Another Egregious Dog PhotoBomb

I was going down the side steps to take in laundry when I noticed that all the rain this summer has created an explosion of color in the plantings on the stone steps. These steps, created with hand-hewn native Ohio sandstone from the foundation of a barn that once stood where our house now stands, are a little too widely spaced to be comfortable for navigation. I'm used to traversing them; I run up steps two by two anyway, so they work fine for me. (Are you surprised?) We only had five hand-hewn blocks, and a pretty steep hill to put them in. But they’re pretty darn fabbo for a terraced garden.

 

For this south-facing site, I choose dry-adapted plants that also give maximum color impact: portulacas, purslanes, catnip “Walker’s Low,” and golden thyme. The staple is ice plant, Carpobrotus edulis, a beachfront  perennial, native to South Africa, that persists and multiplies year in and year out. It's the one with needlelike gray-green leaves and finely cut magenta daisy flowers. I about croaked when I saw it growing wild along Monterey Bay, CA.  I assumed then that it was native, but now understand (thank you, readers!) that it crowds out native plants and is really bad news on the California coast. Here in Ohio, it's well-contained and I like the fact that it's a perennial; that such an exotic-looking creature comes back after the toughest winters. It's easy to propagate by sticking a cutting in moist soil, so I do.

The beauty of ice plant is that rabbits hate it. I've tasted it and see why--very salty-bitter. Not sure why its species moniker is edulis. Purslane (the redder one in the photo above) is also low on the rabbit nom list. Yuck. Now, rabbits eat portulaca like candy. So I interplant portulaca after the ice plant and purslane have taken off, and their yuckiness seems to protect the weaker portulaca from bunnehs. Just to be sure, I sprinkle dried blood over the portulaca until it's established.

So the kids are sitting at the top of the steps discussing some mail-order shoes Phoebe just got, and it makes such a nice summer tableau that I'm shooting away at them before switching to the flowers. Chet Baker always assumes anything that comes in the mail is a present for him. So he's nosing around the wrappings, hinting that he'd like a present, too. It's all very cute.

The kids don't know I'm taking their picture, and that's how I like it best. I have my shutter sound turned off so I can be stealthy. But Chet Baker notices me shooting silently away.

He comes trotting down the hill toward me. Is he doing what I think he's doing?

Yes, he is. He positions himself on the step right in front of me and looks up at the camera. Stares right into the lens, he does.

That was not my best smile. Here is a better one. Now, isn't that a much better picture than you were taking before? With me, Chet Baker, in it?

At this point the kids notice that Chet has bombed yet another photo, and they can't believe he took it upon himself to do it, unbidden. I didn't call him--I didn't say a word to him. He just assumed I wanted him front and center. He looks a little hurt that they're laughing and exclaiming at his hamminess.

But he soon recovers his composure and offers me his trademark noble stare into the distance. They're still laughing. Honey badger don't care.

Bacon, you are something else. Just something else. Thank you for immeasurably improving my photos of kids and flowers.

Any time, Mether. You know that everything's better with Bacon in it.

Dogbombed again! Plus, Pileated Poop: How to Find It

I tried to take some pictures of coltsfoot. 

When I get down on my knees, Chet always trots over to see what I'm looking at.

Which makes for some interesting compositions.

Clearly, Chet considers my photos vastly enhanced by his presence.

I like this one. My car's in it. Plus, bonus dog winky.

It was a perfect spring day, with stripey shadows across my favorite dirt road. It got up to 70 degrees in the afternoon. I started writing at 7 AM, and I was done with a bullet by 3 pm.  We headed to Dean's Fork!

So, so beautiful.

A winter rosette. Not sure the species, but sure love the color, and the way the new warm-weather growth is green.

I was diggin' it so much. It started out a run, then devolved into a ramble.

I saw a tree that had been thoroughly woodpeckered. Only a pileated can make a hole like that. Well, up here in Ohio, anyway.

Anytime I see fresh woodpecker workings, I look for pileated poop in the pile of chips beneath the holes. It is always right at the base of the tree. Pileateds apparently drop their poo straight down as they cling to the bark.

I was not disappointed.

Lotsa poop.

A bunch of holes. 

This bird had been working here for a long time.

It was time for some pileated poop analysis. 

I crumbled it up in my palm. The most surprising thing in it was a very large horsefly head (outer left center). Its leg was there, too. I figure the woodpecker found the horsefly roosting under some bark. Not a typical prey item, though.

There were also sumac seeds  in the above photo (bottom center and top center, two species).

I crumbled the big curly poop and it was almost solid carpenter ant parts. Lots of nice black skulls. 

So now you know how to look for pileated poop. I led a bird walk a couple of winters ago for the Ohio Ornithological Society and we saw almost no birds. But thank God I saw a tree with fresh workings and was able to crumble up pileated poo in my hand. That made everyone so happy. Me most of all.

Mether, we share a predilection for sitting down on dirt roads and looking closely at poop. That is why you are the perfect dog person.

I resumed trying to get a good evocative photo of coltsfoot. This, growing in a streambed.

His dog radar kicked in.

and he bombed the shot again.

This is an infinitely more interesting shot with me in it.

Everything's better with Bacon.