Seeded Earth

I found a new area for hiking west of Madison and I am thrilled with my new tramping grounds. There is a rolling long field, overgrown with wild things, and currently covered with yellow rocket in full bloom. I know the plant is considered an invasive pest, but it was a rather pretty sight nonetheless.

On either side of the open land are woodlands, mostly Maple, Ash, White Oak, though quite a few Elm, and a large stand of Shagbark Hickories. The trees are just greening, as evidenced by these photos of their unfurling leaves.

This White Oak grows in eastern and central North America, 100 feet, sometimes up to 150 feet tall. This is one enormous, mind-boggling tree.

I love the unfurling of the Shagbark Hickory leaves. Take a close look at the marvelous structure of the tree and her leaves at this stage. The hickory is my favorite tree - the bark is a spactacular show of evolutionary wit. After the tree has matured-30 to 40 years-the bark begins to peel off in shaggy, curly strips. This presents a sharply angled obstacle course for the squirrels who come to feast and ’squirrel’ away the acorn nuts.

And here is a leaf from a younger ash tree, just beginning to open-looks quite like a leafy green rosebud

I recognized dozens of different wildflowers, many in bloom - I probably saw a thousand Jack in the Pulpits. I’ve never seen so many in one place before, plus there was a carpet of Hepatica (Bloodroot) dropping down and across a large ravine, though not yet in bloom, and seas of Mayapples, their little umbrellas now fully extended. I’ll put the photos of the flowers in the next post. But now, I may just go take another short hike before the weather cools.

These sweet tulips pop out of the ground near my front door every May, but I have no recollection of planting tulip bulbs there nor do I have any idea what kind of tulips they might be.

They are only about 6 inches high and the tulip bloom itself is only about 1 inch in diameter. I love how the orange is fringed with the green. They are a dynamite garden addition in a rather small package.

A visit to the local garden center this weekend provided me with a two hour photo shoot. I pretty much emptied my wallet to do some replacement purchasing for foundation plantings for my home - six bushes and a European Filbert Tree that I was told was native to Wisconsin. (Go figure!) It looks like a giant corkscrew.  So, as a result of my contribution to their economy, I felt it only right and proper that I get some photo subjects out of the deal.

The colors were wonderful wherever I looked. And after I became completely color blinded by at least a thousand kinds of flowers, I went over to the flower pots. I wasn’t disappointed there, either.

Even got a self-portrait in this photo, but you have to look carefully - or blow the photo to poster size.

There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.

Albert Einstein

This is the first really nice weekend for purchasing nursery stock. The garden center has only been open a few minutes. In another hour, there will be people crowding in the aisles and no parking places in the lot for the cars.

Annuals are on sale, though anyone buying them to plant now is still taking their chances with the weather. The big weekend for planting annuals seems to be the long Memorial Day weekend. The average latest frost date in Madison is May 15th, so that gives you a week of extra cushion.

Tables and tables full of perennials are offered, alphabetically, starting with Table A - achillea, anemone, artemesia. . . all the way to Table XYZ . . . yarrow, zizia.

Trees are readily available - in buckets or balled and burlapped. Even in wooden displays for a fancier price.

Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday; visit Green Thumb Sunday for more information.

The favorite violet in the Wisconsin Violet Contest was the tried and trusty, true blue violet - the Common Blue Violet. The final tally was:

Common Blue Violet (lawn-infesting, jelly ingredient) - 10

Confederate Violet (mutant soldier) - 5

Sweet White Violet (perfumed gymnast) - 5

Downy Blue Violet (whiskery butterfly) - 2

And the winner of the drawing for the two prizes was determined by using a random number generator on the Internet. I am constantly amazed at the things I find on the Internet, courtesy of the wisdom and direction of my computer-generation children!

Comment 18 was chosen by Mac (and some random random program) and the comment reads:

Without question (the Confederate violet) is the most brilliant. Meanwhile, I’m so shocked that violets are wild in your part of the world. How amazing is that? To be as common as a dandelion? Wow, that would make for a much more prettier yard then grows in the west. I had to move onto twenty acres to get wildflowers in my yard!

and it was written by aullori!

And that is super nice, because aullori is a frequent visitor to Seeded Earth and has a super wonderful blog of her own, Random Musings, where she posts about the natural wonders of her home state, Washington. And if you love birds, you have got to visit, for her birding photos are great enough to have been borrowed from Audubon, but they truly are her very own.

So congratulations. aullori gets her choice of either a baseball cap or canvas tote emblazoned with the logo from Madison’s world famous Farmers’ Market. Rah rah rah!  And also an 8 x 10 photograph from Seeded Earth Photography - her choice. I’ll be in touch PDQ.

Thanks to the over 100 visitors that checked out the violet post and to each of the 22 of you who left a comment. We can all do this again, next time.

Bo

HeyJules posted a weathervane on her blog The Way I See It a few days ago and her photo reminded me of this weathervane which flies high atop one of the barns at the University of Wisconsin’s agricultural complex in downtown Madison. (Except her photo was of a horse vane, and quite a lot smaller.)

I’m not really sure why the name James is on the vane - perhaps it really is the name of the cow, or more likely the name of a farm family.

Addition to the post: I decided I had better check to see if I could find out why this cow was named James. And I did find out. Seems there was a company called the James Co. out of Fort Atkinson, WI that made large weather vanes in a variety of animal shapes around the 1900s. I found quite a few examples through antique dealers’ sites: several rooster vanes - these all seem to have been used for target practice and have bullet holes in them - and another cow vane. One dealer recently sold a James weathervane for $1300, so evidently they are collector’s items.

If you want to learn some pretty awesome information about weather vanes in general, including why 18th Century vanes required a king’s permission, and what a 9th Century papal decree decreed about vanes, this short article on these silhouettes in the sky will tell all.

I am not posting this because it is a good photograph, but because it is the Oscar Mayer Weinermobile. How many of you have seen this big guy up close? I’ve always thought it might be fun to ride way up there, surveying Madison from the top of a hot dog, but this is as close as I’ve gotten. I occasionally see the hot dog car cruising the streets of Madison - Madison, WI is the home of Oscar Mayer.

The Weinermobile was the brainchild of Oscar Mayer’s nephew, Carl G. Mayer, and first made its appearance driving the streets of Chicago in 1936. The sixth generation of Weinermobiles was built in 2004 and are equipped with voice activated GPS, an audio system with a wireless microphone and a horn that the Oscar Mayer Theme Song in 21 genres, from Cajun to Bossa Nova, Classical to Rap. It also has a ceiling painted sky blue with floating, fluffy clouds. There are currently 6 of these Weinermobiles in existence, and they travel the US from coast to coast 365 days a year.

Drivers of the Wienermobiles often hand out Wienerwhistles, little toy replicas of the Wienermobile that double as whistles. I, as a proud mother of 3, have probably collected a dozen or so of these screech-y things over the years. I wonder how much monetary value is attached to a 25 year old Weinerwhistle?

If you want to see a video of the very newest Weinermobile, ABC News covered the big story Weinermobile Goes Mini Cooper in March of this year. It takes a moment to pop the story, but its fun to see the new mini-weiner. (though you’ll have to spend 30 seconds watching a coffee commercial before the featured film - sorry)