Likes2mtnbike requested sparkleberry (Vaccinium sp.)
Spring
Summer
Fall
Those plump berries will shrivel and hang on the bushes all winter feeding the yankee birds who travel here to escape the cold. We like those birds because they are polite enough to go home in the spring.
When I occasionally carve a cane or walking stick, this is a tree I seek out. The wood is hard and pinkish white.
It easily resprouts after a stick cutting so I don't even have to kill the sparkleberry.
That wouldn't be a very sparkley thing to do.
I don't see too much of that around here. Maybe I just haven't been looking hard enough. And, like their human counterparts, displaced Yankee birds are very interesting to watch.
ReplyDeleteHa! Unlike the yankee people who don't go home after eating all the withered berries.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the sparkleberries! It was just by coincidence that I was catching up with things after the early week stuff. We've been trying to sort out all the vacciniums that grow quietly around here.
One thing we discovered - they do root from cuttings fairly well, if taken in June (here). And then they do weird things like flower again in the late fall. Haven't figured that one out yet.
I do enjoy us oldsters getting out on the internets in the early AM and running into each other. Pablo and I have many such encounters, especially on the weekends, around 4am.
Hey, thanks ever so for the Cracker Cows! If you ever get over Volusia County way, there's (hopefully still there) a TX longhorn ranch out 44 between New Smyrna and DeLand.
ReplyDeleteThat Cedar Key sunset is beautiful! CK is the one touristy spot I could stand to live in. Well, that or Tarpon Springs, which I never really considered exactly touristy as they all concentrate around the Sponge Exchange.
We have Vacciniums coming out our ears up here, but I have no idea whether they're blueberries, sparkleberries, farkleberries, deerberries... Something always beats us to 'em.
Bummer about the eye. At least you're still mobile. 8-]
What lovely flowers, like little lilies of the valley! Glad that our robins and catbirds will have such a sumptuous banquet waiting when they abandon us to visit you.
ReplyDeleteThe first photo is such a beauty, very delicate light. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteshrimp report-- Dad went tues-- had to work hard to get 1/2 bucket--All shrimp were large--windy conditions might have had effect on outcome--no red legs seen--good luck--at racy point there are 2 grass beds small one is north of the large one-- on multiple days we had luck shrimping on southern edge of small grass bed in 27-29 feet of water
ReplyDeleteNow if only you could photograph what they taste like.
ReplyDeleteHTeen,
ReplyDeleteI don't remember it growing up over there either. Maybe in a dry hammock area ...
Wayne,
4am? Ouch. Are we going fishing?
I'm not surprised they root well, I know my tame blueberry plants do.
Sophie,
I never know if I'm looking at Sparkleberry or Farkleberry or if they are one and the same :)
I'll keep an eye out for the longhorns.
ThreeCollie,
We try to be hospitable. The first robins have arrived.
Madcap,
Thank you. I like the depth of focus on that one too :)
Rick,
Thanks for the report. I'm heading over this afternoon to shrimp tomorrow. Our school closes down for Gator homecoming so I'm off.
Mrs. S,
Not sure they are edible, in fact I always have assumed they are not. Still working on those scratch and sniff digital photos.
Thanks! Apparently I've been looking at them and not knowing what they were called for years!
ReplyDeleteLikes2,
ReplyDeleteYour welcome!