Fireflies

https://www.startribune.com/biologists-to-save-fireflies-turn-off-backyard-lights-this-summer/600371453/?refresh=true 

Cone Flowers

Tall Cone Flowers 
reaching for the sky!

Purple Cone Flowers
also known as Echinacea. Echinacea's name is rooted in the Greek word “echinos,” meaning "hedgehog," because of its spiny seed head. Technically speaking, this thick and spiky cone is actually hundreds of flowers, all tightly packed together. The entire plant can be used for its immune boosting properties. The purple ray flowers attach to a round, high and spiky cone – hence the common name “purple coneflower.” Technically speaking, this thick and spiky cone is actually hundreds of more flowers, all tightly packed together.

Bumblebee On Echinacea

Bumblebee On Echinacea

Bumblebee On Echinacea

Black Swallowtail Butterfly On Echinacea

Monarch Butterfly On Echinacea

Monarch Butterfly On Echinacea

Monarch Butterfly On Echinacea

Monarch Butterfly On Echinacea

Monarch Butterfly On Echinacea

Red Admiral Butterfly On Echinacea

Red Admiral Butterfly On Echinacea

Red Admiral Butterfly On Echinacea

White Admiral Butterfly On Echinacea

White Admiral Butterfly On Echinacea

Spotted Skipper Butterfly On Echinacea

THANKS FOR YOUR VISITS, FAVS AND COMMENTS. AS ALWAYS, APPRECIATED VERY MUCH!

© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED BY ELISE T. MARKS. PLEASE DO NOT USE THIS IMAGE ON WEBSITES, BLOGS OR ANY OTHER MEDIA WITHOUT MY EXPLICIT WRITTEN PERMISSION.

MY PHOTOGRAPHS ARE AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE THROUGH ELISECREATIONS.NET

Disclaimer

My blog is meant to inform and I strive to be totally accurate. It is solely up to the reader to ensure proper plant identification. Some wild plants are poisonous or can have serious adverse health effects.

Burdock

Burdock

(the plant with the purple flowers in the foreground, is Heal-all)

Burdock is a large, robust plant, easily recognized by her bristled purple flower heads and broad, ruffled leaves. The leaves can be huge, up to 2 feet long and 1 foot wide. They remind some people of rhubarb plants, but unlike rhubarb’s leaves, burdock leaves have a felt-y, fuzzy texture and are whitish on the undersides. The margins of the leaves are wavy, almost ruffled. Burdock is a biennial, producing a massive rosette of leaves in the first year, then completing its life cycle by flowering (large, purple thistle-like flowers) and making burdock seed in the second year. The deeply excavating taproot is edible during the first year of growth.This wild weed lives two years, producing a 4 - 5 foot tall flower stalk during its second summer. The flowers turn to the seed burs that give the plant its name. The burs, with their hooked tips, are said to be the inspiration for Velcro. 

Fresh burdock root is delicious in soup or stew. Prepare it as you would carrots and add it to cooked dishes. Harvest the long root in fall and spring, or in the winter if your ground doesn’t freeze and you can find the plant after its leaves have died down. The leaf may be picked as needed for poulticing or tea as soon as it reaches sufficient size. Moderate harvest of the leaves will not deter root development. The immature flower stalks are another excellent vegetable this common plant provides. Similar to the Italian vegetable cardoon, burdock stalks should be harvested before the plants flower, which is usually in mid to late spring.

Burdock is a popular herbal medicine that can help regenerate liver cells, is a blood cleanser, diuretic, a topical remedy for skin problems such as eczema, acne, and psoriasis, and inhibits cancer.

THANKS FOR YOUR VISITS, FAVS AND COMMENTS. AS ALWAYS, APPRECIATED VERY MUCH!

© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED BY ELISE T. MARKS. PLEASE DO NOT USE THIS IMAGE ON WEBSITES, BLOGS OR ANY OTHER MEDIA WITHOUT MY EXPLICIT WRITTEN PERMISSION.

MY PHOTOGRAPHS ARE AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE

Disclaimer

My blog is meant to inform and I strive to be totally accurate. It is solely up to the reader to ensure proper plant identification. Some wild plants are poisonous or can have serious adverse health effects.

Stone Walls Of Vermont

Stone Wall Glory!

Some of the most amazing stone art I've seen while working on our new project about Stone Walls and Sugar Houses of Vermont.

Natural Stone Walls

with reflections on Joiner Brook

Natural Stone Walls

with reflections on Joiner Brook

Rock Wall At The Intervale

Built by Thea Alvin

https://www.myearthwork.com/thea-alvin

Gotta Love a great Hobbit Hole, 

especially with the rabbit door handle and the Heart Rock next to the door.

Built by Thea Alvin

https://www.myearthwork.com/thea-alvin

Gotta love a Stone Wall with an antique tractor on a lovely country estate in Vermont.

Stone Wall at Rockledge historic summer estate in Swanton, Vermont. 

Architect Charles Saxe in 1918 designed alterations to an early 19th-century farmhouse, that is the principal surviving element of an early 20th-century gentleman's farm. The property was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1994.

Natural Stone Wall in Westford

Stone Walls in Westford

Red Barn with a Stone Foundation

and a Great Stone House in South Hero.

Lovely Red Barn 

with a beautiful Stone Foundation in Hinesburg.

Stone Wall With Birches In Hinesburg

East Fairfield

South Hero

Garden Wall in Colchester

Arched Stone Wall At The Intervale

Built by Thea Alvin

https://www.myearthwork.com/thea-alvin

Stone Wall in Jeffersonville

Round Barn 

with a Stone Foundation at Shelburne Museum

Stone Wall With Birches in Fletcher

Stone Wall Lined up beautifully in the snow

Thanks for your visits, favs and comments. As always, appreciated very much!

© all rights reserved by Elise T. Marks. Please do not use this image on websites, blogs or any other media without my explicit written permission.

Chickens

 

Chickens Checking Me Out. I think they were hoping it was time for a snack.

This photo was Awarded Photo of the Day, on Capture My Vermont, for November 29, 2017.

Lovely Hens

My photographs are available for purchase through EliseCreations.net

Thanks for your visits, favs and comments. As always, appreciated very much!

© all rights reserved by Elise T. Marks. Please do not use this image on websites, blogs or any other media without my explicit written permission.

Honeysuckle

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly On Honeysuckle

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly 

on The most Gigantic Honeysuckle Bush I've ever seen. It was a busy place for bees and butterflies. This Honeysuckle had a most powerful fragrance today.

The most gigantic Honeysuckle Bush I've ever seen.

It was covered in bees and butterflies. Honeysuckle has fragrance day and night but exudes its scent most powerfully during the evening.

Bush Honeysuckle with Hoverfly, also called flower fly, or syrphid fly, resemble wasps or bees but do not bite or sting. The larvae of many hover flies are predatory on aphids, so I’m glad to see them in my garden.

Mandarin Honeysuckle

Honeysuckle Vine Budding

Honeysuckle Vine Flowering

This a Honeysuckle vine, I found growing in the woods, near water, in Vermont. 

Honeysuckle vine, Lonicera.

Honeysuckles are arching shrubs or twining vines in the family Caprifoliaceae, native to the Northern Hemisphere. Approximately 180 species of honeysuckle have been identified.

Sometimes called “woodbine.” The flower, seed, and leaves are used for medicine. The honeysuckle flower is commonly used to help ease the flu, colds and sore throat. Honeysuckle is also used for urinary disorders, headache, diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, and cancer. Some people use it to promote sweating, as a laxative, to counteract poisoning, and for birth control.

Honeysuckle essential oil is one of the most popular products derived from this plant, for medicinal uses as well as hair and skin care.

My photographs are available for purchase through EliseCreations.net

Thanks for your visits, favs and comments. As always, appreciated very much!

© all rights reserved by Elise T. Marks. Please do not use this image on websites, blogs or any other media without my explicit written permission.

Disclaimer

My blog is meant to inform and I strive to be totally accurate. It is solely up to the reader to ensure proper plant identification. Some wild plants and mushrooms are poisonous or can have serious adverse health effects.