Oak-y dokey

It's been downright soggy here and the whole darned yard is basically now a mushroom farm. There are a lot of different small varieties and also these three different huge fungi all on the same tree.

We had carpenter ants on the same huge tripartite oak in early September, and Ryan from SavATree reassured me that it's not necessarily a sign of decay. However, he said to keep an eye on this cleft between two of the trunks. If it gets bigger, we need to worry. (Meanwhile, being me, I guess I'll just worry that it will get bigger.)

Catching up

Summer is for BEING outdoors, not BLOGGING about outdoors. So let us catch up (though it is still almost 80 outside!).

First, before I forget, I looked it up and I'm in gardening zone 7A.

I just ordered some bulbs today, based largely on deer resistance, except for the irresistible tulips:

This was just yesterday, at Reeves-Reed Arboretum nearby. It is small, but lovely, even this late in the year.

Black-capped chickadee, Sept. 17

Sept 17....what the heck? As if I can identify this bird based on this picture? The point is that there are occasionally brownish birds that pass quickly through, I never manage to get a good photo or even a good look, I don't know what they are (and they're not even all the same kind), and it drives me crazy. Sigh.

I don't know what this flowering shrub is - it was here when we moved in. We didn't even realize it would bloom! It was at its peak around Aug. 23, and just gorgeous. Wish I could identify it!

Look at the size of this fungus! This was Sept. 3

This just shows that there was a branch that the tree removal people broke on the live tree, and didn't notice, and now it has brown leaves, obvi. I was going to follow up and ask them to remove it and I, uh, didn't.