May 15th, 2017

I am home for a fraction of the summer, but at the end of this month I am heading out of state for an internship! It's hard to say how much I will get on here when I'm working full time, but there's lots of natural area around there that I would like to explore and share with my readers.

And now for an assortment of updates...

Last year, I acquired a prickly pear cactus at a native plant giveaway that was happening at school. I re-potted it, but was concerned that perhaps I had done something wrong because of how little it was growing. However, my worries were assuaged by coming home to find this:

It's got the tiniest little cactus pad growing out of the top of it! I'm so happy!

Also, the peonies are blooming, which for me is the surest sign that it's summer.

I did run into a bit of a snag on my way back from school - my pentacle and triquetra ring, which I've been wearing every day since I bought it over a year ago, fell and got irretrievably stuck in the moving van. I must have tried to pry it out for over an hour, but no such luck. To me, that meant that either it was just that ring's time to go, or that it had gotten too overloaded as a protective talisman.

Either way, I knew I needed a new one, but I did not have a lot to spend on a relatively "frivolous" item. I ordered the ring pictured above from New Frescos; I'd never ordered anything from there before, so I was not sure what the quality would be like, but it's a sterling silver piece and it's really nice! I think I overestimated the size just a tad, as it's a bit loose, but that was my own fault.

Otherwise, I've been getting a lot of yard work done, mostly repainting things like the porch railings and trim, so that's been keeping me busy.

Other Happenings

I've seen a few hummingbirds of late, which has been nice.

There's one in this image directly above and to the right of the flower pot, but they mostly look like a greenish blur because of how fast they were moving. This was taken looking out the window at my girlfriend's house. I also saw another while I was at my grandparents'.

Little hummingbirds always help me feel more connected with the universe, and with deity.

You may recall the prickly pear cactus I acquired a few months ago. I meant to re-pot it as soon as I got it home, but due to circumstance, that didn't happen. I did manage to get it into a new pot today, however, and I hope it will be happy there. I don't exactly have a green thumb, but I looked up what they're supposed to need, so I've got my fingers crossed that it will be okay.

Native Plant Giveaway

In other news, I had an exciting opportunity today to get some plants. A group on campus was giving away cuttings and seedlings of native species to help support pollinator populations, and I picked a few up!

On the left are two Purple Coneflower (Echinacea pallida) seedlings, which produce flowers that bees love. They also have a long history of medicinal uses, which can be traced back to First Nations people from this part of the country. On the right is a little prickly pear, which apparently is another native species - I had no idea we had cacti here, but apparently this is part of their range! When I go back home, the Coneflower will go in the garden. The cactus will probably go in a pot, because I'm fairly sure our winters will be too cold for it. Hopefully I can keep them alive for the last three weeks of the semester until I can transfer them out of their little plastic containers.

Also excitingly, my plant biology professor brought in some fossil specimens she and her students had collected at an old coal mine yesterday. These came from the carboniferous forests which were part of this landscape 300 million years ago, and some of them are so well-preserved as to actually still have plant tissue in them. Apparently, they had collected so many fossils that my professor let us keep some of her examples if we wanted. The large fossil in the bottom image has now been added to my collection. I really want to go rock-hunting around here sometime!