All Outdoors
It might be taking it too far calling us two peas in a pod. The more I learn, however, the more alike we seem.
Newspaper man Horace Greeley was overly optimistic in his assessment of the outcome of the battle between human and pest. In the mid 1800s, he insisted that “Man is bigger than the potato bug and he will master it.” I hope Horace wasn’t a betting man.
You could blame the devil for spawning this horned plant.
Or you could hold Thomas Jefferson responsible for its appearance on America’s eastern beaches. In 1807, he planted its seeds at Monticello “in an oval bed southeast of the house.” No matter whom you fault, the mellow yellow blooms of the horned poppy are on our beaches to stay.
The hardest conker usually wins.
Methods for hardening your conker include soaking or boiling it in vinegar, baking it or painting it with varnish. Though there are many methods to firm up your conker, none is advised in this column, since doing so is considered cheating. So to be true, one must keep his or her conker pure, hardening it only with age.
Don’t needle me too hard for missing out on this one.
Though I have a sharp eye when it comes to wild edibles, somehow stinging nettles passed me by. As one of the first spring greens, they can be consumed when they first leaf out in early to mid-April. Even at the end of April it is possible to pick this plant, but don’t wait too much longer than that.
My activities last weekend were punctuated with exceptional beauty.
During Felix Neck’s annual bird-a-thon fundraiser this past Saturday, my mission was to find and identify as many birds as possible. Somehow, though, my attention got diverted to other winged wonders.
Butterflies were out in full force, but there were two species in particular that made me pause — as punctuation often does. The insects in question were the comma and question mark butterflies.