STAND STILL AND POST

Alexanders flowers.
The sun hasn't yet brought out their scent but hoverflies, bees and wasps are exploring them already.

I doubt it's acceptable to say I'm fed up with green. But I am. I've been enjoying the starkness of winter; all those silhouettes. And although it's quite nice to see the little hawthorn leaf buds opening I'm feeling world weary enough to think 'Oh, them again.'. And for me to say 'Oh, them again' about hawthorn buds shows the depths to which I've sunken. They are beautiful; delicate and bright. But just at the moment, it's 'Oh, them again'. 

Hoverfly (Eristalis tenax) on Alexanders.

For my Stuck Foot Post I stood by Alexanders. People unfamiliar with them have said they'd be interested in knowing more. So I stuck my foot by a row that stretched away into the distance and looked to see what I could see. The plants by my foot were about two-foot high. Some on the other side of the path were much taller. By summer they will be four foot or higher.

There were more than Alexanders. There was fennel and the beginnings of Herb Robert (or one of those other plants whose leaves all look like geraniums except smaller). There were dandelion leaves and an open daisy. But apart from the daisy, everything was green. A mass of leaf by leaf, stem by stem green in a long, long, long, long, glossy green row. So I went with it and excluding all others, stuck to Alexanders for this post. If you can't beat it, join it. And having joined it, it's quite pretty really.

Alexanders Rust (Puccinia smyrnii) on a leaf.
Sometimes it looks disgusting.
Sometimes, as here, it looks interesting enough to become attractive in its own right.

Have you Stuck Your Foot somewhere recently? Stood for a moment without moving except for a slight sway or twist?

The stripy stems of Alexanders are so beautiful they make even me-in-a-bad-mood smile.

If you'd like to share a Stuck Foot Post - do add it to the box.

And if I can get myself to phone someone to fetch my laptop and mend it maybe I'll not feel so 'Oh, them again'y. But I'm currently stuck on that too. My laptop works sometimes. It's working now. At others it doesn't. But there's something special about the connection between an individual and his or her computer so I miss it while it's gone. And I keep postponing that call. I can borrow a friend's. But to use another's is as if I'm intruding on someone's heart.

Logic will reassert. When there's something more than green - when the blackthorn's in flower here as it is in other places . . . when white gives a break from incessant green (along with those occasional and irritatingly brash splashes of daffodil yellow and the cheeky primrose yellow of . .  of . . . of primroses) maybe then I'll look more kindly on green. (Oh, what a grump!)

Meanwhile, how about Sticking Your Foot somewhere and staying there long enough to see what you can see without moving? . . .  And share your post in the link box below?

The box will be open from 7am on March 21st and stay open till 7pm on the 25th (UK time).

If you'ld like to know more about Stuck Foot Posts and the dates for Stuck Foot Link Boxes

there's a

Page for Stuck Footers

P.S. Those who've been reading Loose and Leafy over time will have noticed I get struck down by a bout of anti-green-ness every spring and that every spring I get over it too.

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LOOKING UNDER THE ALEXANDERS

There will be a Stuck Foot Post Tomorrow. It will open at 7am and stay open till 7pm on 25th March. Do join me in 'Sticking Your Foot' in one place and, without moving, see what you can see.

I went to two places. One comes along with the box. But I'm going to spread the others over a series of 'Wordless' posts.

They were all taken from the same spot on a narrow path on a crumbling cliff that runs down through blackberry bushes, small trees and reeds to the sea. Further along, there's a badger sett. Hence its name - 'The Badger Path'.

All pictures in the series were all taken on 19th March 2015.
This is Number 2 - Looking Under the Alexanders.
Number 1 is Red Leafy on the Badger Path

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AS I WENT OUT ONE FROSTY MORNING

Until I lived near the sea in Dorset I'd never heard of Alexanders. For a long time I didn't know what they were. I still have a problem with their name; a singular that sounds like a plural. Sheep are the same. How many are there? Is it a flock or a one?

When it comes to Alexanders it's definitely a flock. No. That's rash. It's flock after flock after flock along the hedgerow - and in summer their flowers smell sweet. At least, to me they do. Some people don't like the smell. It's dog poo baking in the sun beside them that I dislike. I wish I could remember not to take a deep breath when I come over the hill and see the sea!

In summer they come up to my shoulders. Some will grow taller than my head. At the moment they are about one foot high.

We don't have many frosts here. We hardly ever get snow. But when there are frosts (two or three a winter - and one of them was when I went out on the morning of 23rd January) the poor old Alexanders get zapped. They flop. It doesn't seem to matter. I don't know how many, if any, die. Or how many spring up to replace them. But on that Friday morning they looked very frost-pretty. Flopped and un-flopped. The ones with a fungal infection called 'Alexanders Rust' (the little yellow blobs) just as much as those without.

Then the sun came up further. The mist cleared. The frost began to melt. Soon it was gone - leaving the leaves wet and shiny.

Would you like to see the bench - the bench where I sit and think?

This is it.

Nearly always there's a view - but that morning there was a mist over the sea; and the sun coming up got muddled in with it and it was . . . dramatic?

(I posted the bench picture on my other blog - Message in a Milk Bottle - as soon as I arrived home so apologies if you've seen it before.)

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'It Depends on the Background' - a very short Loose and Leafy post from May 2013 with a photograph of Alexanders in flower.

Recipe for Alexanders Chutney - Wild Food Guide to the Edible Plants of Britain. (I don't like chutney so I've not tried the recipe. You might be interested in the site even if you don't either.

IT DEPENDS ON THE BACKGROUND

Alexanders (Smyrnium olusatrum) and Gorse. May 2nd 2013 

What we see depends on what is there. Obvious.

What takes our attention depends on our interest. Clearly.

Some things we delight in as we walk. Like the yellow of gorse or the blueness of sky.

Alexanders (Smyrnium olusatrum) and Blackthorn -May 2nd 2013 

Or the whiteness of blackthorn blossom.

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HERE COME THE CREATURES

As usual, I go out for one thing and come back with another.

This time, I went to look at the sea and came back with pictures of creatures.

Do I know anything about creatures? No! So, here are some mysteries.

The first is this little fly on an alexanders flower.

January 31st 2013
Phil at The Cabinet of Curiosities suggests this may be  a dung fly
Scatophaga stercoraria

If I had taken a picture of its back as well as its face, I might have been able to have it IDed. But I didn't. None the less, I am charmed. Indeed, I am so charmed I have set it as my laptop background and I sit here gazing inanely into its eyes (oh, fly! what big eyes you've got!) and admiring its poise, the frog-like angles of its legs. If ever one were able to fall in love with a fly, I have fallen in love with this one.

The alexanders (Smyrnium olusatrum) are zooming up. Most years, they do this, then they get zapped by frost and go all droopy. So far, though, so good. Not that it matters. Even if they do get zapped, they recover - and there are millions of them! I've not counted so maybe it's merely thousands. 'Lots' doesn't cover it.

They seem to be popular for sitting on. Here's another fly on an alexanders leaf. This one a little bigger.

January 31st 2013

See the round, yellow dent? This is caused by Alexanders Rust (Puccinia smyrnii). For ages, I didn't realise it is a rust and would, each year, poke around looking for insect eggs. Nothing to do with insect eggs. (I'd hoped for butterflies, ah well.) Rusts are a kind of powdery fungus (do not quote me, this is very unscientific language but, unless you are scientist, I think this is a good way to describe it). It counts as 'parasitic' because it harms the plant but it doesn't kill it. This rust, though, does make the leaves look pretty ugly when it gets a hold.

Next distraction was that a trench had been dug into the narrow path I use to make my way between brambles and buddleia.

January 31st 2013

The ground is soft from rain, though not muddy, and some animal has made a huge groove leading to a hole in the bank. It runs for several yards and includes a right turn into what appears to be a dead end part of the way along. But what has done this? Dogs sometimes scrabble around holes but they don't make a massive pathway. I don't know what a fox hole looks like but the BBC Nature Site suggests the area round it smells strongly - and this doesn't. So I'm left with badger. A badger would easily be big enough to do all this digging - and they like grand entrances to their setts. But is the hole big enough? And would a badger do this to a path regularly walked down by lots of humans? It may not be Oxford Street but it's rare one doesn't meet someone here.

Then to the beach.

I had planned to photograph seaweeds but was quickly diverted to footprints. And here's the next mystery. (Only a mystery to me. If any bird people read this, I'm sure they'll easily be able to put me out of my mysteryness.)

Two kinds of bird tracks dominated - similar except some were about two inches across and some only an inch and a half.

January 31st 2013

Some footprints are indented with clear indications of a web.

The two crisp holes in the sand beside the track print interest me too. Any ideas?
January 31st 2013

Some have depressions running either side of a ridge and no sign of a web. I don't know whether these differences reflect different foot structures or it's merely something to do with the sand and the water.

And, there we have it. Two flies, yellow rust, a dug up path and some bird prints. Not what I went to find  -  but that's the pleasure of a walk.

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