October 26, 2025

It's even more like the end of October than last week!  Construction/deconstruction on Burr Oak Street hasn't ended but people seem to be able to get in and out of the street a little more easily.  Signs of Autumn are definitely underway.  Sadly, the Asters that were so prolific a couple of weeks ago are nearly if not totally gone.  Here is a photo, complete with buzzing Bumblebee from October 4, 2025.   That was a couple of weeks ago.   

I did a little reading up on why some of my flowers have so MANY petals!  Here is one source, contributed by Mary-Ann Cateforis in Potsdam, NY. https://awkwardbotany.com/tag/phyllody.docs   I may have sent you this article last week - if so, apologies.  It looks for all the world as if an ordinary plant suddenly has many-many-petaled flowers.  It seems that the plant is sending weird signals to the reproductive parts, who suddenly want to turn into flowers.  Then the new flower parts are no longer reproductive parts!

Here are three Bugs.  The first seems to be a Boxelder Bug.  (It's so dark I can't make out the red streaks very well.)  The second is a Spined Soldier Bug (Podisus maculiventris).  Third is an Alder Spittlebug.   A nice Fall collection, although I've never seen #2 before (or recognized it).

I made a trip to the Whitehouse Nature Center here at the college yesterday - they were displaying quite an assortment of critters - most of them the people who brought them only were able to hold them themselves, but we got a good look at how they acted while feeding and being held.  Here is one of their greeters (Halloween special).  Second is (I think) a Fox snake.  

Here is a Bat enjoying a banana.  I think the lady explaining about him said he was a Fox Bat..  I COULD be wrong!  The second is a photo of one that wandered into my yard (seeking the pond critters, I think) many years ago - It is only the second snake I've seen in my yard - this one is a Northern Water Snake.  (The first one was a Garter Snake).  The fellow from the Nature Center said when he came to ID the snake that when they are old enough the parents shoo them off down the path of life, and they have to find their own pond to live in, and he had found MOI.  

( I couldn't find the resident Axolotl or you would be looking at him/her right now.)

I spent some of yesterday practising driving around using my cell phone as a guide.  I was rewarded for my patience when I managed to follow the lead from wherever I was to a designated location - the Punjabi restaurant in busy downtown Parma, Michigan.  Can you believe?  It was good and only about a lot of times the price in the Punjab.  :-)  Try them out.  Meanwhile, here is that Alder Spittlebug again, with an unknown friend at the bottom right.  Bellemont Manor is an old treasure in the Albion area, and one of our classes last week took us there for a meeting.  Of course, my camera only takes pictures of what it's interested in so only got this magnificent tree in the parking lot!  I'll try to identify the friend of the Alder Spittlebug for next week!  I promise!  Have a wonderful week!  Love, Martha