A Phone Gallery Full of Beauty

Sometimes I look through my camera gallery and am totally wowed that the world is this beautiful and all we have to do to witness it all is plant a native plant or hike in a prairie or walk down the road or open a window. I want to take you into our world for a moment. Is this your world too?

Elm Argid Sawfly larvae eating the leaf of an American Elm:

Gray Hairstreak butterfly nectaring on Rattlesnake Master:

Saddleback caterpillars dining on Patchouli. This is a houseplant we put on the porch for the summer and we learned saddlebacks eat many different kinds of plants including many ornamentals. I became aware of their presence by picking off dead leaves and getting stung. ha! It's not the worst sting I've ever had by any measure and we were so excited they hosted right on the porch. Our first couple of finds were years ago on beech tree trunks. 

Wetland vegetation at Ohio Bird Sanctuary. Add in knowledge of the beaver dam and you have a positively swoon worthy environment.

A sunny reservoir where we swam and soaked up the rays this summer and early fall, but also...

witnessed White-rumped Sandpipers co-mingling with a flock of Killdeer. Look at those last few sentences...astonishing! Wondrous! Jim McCormac's book, Birds of Ohio, is such a delightful reference for tidbits of natural history like this. Spending time during migration at big bodies of water offers a big sky and a big beach...both offering views of nonhuman (& human) beings living their lives. 

The beauty of prairie eliciting smiles, always. I'm glad to scroll my camera gallery and see smiles on our faces. Kamama Praire, Ohio: 

A shelter made from grass seeds and silk. Who might live here? How exquisite. 

Wavy-lined Emerald. That green! How we love that green. Host plants: aster, coneflower, goldenrod, ragweed and more. Resting on oak.

There were DOZENS of Tawny-edged Skippers on Blue Mistflower a few weeks ago in Highland County, OH. It was totally enchanting and also interesting to note their host plant are grasses. Native and non-native. 

Pennsylvania Leatherwings on Goldenrod. There were HUNDREDS. How important must these plants be to them?

We adore people working so hard to support other lives. This prairie patch is not only gorgeous, but was hopping with bumble bees in a place without many other wildflowers. The purple martins flew overhead in great numbers thanks to a carefully cared for nesting system provided for them. Biking to get here made it even better. Human powered.

Reminders of who lived before. Past, present and future are always comingled. We find relentless learning and observation to be the way of understanding and forward thinking & motion. 

This Figwort (always a favorite!) grows in a low spot roadside. Other plants tell the story of a fairly intact native plant community; one that is exciting and that should be respected and encouraged. The for sale sign and access driveway tell the tale of another way. Which will it be? At this point in time, humans get to decide. And to decide well, we must know. We must observe. We must learn. We must appreciate lives other than our own.

Choosing co-habitation with nonhuman life at our house, we live in a mixture of inside and outside, frequently with open windows and open doors. How else can we hear the whole world? Camping is a natural extension of our everyday life, but simpler. This time is precious to us; in fact it's probably quite likely essential given how we feel while doing so and for a time afterward. 

The hikes in big, big, big open spaces are different than much of our homeland, but they renew us and continue to become more crucial for renewal.

Sheyenne National Grassland: 

Badlands in North Dakota:

Red Velvet Ant (actually a wasp!) in all her magnificence.

Lichens making soil. 

Cactus seeds preparing to make more cacti.

Hope in people. Hope in non-profits. How grateful we are for you!

Hoary Vervain:

One moment I don't have a picture for, but that remains in the gallery of my mind is the unseen, but yipping coyote. I sat in my chair in Morrow County, OH watching the sky for diurnal migrating raptors and monarchs (with much success) and all of a sudden, about 20' away near a huge brush pile (hidden by tall native plants) came one series of yips. Only one series, but unmistakable. The smile spread huge on my face then and appears even now as I write. Steve and I share space with so many lives, with as much of the real world as can live here and I still cannot believe how many said yes to our invitation. Coyotes don't live long around here due to misinformed people, but she or he was there, right near me. I know they knew I was there and what they said I do not know. Maybe just a friendly hello because they know how very much they mean to me. 

What a gift to pay attention....and to feel LOVE.

Soundtracks:

Greta Van Fleet: Age of Man

Hozier: Take Me to Church

Vince Staples: Cotton

Bebe Stockwell & Wesley Schultz: Ant Farm

Kevin Morby: Badlands

Videos to wow you:

Bird Migration

Caterpillars (password: Milkweed)

Our YouTube Channel:

The Common Milkweed

Honoring Who We Love

This is a hard post to write about loss, sorrow, grave concern and action, but it's also about love. The spirits of our friends. Our endless hope in goodness, choices and not looking away. A plea for putting it all back together again. We have choices, us humans. We can do good work in the world. We can atone for taking what wasn't ours.

Our front sidewalk is framed by this intrepid trumpet creeper vine who keeps growing, growing, growing. Slowly, steadily. Like the people that live in this house. Earth people who can't wait to meet many, many, many more of them. This is you or could be you. 

The dogbane leaf beetle on their host plant, dogbane, delights us every time we pass by them. We always stop and watch. "WOW. Magnificent! Bejeweled!" These are words that come from our mouths because we don't know how else to express our wonder, other than share it. 

What about these magnificent beetles, soldier and red-brown long-horned, on wild quinine? They matter too. It's not just the lost ones. We must remember this. It's also those still here. Still present. Resilient in this season. Resilient because the resources they need to survive are here on this little 3.5 acre patch of land. A tiny piece, but a mighty piece...wildscaped, diverse and lush.

What happened? In short, we had April in May and May in June and June in March. The Growing Degree Days accumulated so fast so early in our neck of the woods that insects emerged, flowers emerged, LIFE emerged after an extremely cold winter and after emergence - more freezes, frosts, cold rains, below average temperatures. A recipe for death of these early awakeners that were just on time with the Growing Degree Days.

Horn-faced mason bees:

These weather patterns kicked the bums of bumble bees. Metallic sweat bees. Tiger swallowtails. SO many insects. Redbud flowers and seeds. American plum flowers and seeds. A. persimmon flowers and seeds.

I could list those affected all day, but know this happened. Know it matters. Know it matters more than we even know and that is why I write it here. We MUST act now.

Let's appreciate the bumble bees that survived their spring nesting in a cold forest so they didn't emerge as soon. Let's also appreciate the raccoon or skunk or bear that dug up the nest for sustenance and that offered us a glimpse of the bumbles' important, fascinating lives that deserve much more attention than we give them.

Abnormal years happen. Absolutely. But abnormal is becoming normal. 3 years in a row now.  The consequences are accumulating. So FEW people even notice, but we see it on native plant forums: 'anyone else not seeing insects?' 'painfully slow insect season.' I bring up the topic and the response is always, "we are seeing insects!" And then we go and look if it's a public space and it's a couple of bees. A couple of butterflies: 1 fritillary. 1 hairstreak. 1 skipper. 4 little wood satyrs. In June. This is not ok. This is not to be looked away from. 

This Kentucky coffeetree froze and leafed out 3x. We touch them as we walk by and encourage them with our words. They are much bigger now in July, but we remember. We know what happened. 

The warm at the wrong time followed by relentless below average temps dimmed our spirits as it took the lives of our nonhuman friends. How could it not? When you are someone that pays attention and have known this land since 2010 and know what we should be seeing, how could it not?

The girl that is part insect, part frog:

The boy that is part tree:

Let's admire a few insects we saw in June and recognize our bee friends, our wasp friends, our butterfly friends are increasing every single day with this heat. Resiliency due to habitat: food, water, shelter, space....what we all need to survive. We wonder about the farm field spraying (for human food) that just occurred though? How will this affect them?

Gold-Spotted Ghost Moth!:

Datana sp:

Common Lytrosis:

Giant Eucosma on host plant Cup Plant:

IO Moth:

Squash Vine Borer on Common Milkweed:

The fireflies have had a wonderful season! Most species emerge later and this was hugely beneficial this year. Their sparkles, their flashes, their light...each night we watch and each night we can't believe these sparkly lights are real. Fireflies living their own lives. Doing their own thing. Maybe acknowledging us, maybe not, but most importantly they find what they need to survive here. Moisture. Dark skies. No outside lights. Slugs. Snails. No pesticides on this land. (However, what about the adjacent farm field spraying on July 6, 2026?) One another. Isn't that beautiful to think about? Part of their survival is one another. We like thinking about that. A lot.

We also lost our dear human friend Tim - a generous, insightful, ever helpful, inspiring human we met while working for Little River Wetlands Project in 2009. The four of us pictured below paddled through the Graham McCulloch Ditch in an act of hope and love for the beginning of the Eagle Marsh Restoration and an acknowledgement of the human channelized and altered Little River that was part of draining the magnificent wildlife haven: The Great Marsh. This was quite an adventure for the 4 of us as we dragged our boats through the unanticipated thick spatterdock. Isn't that always the way adventures are the most exciting? If you want to meet the water/meet a place...paddle or walk it or move through it however your body can. You will come to know it and it will forever after be in your pores. We like thinking about that too. A little bit of Tim is in all of us. 

LtoR: Paul (one of the founders of the Little River Wetlands Project), Steve, Tim, Jennifer at our house in Morrow County, OH.

LtoR: Paul, Tim, Savannah, Jennifer, Steve backpacking along the Manistee River, MI. 

Admiring trees as usual, Steve and Tim, (Savannah):

 

How about a walk and a chat? Tim, Savannah and Jennifer:

How about more chatting, but this time around a smoky campfire? Seems like Old Pine fits right here.

Friends. Dear friends. Nature nuts. 

And so to this dear man, whom most of you never met, but some of you most certainly did, we say thank you for offering your beautiful spirit to the world. For offering your friendship to us. For hiking and feeling all the feels of this exquisite planet. You are forever in our spirits and our hearts. 

Mike, Rachel, Paul, Jim, Tony, Jennifer, Tim; Little River Ramblers at the beginning of the Eagle Marsh restoration, IN.

Thanks also Tim, for your service and that most joyful smile that lit up everywhere you were. We still hear your giant laugh...a laugh that couldn't do anything else but make us laugh too. We love you and miss you SO DEARLY.

Our life paths joined for that brief moment and it changed everything.

Perhaps by sharing, with you dear readers, our challenge, our suffering, the Earth's challenge, the bees' suffering, our friend's life, you can know you are not alone. We all suffer. We all love. I'm not sure exactly what we have other than our lives and how we live them and so we best get on living and loving. One another. The planet. Nonhuman lives. Everything. 

Music for Wounded Hearts:

This one is for you Tim:

Ocie Elliott - Like A River

The Golden Hour - Little Mazarn

Linda James - Nicholas Jamerson

A very important perspective on how we might help the planet:

https://darkmountainproject.substack.com/p/thaw?r=uhsi