7/31/10 OUTSMARTING THE WASPS

LOOKS LIKE RAIN
THE "WASPINATOR"
THE REAL DEAL IN FOREGROUND, THE FAKE IN BACKGROUND

Saturday, 8:00 AM. 67 degrees, wind W, light. The channel is calm, the sky overcast with dark rain clouds. .5” of rain fell last night and the barometer predicts more.
In years past we were often bothered by wasps and yellow jackets buzzing around our porch table (we eat outside almost every meal in the summer). Sometimes one would fly inside an open soda can, posing a pretty serious threat to the drinker.
Two years ago I found a paper wasp nest in the woods (they are abandoned by fall) and having heard that wasps are territorial and will stay away from each other’s nests, I put it on the table. It worked! We haven’t been bothered much since. But, since time takes its toll on everything, it has gotten pretty ragged and I haven’t come across another.
Enter the “Waspinator,” an artificial wasp’s nest that mimics the real thing. It is, however, rather ugly. I followed the instructions and hung one up on the porch and another on the downstairs patio, and we are very much interested in their effectiveness. I don’t think it looks much like a wasp’s nest, but then I am not a wasp, and I know from using goose decoys that what I consider to be a realistic goose is not necessarily what the geese think.
Anyway, the Waspinator is the product of a “proud Canadian company,”
but of course it is “fabric en Chine,” like everything else. The Chinese workers probably laugh themselves sick over this product, bought by crazy Americans. Visit www.Waspinator.com for more info, and I’ll let you know how well it outsmarts the wasps, after a fair trial.

7/30/10 "NOTHING SO PLEASING TO THE EYE..."

MIXED MESSAGE
YELLOW ALFALFA
IN LAWNS
YELLOW ALFALFA FLOWERS

Friday, 7:15 AM. 65 degrees, wind W, calm. The sky is somewhat overcast, it is hazy in the east and the barometer predicts rain, a mixed message for the day.
There is a prevalent yellow lawn and roadside weed in our region that I have assumed is an escaped agricultural legume, possibly a Trefoil, and let it go at that, but there is a lot of interest in it because it is so invasive in lawns. My friend Howard, a good plantsman in his own right, has called it Linaria, “butter and eggs.” I didn’t think it that, so have spent some time chasing it down, and I identify it as yellow alfalfa, or yellow Lucerne, Medicago falcata, which is a nitrogen fixing legume in the bean family. Actually one can make a good esthetic case for colorful, weedy lawns, although that goes against hundreds, perhaps thousands of years of our cultural history, for as Francis Bacon said in 16th Century England, “there is nothing more pleasing to the eye than green grass, closely shorn.

7/29/10 BITTER BERRIES

HIGHBUSH CRANBERRIES
ANOTHER FINE DAY
HIGHBUSH CRANBERRY
Thursday, 8:30 AM. 70 degrees, wind WNW, very light. The sky is cloudless with some haze over the lake, the channel is calm, and the barometer predicts sunshine.
The highbush cranberries (not cranberries at all), Viburnum acerifolium, are ripening fast. They are quite bitter and I wouldn’t find them edible, although the birds do, late in the winter. This and other Viburnums are attractive landscape and wildlife shrubs. In European herbal medicine the bark is used as a nervine, for cramps and spasms. Native Americans used it in much the same way, and the Ojibwa used the dried bark in kinnikinic, a smoking mixture (Moreman, “Native American Etnobotany”).

7/28/10 TALL SHIPS

YESTERDAY EVENING'S STORM
TWO TALL SHIPS AT CITY DOCK
CROWDS OF VISITORS
SPIDERWEBS OF RIGGING

Wednesday, 8:00 AM. 66 degrees, wind W, light. The area had torrential rains yesterday evening, but there is only .5” in our gage. The barometer predicts more rain. The skies are cloudless and the atmosphere comfortable.
Two more tall ships have arrived in Bayfield, these the real thing. Huge, twin-masted, many-sailed behemoths right out of Moby Dick or Mutiny on the Bounty. One can almost hear Admiral Perry exulting, “We have met the enemy, and they are ours!” The tall ships have drawn crowds of visitors, and are another reminder that Bayfield is on a seacoast.

7/27/10 STORM CLOUDS AND MOUNTAIN ASH BERRIES

GATHERING STORM
MOUNTAIN ASH BERRIES TURNING ORANGE

Tuesday, 7:15 AM. 70 degrees, wind W, dead calm. The channel is calm. The sky is black with rain clouds in the NW, but clearing in the SE. It is humid and feels like rain, which the barometer predicts.
The mountain ash (genus Sorbus) and the true ash (genus Fraxinus) are not even distantly related, mountain ash being in the rose family and true ash in the olive family. However, they both have pinnately compound leaves, therefore the common name, mountain ash. The mountain ash berries are turning orange now, and will be ripe in a week or two.

7/26/10 DIALOG

WILD LETTUCE
FLOWER AND SEED HEADS
PURPLE LOOSTRIFE
LAST NIGHT

Monday, 8:00 AM. 69 degrees, wind WSW, light. The sky is a cloudless cobalt blue but the barometer predicts rain, which we need.
The purple loostrife, Lythrum salicaria, is an escaped garden plant that everyone now recognizes as a serious threat to native wetlands. Fortunately, significant control of this pest is being achieved through the release of a beetle that eats the plant.
Wild lettuce, the genus Lactuca, of which there are about fifty species worldwide, exudes a milky latex when a leaf is pulled from the stem. Do the same with garden leaf lettuce and you will recognize its lineage.
Some garden plants become weeds, but all useful plants originated in the wild. It is a continuing dialog between man and nature.

7/25/10 PIE FOR BREAKFAST

FULL MOON OVER MADELINE ISLAND
WASHBURN HOMECOMING
MUSCLE CARS AND OLD TRUCKS
MEMORY ROAD

Sunday, 8:30 AM. 75 degrees, wind WSW, brisk. The sky is cloudless but hazy and the channel has some rough spots. The barometer predicts mostly sunny skies.
Washburn had its annual Homecoming this weekend, and the little town was filled with visitors and vendors. The biggest attraction for us was the collector car show: street rods, muscle cars and old trucks, and ancient roadsters with rumble seats. It was a trip down memory road.
Andy and Judy went wild blueberry picking in a Madeline Island bog yesterday and came home with a gallon of the luscious beauties. They came to dinner and Judy brought a freshly baked wild blueberry pie, which we had for desert, with ice cream. I shall have pie for breakfast (sans ice cream).

7/24/10 BAYFIELD'S MARITIME CHARACTER

WHAT KIND OF A DAY WILL IT BE?
THE TALL SHIP ROSEMARY
RETIRED COAST GUARD CUTTER SUNDEW

Saturday, 7:00 AM. 66 degrees, wind W, light with gusts. The sky is overcast with black rain clouds and the barometer predicts partly cloudy skies.
The Port of Bafield is displaying its nautical heritage this weekend, thanks to the Duluth Power Squadron holding a rendezvous at the Pavilion. Its members’ boats are tied up at the City Dock, and they brought the retired USCG ship Sundew and the tall ship Rosemary along for good measure. Both ships offer free tours to the public, as the town takes on even more of a maritime character than usual.

7/23/10 A BAYFIELD MYSTERY

EARLY APPLES RIPENING ON AN OLD TREE
LARGE-LEAVED ASTER

Friday, 8:00 AM. 72 degrees, wind SW, light. The sky was overcast and misty earlier but it is rapidly clearing and it will be a nice day. The barometer predicts partly cloudy skies.
We spied a first blossom of the large-leaved Aster, A. macrophyllus, this morning. Soon the woods will be full of their flowers, with their large leaves covering the forest floor in many places. We are seeing ripening of the first of the early apples, mostly on old trees of dubious lineage.
Judy’s Gourmet Garage, on the south edge of town on Hwy 13, suffered a break-in of major proportions a few nights ago. No money was taken, but all the rising dough for the next day’s baking was gone, as well as all the pies in the pastry case. The police are investigating. Meanwhile, Mike at the Seagull Bay Motel a block away reports a large bear has been sleeping in his dumpster during the day. Mystery abounds! Where is the Pink Panther when we need him?

7/22/10 S UMMER GARDEN, SUMMER COYOTES

WILL IT RAIN?
GOLDENROD IN BLOOM
LOOKS BETTER WITH THE WEEDS PULLED
SUMMER GARDEN AND NEW SIGN

Thursday, 7:00 AM. 69 degrees, wind W, calm. The sky is overcast and it looks and feels like rain, which the barometer predicts.
The gardens are now in full summer mode, with day lilies, daisies, phlox, cone flowers and mallows all in bloom. The first goldenrods, this one Canada goldenrod, are blooming along the roadsides. I pulled weeds in the garden for a couple of hours yesterday and it looks a lot better.
A pack of coyotes came to town last night about 10 PM, yipping and howling, and all the neighborhood dogs joined the chorus. It was quite a ruckus for a while.

7/21/10 PERFECTION

A BLUE-SKY DAY
GOAT'S BEARD
GOAT'S BEARD SEED HEAD

Wednesday, 8:00 AM. 69 degrees, wind NW, moderate with stronger gusts. The sky is clear, the channel looks a bit rough, and the barometer predicts sunshine.
I have been impressed for a long time by the appearance of a simple roadside “weed,” the goat’s beard, Tragopogon dubium. It is rather dandelion in appearance, yellow flowered with a round seed head. It is a weed only in the respect that it is not planted for any reason, and I find it not invasive, indeed not very plentiful.
What impresses me is the perfect symmetry of its seed head. It is geometrically and esthetically perfect. It personifies the perfection of nature, and if you please, “and of nature’s God.” In either case, it is worthy of our sincerest admiration.
I have often wondered if anything eats the false Solomon’s seal berries. Bears do, as evidenced by their presence in bear scat deposited on the corner of 9th and Wilson last night.

7/20/10 A PRAIRIE LANDSCAPE AND A THIRSTY BEAR

MORNING HAZE OVER THE ISLANDS
PRAIRIE PLANT LANDSCAPE
FOREST SERVICE OFFICE IN WASHBURN

Tuesday, 7:30 AM. 65 degrees, wind W, calm. It is mostly overcast, there is some haze over the islands and the barometer predicts partly cloudy skies.
The Forest Service office in Washburn is very effectively landscaped with native prairie plants. It is at its height of summer color now with Monarda (pink) and brown eyed Susan, cone flowers and sunflowers (all yellow) in bloom. Phlox and goldenrods will soon follow. Indian grass and bluestems also are in full flower. It will be just as attractive in its fall coloration.
The Larsen camp suffered a bear depredation a few nights ago when their resident bruin got into a food locker and drank a 12-pack of Coke. He didn’t use the pull tabs. The space between his incisor’s, as evidenced by the puncture marks in the cans, is rather impressive.

7/19/10 CATTAILS AND MEADOWSWEET

MEADOWSWEET
CATTAILS
CATTAIL FLOWER

Monday, 8:00 AM. 72 degrees, wind NW, light. The sky is partly cloudy and the barometer predicts the same. It will be a warm day.
Cattails have a rather unusual flower structure, the male flowers being produced above the female, on the same flowering stalk. This is quite evident, particularly before the “cat tail” sets seed. Cattails are in the genus Typha, and are very primitive flowering plants, just a step above the Gymnosperms, or conifers. They are monocots, like grasses, sedges and lilies. T. latifolia (wide leaved) and T. angustifolia (narrow leaved) are both native, that pictured probably being the latter. They may grow together, and often hybridize. There are perhaps ten species of cattails, growing throughout much of the world. These are along Hw 13 near the beach.
Also In bloom at the beach is meadow sweet, Spirea alba. It is a native shrub of wet areas, and is quite nice in flower.

7/18/10 BERRY CITY!

A WET BUT PLEASANT MORNING
LAPINE SWEET CHERRIES
RIPE AT THE SAME TIME
PICKING BLUEBERRIES
BUNCHBERRIES

Sunday, 8:30 AM. Wind W, calm. The sky is overcast and it has been raining lightly. The barometer predicts more rain but it is lightening up somewhat. Lucky and I went to the beach this morning, where it was wet but pleasant.
Call it a hat trick, triple crown, the trifecta or whatever, we have hit the jackpot, berry-wise. Raspberries, blueberries and cherries are all ripe and for sale at the same time in Bayfield’s orchard country, and all are at their peak and delicious! Last year the cherry blossoms froze and we had no cherries. This year it is a bumper crop. The sweet cherries now for sale at Apple Hill Orchard are the variety ‘Lapine’, as the more popular Bing cherry variety does not do well here. The Lapine is not quite as sweet, has a redder color and I think a better flavor. The raspberries will be over soon and the blueberries are just beginning, but for now we are in Berry City.
I’ll throw in a little known wild edible berry for good measure: the bunchberry, or dwarf dogwood, Cornus canadensis, which is now ripe in the woods. The Indians ate it, evidently as a snack food. The plant also has some analgesic properties. The berry tastes rather bland but pleasant, and I like it’s waxy feel in the mouth. But the berries are tiny and have a large seed, so it I find them not worth the effort.

7/17/10 THE CRIMSON KING

CRIMSON KING MAPLES ON SOTH SECOND STREET
CRIMSON KING LEAF
CRIMSON KING MAPLE TREE

Saturday, 7:30 AM. 66 degrees, wind WNW, moderate. The sky is clear with some haze. The barometer predicts rain but it is a very pleasant morning.
Bayfield has many purple-leaved maples, varieties of Acer platanoides, the Norway maple. Most are the variety ‘Crimson King,’ which was introduced after the Second World War. That was a sport of the popular19th century variety “Schwedler’. Both trees are appropriate for Bayfield’s older landscapes and streets. These trees have lost popularity and are not as often planted today, perhaps because their leaf color is deemed “unnatural.” The Norway maple is also considered invasive, although I have not found the varieties so, but I may well be mistaken. Nevertheless, they are a good tree in the right situation and make a nice medium-sized street tree.