Skipper and Thistle

At Blue Sky Water, I bent down to take a picture of one of the thistle flowers that had not yet gone to down.  As I focused, this pretty little skipper flew in for a drink of nectar--- just long enough for me to take its picture.  Then it was off again, to choose another flower from the variety of wildflowers blooming on this Fall day at Blue Sky Water. 

"Those Bees That Drill The Rafters"

I lightened this photograph so you can clearly see the subject... a cool black wasp with a white ring around its abdomen.  I didn't know this kind of wasp, but thought it was really pretty.  Myra Robertson at Blue Sky Water Society tells me that it is probably the kind that bores holes in the soffits but does not sting.

I like to go out with Myra to see the place, because we share a reluctance to harm bugs, plants and other living things.  We saw a lot of interesting life that day.

We Make These Darts

Here is thistle at the end of the season.  In Oklahoma, the state has a Thistle Eradication Program and I think landowners can get herbicides to eradicate them because they hurt horses and cattle with their stickers.  Here Myra is showing the thistle down.  Each fuzzy piece has a tiny seed on the end.  It is a common Cherokee art and skill which has been passed down thru tradition from generation to generation, to gently unwind the full thistledown at the tail of a dart for use in Cherokee blowguns.  These thistle darts are used by skilled hunters to practice with targets and sometimes take birds for food.  Thistles in flower attract those big black and blue swallowtail butterflies.  They congregate on the purple flowers, sometimes two or three at a time.  You can find a few different varieties of thistles in this area.  This photograph was taken at Blue Sky Water, Sequoyah County Oklahoma near Marble City on Indian Land. 

What Is It?

Myra Robertson suggested this photographic subject when we were walking the grounds at Blue Sky Water.  It must be a kind of fungus on the underside of a tree branch on the hillside.  Sometimes fungus makes good dyestuffs.  We talked about holding a natural dye workshop in November or in Spring.

Wild Chickory In The Ozarks

Here's a lovely little flower that has had a place in history.  Chickory was the popular precursor to morning coffee in early days before coffee was widely available.  It was dried and roasted then steeped like tea for mild bitter drink.  This chickory was growing on the sometimes-dry steep hillside at Blue Sky Water.