SkyWatch Friday: A Rare Day With Sunshine

It's been a very wet October here in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas. Heavy rain is falling as I write. Today's rainfall will bring our monthly total to well over ten inches. Many days filled with mist, fog and/or overcast also occurred. The photo above was taken on one of the recent, rare sunny days. This is the view from our road out -- up to the main county rain and "civilization".

Last January a severe ice storm caused considerable damage to the trees in our area. It was supposedly one of those once-in-a-hundred-years events. It's no exaggeration to say the woods around our place will never look the same within our lifetime. When the trees leafed out in spring, those leaves helped hide some of the damage. Now that the leaves are falling, the full extent of the damage is becoming visible again. At least these trees survived. Many others either snapped or fell over.

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SkyWatch Friday: A Rare Day With Sunshine

Christmas Eve Deer

While not reindeer, I did see these two does on Christmas Eve.

(Note: There's enough firewood in that fallen tree behind them to get us through the winter and then some. Too bad I don't have any way to get it out of the woods.)

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Christmas Eve Deer

Today's Flowers: Beach False Foxglove (Agalinis fasciculata)

                                                                                                  9/05/08 (By Jo)

Beach False Foxglove (Agalinis fasciculata)

 

On this shortest day of the year -- and one of the coldest too,-- I thought it would be warming to flash back to an afternoon in early fall when Jo found, photographed and, later, identified this wildflower growing along our road.  (My only contribution was sneaking over to her side of the computer, borrowing photos, doing a little editing and posting them here.)

►  Status:  An annual herb native to North America.

►  Blooming period:  Mid-summer through mid-fall.

►  Range:  Common in the souther states of the U. S.  Extends up the east coast to Maryland.

►  Habitat:  Prairies, sandy open ground, thickets, woodland edges, fallow fields.

►  Identifying characteristics:  Relatively large flowers -- an inch or so.  Purple spots and pale yellow lines inside the flower tube.

Sources and links:
Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center
Missouri Plants
USDA Plant Profile and Distribution Map

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Today's Flowers: Beach False Foxglove (Agalinis fasciculata)

Fallen Tree

The amazing things isn't that the tree fell. What's amazing is that it was able to stand for as long as it did growing out of about six inches of soil on top of solid rock at the edge of a bluff.

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Fallen Tree

Road Improvements?

We didn’t find a great deal of damage done thus far by our neighbor Jerry Joe and his hired bulldozer. The main project worked on was a little road that leads from our road out to one of Jerry Joe’s pastures. On the one hand, this road was badly washed out and the dozer work did, indeed, make it smoother. On the other hand, this road goes straight down into and straight back up out of a ravine. There’s no way to keep a road that steep and straight from quickly washing out again. Jerry Joe knows that as well as I do. I’m really not sure why he wasted his money.

In the photo, the road down into the ravine goes off to the right. As you can see, the dozer made a fair sized mess making the turn off our road out onto the ravine road. He also made a light pass along our road out all the way from where he was working to the gate. I think this light pass was all about the dozer smoothing its own tracks as it left. Bulldozer track are no fun to drive over, but our road really didn’t need the surface loosened as we head into winter. Notice the exposed red clay? Grumble, grumble, grumble.

Four or five years ago, road improvements conducted by Jerry Joe and the same dozer operator resulted in our not being able to get a vehicle in or out for something like six weeks.  That was a major pain and I'd rather not have a repeat performance.

Road Improvements?

Wednesday Afternoon Walk: Caterpillar

I don't know what kind of construction/destruction my neighbor has in mind. No work has been done yet, but a bulldozer belonging to a local heavy equipment operator was parked alongside the road this afternoon.

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Wednesday Afternoon Walk: Caterpillar

Wednesday Afternoon Walk: Deer

Several does were at the edge of the power line easement when we took our afternoon walk. This location is an often used road crossing point for the deer and can be seen from the house. Rusty checks the window several time per day to see if there are any deer for him to bark at.

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Wednesday Afternoon Walk: Deer

Late Fall or Early Winter?

It's starting to look a lot like winter around here.

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Late Fall or Early Winter?

Fall Color Past

A strong and gusty south wind blew all day Wednesday preceding the arrival of a new cold front. The wind stripped away almost all our colorful leaves. Only the oaks managed to hold onto their brown leaves. Oh, well. All things must pass.

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Fall Color Past

Sunday Walk

Jo and I (and the dogs) usually take our afternoon walk around four o'clock. With the end of Daylight Savings Time, our Sunday walk was actually taken an hour later than Saturday's. There was a dramatic diffenence in the sun's intensity and the length of shadows. The photo above is our road out -- our driveway -- about three quarters of a mile from the house. It is up near the gate, which is normally open, and is our "turn around" point where we reverse course and head back to the house. This is one of the best sections of our road because it's relatively flat and isn't prone to washing out.

Our driveway is technically a county road. It runs through land owned by our closest neighbor. Most of it is wooded, although he's partially cleared a few sections like this one where his horse, Pretty Boy, is grazing.

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Sunday Walk

A Little Miscellaneous

Dogwood leaves and berries.















Turn out the lights; the garden's over.














Our road out ... up near the gate.













The dill was the only plant in the garden not damaged by our light freeze.






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A Little Miscellaneous