COREOPSIS ARE BLOOMING EVERYWHERE

FIELD OF COREOPSIS AND AN OLD  TRUCK AND WAGON...

...AN OLD HAY WAGON IN THE FIELD OF COREOPSIS...

COREOPSIS FLOWER

Friday,  8:30 AM.  62 degrees F (seldom that the ferry dock and back porch readings are the same).  Wind SW, mostly calm with occasional gusts.  The sky is mostly cloudy, the humidity is 85% and the barometer is heading downward from its current 29.87".  According to the barometer projections, July 4th and 5th (Saturday and Sunday) should be nice.
   Daughter Eva and granddaughter Katy arrived yesterday evening from Denver and will be visiting a week, and there is lot to do; fireworks everywhere, the Madeline Island parade, a big PowWow at the Rez Friday night, Saturday afternoon and evening, and Sunday afternoon.
   Buddy has tonsillitis again, probably brought on by the irritation caused by chewing up his bed blanket and swallowing the shreds.  It cost a hundred bucks for a vet visit and medications yesterday.  No more blankets in his crate!  I don't know if he is worth the trouble he gets into, but then again I don't know if I am, either.

   Tickseed, AKA lance-leavedf coreopsis, Coreopsis lanceolata, in the Sunflower Family (Compositae) is a common early-summer blooming perennial wildflower endemic to Wisconsin, Michigan, and southern Ontario, and occurring generally throughout eastern North America and in the western mountains.   Its  ribbon-like leaves and bright golden blooms identify it easily.  The rather unsavory common name tickseed refers to the stick-tight seeds that  cling tennaceously to clothing when ripe.  Coreopsis is easily distinguished from the coneflowers and black-eyed Susans, which have dark brown to black central  disks.

   Many of our dry, sandy fields and roadsides are now gloriously adorned with these bright golden-yellow flowers.  The field with the abandoned agricultural equipment pictured above is on County Hwy. J, which winds through the orchard country outside of Bayfield.
   Note: the Freckman Herbarium of the University of Wisconsin Stevens Point considers this plant mostly a garden escapee in Wisconsin,  except in Door County; so, is it native or not? Take your pick.