Arcadia Lake 06/13/14

Sunny and 84°F   

I have to apologize for not posting these images for an entire month! This was the last time I visited my local favorite hike, due to ticks. It is really depressing how many ticks my canine partner and I got on this walk. It’s just not worth it. Last year when this occurred, I was lucky enough to be able to spend many weeks in New Mexico hiking. I’ll see if that can happen soon. My hiking buddy Roxy is getting old and tends take longer and longer to recover from hikes, but she still lives for it. The weather forecast is predicting cooler temperatures and rain this week. We might just risk it, she’s due for another dose of Frontline anyway. So, here we go

I’ll do my best to remember this hike of a month ago! First interesting thing I saw was a gorgeous garter snake. We literally walked right over it, but thankfully saw it. The scales are an interesting raised texture. This snake is harmless and wasn’t bothered by us almost stepping on it. It liked the camera less however, so I gave it it’s space.

There had been rain, so lots of things were popping up like this Prairie Rose-gentia (although I’m not sure about that ID since the petals look thinner).

Mushrooms! I can’t give a definite ID on this either.

This is a type of slime mold. It is very tiny, but still an important part of nature.

This mushroom is in the beginning stages. At this stage, they can look very much like eggs. The mushroom is breaking out of it’s universal veil, which may or may not leave a wart like texture on top of the mature mushroom. I always love seeing the different stages of growth. This link is not the same mushroom, but you can get a good idea of the stages.

Chanterelles. They grew in this exact spot last year. Chanterelles are much loved by wild mushroom foragers as an edible. I personally have never eaten them from the wild, I would want an expert identification first.

They are pretty things.

Older dried mushroom.

A perfect red cup fungus. You can tell how tiny it is by looking at the grains of sand on it.

Another slime mold – about the size of a pea.

I would love to know what this is. It grows on a spike with leaves all the way up it. The bloom is about the size of a dime. Beautiful little thing.

Yellow Gaillardia. I never realized how many varieties of Gaillardia there are in Oklahoma.

Here is the same flower as above after the petals have fallen off and it has matured. Love the varieties in this species.

Butterflies love Gaillardia. This is a Checkered White butterfly.

Bees love them. Notice how the center of the flower changes at each stage. So much going on with this little flower.

Black eyed Susan

Lazy Daisy.

The ever painful briar.

This tiny purple flower bunch was growing on a single stem. It was between 1-2′ tall, but the flowers were so tiny as shown by my blurry index finger to the left. I almost couldn’t get a photo of this beauty because it was so small and it was a windy day.

Crazy weed looking thing – it had the structure and height of Queen Anne’s Lace, but looks more like a sticker plant.

I’ll try to get past my tick issue in Oklahoma even if I have to leave the four legger at home. This coming week promises cooler weather and rain – I’m thinking mushrooms will follow.