making we've finally got the landscaping the way we envisioned it back when we bought the house. Also this year a much awaited addition was the appearance of Royal Catch Fly- Andrew planted some seeds several years ago and we had pretty much forgotten about them.  We also added a memorial garden for our departed rabbit friends,  a tiny yellow rose bush that my aunt Patty started off of a cutting from my grandma's yellow rose bush, and a mister, feeder and bird bath for hummingbirds. The rain this year has really helped things along. We've had a variety of birds visiting both baths and our feeders. We also have squirrels, chipmunks, opossums, raccoons, and a pair of red shouldered hawks who stopped by one afternoon while they were house and of course Pip and her various suitors.

 

.