End of the summer
You know it's the end of the summer in the South when the surprise lilies start appearing in the yards. The foliage of these intriguing flowers is really only visible in the spring, before the grass starts to green up (surprise lilies are "spring ephemerals" is some sense). Their leaves then disappear, and the plant goes unnoticed until the late summer/early fall, when it shoots up a flower stalk from its underground bulb with these curious but beautiful flowers:
It is surprisingly difficult to find surprise lily bulbs at plant nurseries--most people apparently get them by sharing the bulbs, which split frequently. The surprise lily above is the first to appear in our yard since we transplanted a few out of our church's yard 2 or 3 years ago. Hopefully, we'll soon have more from other bulbs.You also know it is the end of the summer when the county fair rolls around, and all the events that go with it. Below are some pictures from the parade that celebrates the opening of the fair:
Above--our friends Mandy Kuttenkuler and Renea McClendon with our respective broods waiting for the parade to start. Below, the UAM marching band:
And a local horse riding group:
As a part of her preschool activities, Beth and her fellow classmates got to travel to the fair:
Because of our busy schedule and some illness, we didn't actually get out to the fair (outside of Hope and Stephen joining Beth with her trip). Kenny missed a couple days of school this week due to a bout with strep throat, and Beth and Stephen also have some kind of crud.
On Saturday, we went up to Little Rock. Hope took the kids to several stores and events around the area while I worked on that archeological dig I've been helping with. The sherds below were found by some other workers on this site, and are part of a decorated pot that we have another large sherd from.
Finding the all (or even most) of a pot is rare, and is especially nice when the pot is decorated, as the one above is. I found some pot sherds in the unit I was excavating, along with some animal bones. I have really enjoyed this summer's work at this site, especially as it becomes increasingly apparent that this is an important site. Next weekend, I am giving a talk (for my job) at the Arkansas Archeological Society's annual meeting, held this year in Hot Springs. My talk will be on using historical reports to describe past vegetation conditions. Forest ecology and archeology actually share a lot of interests--ecologists are interested in how past cultures affected the biota and landscape pattern, and archeologists are curious as to how the natural environment supported the cultures they are interested in. I am lucky that I can combine my professional and personal interests...
This week I get to travel to West Virginia for a meeting before returning briefly, and then heading up to Hot Springs for this archeology meeting this weekend. Next Tuesday I drive to northwest Arkansas to give a talk and meet with some of my cooperators at the University of Arkansas for a couple days. Busy, busy, busy!
Comments
lulu
The allusion to unexpected connections reminds me of a show we saw last night on PBS. It was talking about how dogs developed in adaptation to human culture... and how human culture was shaped by the contributions of dogs. Made me feel as though I haven't been giving Coco proper credit! A couple of examples given on the program were of arctic people, who wouldn't have been able to settle such an extreme northern environment without the help of sled dogs, and Britain's sheep herders, who would never have been able to herd their large flocks on such hilly terrain without their dogs.
Lisa