Elecampane Seed Head

Elecampane

Inule aunée

(Inula helenium)

[IN-yoo-luh  hel-EE-nee-um]

Run for the Toad - 12.5 k Trail Race

 

Map of the run - note all the contour lines - 

lots of ups and downs

Pinehurst Lake - Colours are just starting to change

Frost on the windshield this morning!

Opening ceremonies for the last Toad Run to happen

12.5 / 25 / 50 km runs today

(Had some video coverage of the children's run but it is not working)

I started at the back of the pack. 

It took a couple of minutes to get to the start line.

Beautiful day for a trail run.

Only a little bit was out in the open.

Most was up and down under tree cover.

The steepest hill was just before the 11 km mark.

Tough climb!

Always nice to have encouragement.

My usual look of exhaustion

at the end of a race.

Wendy, Barb and I after the race.

Some of us had more time to recuperate than others.

Wild Cucumber & Milkweed Seed Pods

Wild Cucumber

Concombre Grimpant

(Echinocystis lobata)

[ak-in-oh-SIS-tiss   low-BAH-tuh]

Common Milkweed
Asclépiade Commune
(Asclepias syriaca)
[ass-KLE-pee-us    seer-ee-AK-uh]

Four Phots from Yesterday . . . . (and what ever happened to September?)

Catching Up

            
            Again, like usual, I need to catch up a bit. Following are a few of the photos that were special for me in the past week or so. 

            During the last week of July, Fleur-Ange and I went on a Dragonfly Walk. In addition to the dragonflies seen, or not seen by me as I seemed to have difficulty picking them out from the background, we saw flowers. The Moth Mullein in the photo below was the tallest that I have ever seen!

            A "normal" Moth Mullein would be about up the waist of the man in the photo instead of being almost twice his height. We were in a river bottom field that was too wet this spring for any crop to be planted so it went to wild flowers.

            Speaking of wild flowers, I had been watching a White Trillium on our property all spring and summer. On July 28th when I went to check on it, the seedpod fell off exposing the seeds. I thought, briefly, about collecting the seeds and trying to plant them in the small forest next to our driveway but the instructions for planting were rather daunting and the seeds would have had to overwinter for one or two years so I was afraid I would not be able to keep track of them. In any case, it took a day or so for me to get back to the plant and by then the seeds and pod were gone so I will just have to watch the area where the original plant was to see if they come up there in a year or two. Below is the photo of the pod with the seeds coming out.

                       Capturing photos of butterflies is always a lucky affair. Below is a Summer Azure that I had the good luck to get.

             Some moths are easier to photograph as a few tend to fly at night and then stop and stay where they land for the daylight hours. Our barn is always a good place to look for moths. Below is a False Crocus Geometer Moth that I have seen many times over the years in our barn and finally have a name to attach to it.