INTERESTING DOINGS...

GeorgeShu

Senior Member
Oldguy, yup, prehistoric is great description for them. I often use that term to describe my first impression when turkeys come into sight, the way they move, etc. A surreal experience seeing both birds for some reason.
 

oldguy

Senior Member
Saw yet another black snake today. More snakes than I can rember seeing in a long time. Mimosa, prickly pear, yucca, and the native wisteria blooming along the roads.
 

fishfryer

frying fish driveler
Saw yet another black snake today. More snakes than I can rember seeing in a long time. Mimosa, prickly pear, yucca, and the native wisteria blooming along the roads.
Did not know there was a native wisteria until your post. Thanks!
 

oldguy

Senior Member
Did not know there was a native wisteria until your post. Thanks!
You're welcome.
It looks the same as the more familiar Asian variety, just not as rampant and invasive. Leaves and flowers are much smaller and it blooms later- now and into summer vs. early spring.
 

fishfryer

frying fish driveler
You're welcome.
It looks the same as the more familiar Asian variety, just not as rampant and invasive. Leaves and flowers are much smaller and it blooms later- now and into summer vs. early spring.
I've seen enough asian wisteria take over trees and make a real eyesore that I wouldn't have any. Momma had some several times, it's pretty and smells good,but too invasive for me. I don't hate it as much as bradford pear(doesn't deserve capitalization),but close.
 

oldguy

Senior Member
Got wild petunia and St. John's wort blooming around the house. Transplanted an Indian Pink that I scratched out of the ground with a digging stick in the woods last year. Potted it up. It over wintered and bloomed. Hope to get a colony established in a shady fern bed next to the back porch.
Visited a pond yesterday. "Payment" for beaver trapping. Bass on the fly rod! Fish for supper tonight.
 

NCHillbilly

Administrator
Staff member
You're welcome.
It looks the same as the more familiar Asian variety, just not as rampant and invasive. Leaves and flowers are much smaller and it blooms later- now and into summer vs. early spring.
The native W. frutescens is 100x more well-behaved than the Chinese or Japanese species. It's a good vine to plant on a chain link fence.
 

NCHillbilly

Administrator
Staff member
Saw a painted bunting today, a beautiful creature.
I've only seen those a few times, down on the SC coast. They are indeed beautiful little birds.
 

oldguy

Senior Member
Actually I think it's strange that the landscape/horticulture crowd spends so much time and effort in "developing" new varieties of cultivated plants rather than focusing on the already "developed" (over thousands of years) native varieties. Clear a new home sight then come in and start planting stuff that doesn't belong there in the first place. The heavy hand of man.
 

NCHillbilly

Administrator
Staff member
Actually I think it's strange that the landscape/horticulture crowd spends so much time and effort in "developing" new varieties of cultivated plants rather than focusing on the already "developed" (over thousands of years) native varieties. Clear a new home sight then come in and start planting stuff that doesn't belong there in the first place. The heavy hand of man.
Most of them have definitely never read any Jens Jensen and his theories about a "sense of place." They come around here all the time and bulldoze down oaks, sourwoods, dogwoods, rhododendron, mountain laurel, and native azaleas and plant crape myrtles, junipers, and nandinas.

I also don't understand the American fascination with monocultures of exotic invasive grass that gets clipped down every time it tries to grow.
 
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NCHillbilly

Administrator
Staff member
Here is a pic I took this morning of native Wisteria frutescens that I planted on a fence several years ago.
C20D79CD-F840-4A0B-AF7F-F59FE8140BAD.jpeg
 

oldguy

Senior Member
We've gotten small showers the last two nights - about .3" each. First rain the month of May. Saturday and again today I backed up and looked at two good gray rat snakes each close to 5' long dead in the road. Also today I passed another black snake dead and then to top it off backed up to examine yet another road kill and found a good solid 4' corn snake (red rat)! Man, if I'd'a been a little earlier I'd be telling you about the corn snake I caught! I don't see 'em much any more and when I do they're dead...
Have a volunteer poke weed in the yard that I let grow and provide seed for the birds. Several years old now and reaching 7' tall!
 

fishfryer

frying fish driveler
We've gotten small showers the last two nights - about .3" each. First rain the month of May. Saturday and again today I backed up and looked at two good gray rat snakes each close to 5' long dead in the road. Also today I passed another black snake dead and then to top it off backed up to examine yet another road kill and found a good solid 4' corn snake (red rat)! Man, if I'd'a been a little earlier I'd be telling you about the corn snake I caught! I don't see 'em much any more and when I do they're dead...
Have a volunteer poke weed in the yard that I let grow and provide seed for the birds. Several years old now and reaching 7' tall!
I knew a fellow from Tennessee that was on one of my ships, who said he used to write his name on his cotton sack with pokeberries.
 

Ocmulgee44

Senior Member
I saw a swallow-tailed kite as I passed over Horse creek just outside Lumber City yesterday! I have seen them from time to time soaring gracefully high above the river during the summer but never this early and never down low like this one was. He was obviously hunting just above some low trees and I was impressed with how acrobatic he was for such a large slender looking bird!
 

fishfryer

frying fish driveler
Saw an Orchard Oriole today, as well as at least two pairs of Phoebes. We have been putting up Bluebird boxes for 40 years or so,Bluebirds everywhere. Did something today that probably should have been done years ago. Pushed open a shallow ditch from the garden into a lower place in orchard,hope that I have no more standing water after a big rain. Maters as big as cupcakes.
 

westcobbdog

Senior Member
Watched a Barred Owl on my fence yesterday who was watching a squirrel eat sunflower seeds and did not attack it, he must of just finished his breakfast.
 
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