{"id":647,"date":"2009-12-15T21:01:25","date_gmt":"2009-12-16T03:01:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/?p=647"},"modified":"2010-01-22T12:37:46","modified_gmt":"2010-01-22T18:37:46","slug":"mid-december-afternoon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/?p=647","title":{"rendered":"Mid-December Afternoon"},"content":{"rendered":"

A cold front cleared out the warm moist air of yesterday and gave us a brisk chill wind out of the north and partly-sunny skies.\u00a0\u00a0 So a long walk in the afternoon, producing (as usual) many interesting and beautiful things to see and think about.<\/p>\n

First was a mockingbird’s nest in an osage orange or bois d’arc tree:<\/p>\n

\"winter-nest407\"From farther out in the field, I looked back and saw an unusual cloud formation:<\/p>\n

\"ribbon-candy-sky408\"<\/p>\n

Next, hiding beneath the grass, the promise of bluebonnets next spring:<\/p>\n

\"bluebonnet-promise430\"<\/p>\n

The natural course of the secondary drainage in the near meadow is now mostly grassed in, but there are several arc-shaped “pools” below the #3 gabion.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 One of the most beautiful, this afternoon, was a single clump of brushy bluestem with its seeds forming a plume…ready to disperse and become new colonies of this valuable native grass.<\/p>\n

\"bushy-bluestem410B\"<\/p>\n

Up in the dry woods, on Cactus Flat, the cool-season forbs are spreading well in this wet fall\/winter, including the Texas Cranesbill.\u00a0 In winter, after a sharp freeze such as we had last week, some of its leaves turn brilliant red…the slanting winter sun sets them on fire.<\/p>\n

\"cranesbill-leaves419\"<\/p>\n

The dry woods has an upper level, with older trees and thicker woods–the soil also has a different texture.\u00a0 In moist winters, it can look like a very different kind of woods–cool season grasses and forbs form a lush green carpet and will burst into flower in the spring.\u00a0\u00a0 We don’t go up in this area in summer,\u00a0 because of the rattlesnakes–hard to see them and hard to retreat through the tangles of elbowbush, Mexican buckeye, and leaning\/fallen trees and branches. \u00a0 But it’s beautiful–the only drawback being the highway noise, especially an east or\u00a0 north wind.<\/p>\n

\"upper-dry-woods427\"<\/p>\n

The upper dry woods has many burrows, at least some of which are fox dens.\u00a0 This one has been in and out of use from year to year–right now, there are signs of current use.<\/p>\n

\"burrow429\"<\/p>\n

Finally…aromatic sumac doesn’t look like other sumacs, but it does have beautiful fall color and handsome red berries in summer–berries relished by birds and other wildlife.\u00a0\u00a0 Only a few leaves remained on this particular plant, but when the sun touched them, I could not resist taking a picture.<\/p>\n

\"aromatic-sumac-color435B\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A cold front cleared out the warm moist air of yesterday and gave us a brisk chill wind out of the north and partly-sunny skies.\u00a0\u00a0 So a long walk in the afternoon, producing (as usual) many interesting and beautiful things to see and think about. First was a mockingbird’s nest in an osage orange or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,7,15],"tags":[13,54,32,70,56],"class_list":["post-647","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-photography","category-plantlife","category-sky","tag-beauty","tag-grass","tag-native-plants","tag-photography","tag-seasons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=647"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":747,"href":"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647\/revisions\/747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}