Wordless Wednesday – allow your photo(s) to tell the story.
Linda Schaub
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Linda Schaub
- Mr. & Mrs. Cardinal (and a pal) partake of peanuts at the Park. #Wordless Wednesday #A favorite vintage ornament.
- Lean, mean and green.
- Which way is Santa Claus? #Wordless Wednesday #Remember those days?
- When there’s wicked wind, wildflowers and …
- Before and after a cup of Joe. #Wordless Wednesday #Sadly, we don’t ALL rise and shine!
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FIFTY FAVORITE PARK PHOTOS
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- Parker noshin’ nuts
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- Fox Squirrel
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- Black Squirrel
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- Parker, my Park cutie!
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- Pekin Duck
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- Mallard Hybrid Duck
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- Midnight munchin’ nuts
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- Mute Swan
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- Goslings
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- Mama Robin
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- Seagulls on ice floe
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- Great Blue Heron
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- Parker chowin’ down
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- Mallard Duck
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- Northern Cardinal
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- Great Blue Heron (“Harry”) fishing for shad
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- Parker: shameless begging
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- Viceroy Butterfly
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- Great Blue Heron
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- American Goldfinch
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- Seagull
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- Robin baby (not fledged yet)
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- Mallard Ducks
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- Robins almost ready to fledge
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- Parker angling for peanuts
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- Robin fledgling
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- Parker making a point that he wants peanuts
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- Parker smells peanuts
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- Parker with a peanut
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- Red-Winged Blackbird
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- Seagull
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- Red-Bellied Woodpecker
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- Pekin Duck
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- Starling
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- Canada Geese family
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- Canada Goose and goslings
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- Red-Winged Blackbird
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- Parker says candy is dandy.
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- Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly
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- American Goldfinch
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- Hunny Bunny
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- Parker looking for peanuts
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- The pier just past sunrise
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- Mute Swan
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- Parker in the snow
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- Parker and a treat
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- Great Blue Heron
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- Me and my shadow (a/k/a Parker)
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- Fox Squirrel
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- Seagull
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- Canada Goose
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- Mallard Ducks
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- Mute Swan
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- Fox Squirrel – Parker
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- Northern Cardinal
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BADGES
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- 02-02-2018
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- 03-13-2018
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- 03-25-2018
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- 03-26-2018
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- Year #6!! 02/2019
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- 04-13-2019
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- 11-21-19
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WALKIN', WRITIN', WIT & WHIMSY 
Excellent photography. Beautiful photo.
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Thank you Raj, I’m glad you liked them!
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Welcome, Linda! 🤠
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Interesting composition!
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I thought it was interesting too Kate, almost like a modern art painting at first glance. A little bit of everything here … empty seed pods and they reminded me of what we called “Santa Clauses” or “Santa’s Whiskers” when I was a kid. The little orange beetles running through it and a spider – ugh.
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Beautiful!
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Colorful anyway!! When you were young, did you call the white Milkweed wisps “Santa Clauses” or “Santa’s Whiskers”? We did. This photo has a little of everything in it. 🙂
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I didn’t have a name for the milkweed. “Santa” names seem quite appropriate.
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It might have been a “Canadian thing” as I grew up in Canada and moved here to the States when I was 10 … we always called those milkweed fluffs “Santa Clauses” or “Santa’s Whiskers”.
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Did you look on the underside of the leaves for Monarch eggs?
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No, I didn’t Wayne … I should have though. Truth is, I backed off a little once I saw that slew of red beetles marching through the middle of the Milkweed pods … then I saw the spider. I thought the Milkweed seeds and fibers were pretty against the red leaves. I almost saved these shots for closer to Christmas.
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maybe those red beetles ate the Monarch eggs?
I just know the Monarch only lays it’s eggs on a Milkweed plant.
I remember breaking open a Milkweed stem and feeling how sticky the white fluid was.
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I think the Monarch eggs would have been caterpillars/cocoons, then butterflies earlier in the Summer and there is nothing left in the Milkweed pod now – not this one as the seeds are all over the place, but when I looked for the whole name of the Milkweed Beetle, it said that they eat the Milkweed seeds. There were a lot of seeds – each piece of white fluff is a seed. A local woman harvests the caterpillars from her yard and puts them in terrariums in her home, then when they emerge from the cocoon (chrysalis), she sets them free. Her entire backyard is Milkweed plants. I did read once about the sticky Milkweed that looks like milk and looks like if you break a dandelion stem open.
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That sounds like such a great idea! Planting Milkweed plants in the backyard!
I’ve always wanted to go see the Monarchs winter location in northern Mexico!
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When Marge and I got Monarch butterfly caterpillars at the street fair, our goal was to grow those caterpillars and then release them. We ran out of Milkweed as the caterpillars got bigger and had to get more Milkweed leaves for our caterpillars – you can’t buy it, or you couldn’t back then. This was about 20 years ago I’d guess. Her whole backyard she dedicates to Monarch butterflies. I would love to see the Monarchs as they hang from trees in huge bunches, like bananas hang on trees!
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good plan but not enough grub
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Yes, I can’t remember the stats on how much Milkweed they consume daily. I kept the Milkweed in the basement on top of the washer so it could get sunlight. We couldn’t put it outside as a squirrel would likely have torn the netting off because it was curious or wanted to bury peanuts/nuts in the dirt. I’d go downstairs to water the plant and a whole Milkweed leaf would be gone overnight. They are huge leaves!
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I just found Karen’s photo site for the butterfly from egg to emergence as a butterfly. She is the woman who gave Marge and I the milkweed from her garden for our caterpillars. I see I wrote to her at this site and it was back in 2010. She gave us milkweed and they ate that all up, so we ended up giving Karen the cocoons/chrysalises so she could raise them as she only needed to go into her backyard to get leaves for the other caterpillars that had not cocooned yet. It is fascinating how she documents them here:
https://chevymom0.blogspot.com/2010/04/butterfly-tales-2010.html
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Loved it, she documented it very well.
thanks!
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I’m glad you enjoyed reading it Wayne – you’re welcome. I thought Karen did a very good job too. She is good photographer, Monarchs mostly. In fact she donates a framed photo on canvas each year for the butterfly walk to raise money for shelter pets. I have done to the event a few times and written about it. Karen and I became Facebook friends back in 2010 after we met and I handed off my caterpillars for her to raise using her Milkweed. I had more caterpillars than Marge – her last one died before Karen got there. I had some surprise caterpillar eggs. I didn’t send you the story from the newspaper (how I learned about her) as she included it in the post. So she collects the eggs, and puts them in various terrariums in her house. She and her husband like to go camping, so if a butterfly is close to emerging from the chrysalis, she takes the twig where it attaches in a smaller terrarium to their campsite and releases it there. She is all about preserving Monarch butterflies.
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these are sp pretty.
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I thought so too Dawn. I almost saved these shots for closer to Christmas as the Milkweed seeds and red leaves looked Christmassy to me.
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You captured a little bit of almost everything!
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Yes, in one fell swoop too! I almost saved these shots for around Christmas as the red background and wisps like Santa’s beard looked festive to me.
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I enjoy seeing these plants open up in the fall. These are housing a lot of creatures.
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I do too Rebecca – I think they are very pretty. With the red Sumac leaves in the background and the white wispy seeds, the photo looked a bit “Christmassy” to me. That spider and all those beetles, yes a full house, but you’d never know until you got close to it. 🙂
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So pretty!
I always allow milkweed to grow wherever it sprouts. I saw several monarch larvae in my milkweed this summer/fall. They were gone when we got home. I hope they made it to Mexico!
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That’s good Laurie – you’re helping the Monarch population which needs all the help it can get. I hope they made it to Mexico too. I saw a lot of Milkweed that day. A woman the next city over from me has an entire backyard of Milkweed and is dedicated to looking for the Monarch caterpillars in her plants, putting them into terrariums in her home, then releasing them in her yard once they emerge from their chrysalises. She is so dedicated to helping the Monarchs, if she and her family go camping, those terrariums come along with them.
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Pretty color and textures of the milkweed, Linda!
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I’m glad you like it Terri! I thought the bright red Sumac leaves and the wispy Milkweed almost make the photos look a bit “Christmassy”.
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Yes they do!
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I’ve never seen anything like this! This is so silly but the first picture reminds me of a hairy eared monster with a pointy nose. lol
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Isn’t that incredible Esther? I saw it and I thought it looked like a picture of Santa’s beard and the red sumac leaves make it look a bit “Christmassy”. It does look like it could be a monster with that empty milkweed pod. 🙂
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I wonder what that spider was thinking finding itself stuck in the middle of all that beetle traffic!
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I know! I wonder if that spider was eying one of the slew of them as a potential “lunch” but realized he was in no position to spin a web and grab one and wrap it up. I was fascinated watching those beetles – they were in a steady stream in that Milkweed plant, yet I couldn’t see anything nourishing that was left in it unless they chew the seeds. In the Summertime, I saw Milkweed Beetles at the Park but the Milkweed was flowering at the time. So Google told me they eat all parts of the plant, including the leaves and pod and the seeds. There were lots of seeds attached to those wispy pieces of fluff.
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Beautiful macro shot, Linda. 👌 Love the colours!
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Thank you Debbie! I thought it had a “Christmas” feel to it with the white wisps like Santa’s beard and the bright-red Sumac leaves in the background! The Beetles are different as they’re decked out in Halloween orange-and-black!
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Wow Linda! I thought it was a Christmas decoration at first, beautiful picture!!!
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Thank you Diane! I thought it looked like a Christmas decoration too – Santa’s whiskers and the red Sumac leaves are in cheery Christmas colors.
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Miss Linda………………………………..I’ve never gotten that close to an opened milkweed………………………………where’s the butterflies??
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Hi Ann Marie – I have seen the Milkweed pods burst and some “fluff” around, but not like that Milkweed as it had several pods, all open with the wispy seeds all over. I think the butterflies have now gone South as I’ve not seen any, even the Cabbage Whites, in a couple of weeks now.
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Cool photos, Linda. We have thick patches of milkweed in our back field and when my husband was brush hogging the field last week the seeds were clogging up the grill of the tractor and making it overheat. He had to stop several times to clear the grill.
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Thank you Ruth! I thought it was so unusual looking with the colors, between the red Sumac leaves and the white wispy seeds which look like Santa’s beard. I believe it with those seeds. I saw them all over the park that day and I’m sure they’re all over even more with all these high winds we’ve had. No wonder your husband had to stop several times to clear the grille – it’s as bad as the Poplar fuzz in the Springtime!
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Oh Linda, with the title of a spider… I just couldn’t look or read your story…
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It was just a tiny spider TD – you might now have even noticed it if I had not put the word “spider” in the title. The slew of orange-and-black beetles were much more interesting as was the wispy fluff and seeds.
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I love the puffs with the red! I find those little puffy white seeds in my yard certain times of the year… I wonder if they are from a neighbor’s milkweed?
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I thought it was such an unusual color combination Janis and it reminded me of Christmas. It could be your neighbor’s milkweed late in the year, or if it is in the Spring, it is likely the fuzz from poplar trees. When that fuzz floats around, if the A/C is on, it will pull the fuzz into the grille and you have to hose down the A/C grill or it clogs it up. I always hope the poplar flies before the A/C is on. Sometimes we still have below-freezing nights, so I don’t turn my water on until Memorial Day.
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Yes, Red Milkweed Beetles love to dwell in these in the fall. They are nice, cozy little mini-huts to live in (but invading spiders also frequent them). Sweet pics, Linda! 😊
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Tom, thank you! Yes, it was fun to see this collection of “critters” all within the empty Milkweed pods – and, so colorful as well! I like that idea of being like mini-huts to shelter them. I wonder if the spider was looking to spin a web from pod to pod to trap the beetles?
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I love photographing milk pods, they can be so pretty.
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This was so colorful and unusual to see Susan. I am used to seeing the dormant pods and the milkweed seeds flitting around in the air. I was glad I got up close to take a peek!
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