Gleanings from June

One fall long ago, after the corn harvest, my Mom, Dad, siblings and I took the tractor and grain trailer out to the field to gather corn.  We walked the rows looking for the bright yellow ears that were missed by the combine, so we could feed them to our four horses throughout the winter.  Not all the ears were in plain sight, so I learned to watch for husks that weren’t pulled back and that were still full and round.  I loved finding a long perfect ear of corn hiding in the stubble!  We worked until my Dad thought we had enough for the winter, then climbed into the wagon on top of the corn and headed home with our gleanings.

I was reminded of this story when I was going through all the pictures I took in the month of June.  I found some that didn’t fit in any particular blog post that I still wanted to share.  So the monthly ‘gleanings’ will be miscellaneous photos that weren’t picked for a post but will still highlight nature’s treasures.

Water was in abundant supply in June with near record rainfalls that kept my birdbath full.  It spurred the growth of many strange and wonderful toadstools.

 We had a couple of visiting creatures–a tree frog and a turtle.

I found a spider with her egg sac on a sedum plant.  When I got close with the camera, she scurried to the other side of the leaf carrying her egg sac.  On the same plant, there was another spider about to lay her eggs and wrap them into a silky sac.

The bumblebees loved the perennial blue salvia.

I think this is a type of Hawkweed, a member of the Sunflower Family.  I like how the flower stalks look like tentacles and how the leaves twist, looking like green barbwire.

And this last picture of a dewy, sunshiny morning when the grass looked like it was frosted, reminded me how very nice it was to finally be in this place called Summer.

Take a look at NorthStarNature Facebook page for additional photos that aren’t posted on my blog!