Just LOOK at this explosion of color -- Canada Lilies as red as fire, bursting forth in the dark of the forest, bright as any rocket's red glare!
I don't think I've ever seen Canada Lilies of such a brilliant combination of red and yellow (and believe me, I did not boost the saturation). The most common color for Canada Lilies is orange, and there were plenty of these along Bog Meadow Trail today, as well as others of a uniform yellow. But oh, those red ones were stunners!
And that's about all the fireworks I would hope to experience today, except that living a block from Congress Park in downtown Saratoga Springs, I'm afraid they are unavoidable tonight. Whenever I hear those "bombs bursting in air," it always reminds me that my home country had its birth in war and too often turns again and again to war to address its problems. I do indeed pray that God will bless America, but I also believe that God might be more inclined to bless our nation if only we would stop killing so many of God's dear children who are not Americans.
Ah well, it's a day to celebrate freedom, and so, to do that, I visited a big patch of Common Milkweed, certain I would find some tiny creatures in need of liberation. And so I did. I found several of these little moths (perhaps a Grapeleaf Skeletonizer?) whose feet had slipped into the florets' slits and gotten trapped by the flower's pollinia, tiny packets of pollen connected by strings. I could see by the litter of hairs on the floret that this little bug had been struggling to free its leg for some time. I took out my Leatherman tool and, using the tweezers, gently pulled the floret apart until the insect's leg was freed and it promptly flew away. I was able to help two others in the same way.
I was trying to figure out how to help this bee without getting stung, when I realized there was no reason to fear, the poor creature was already dead.
It was caught fore and aft, by two separate florets, and it looked as if it had undergone a terrific struggle, having ripped one leg completely off, while parts of another was missing, too. How sad! But a very pale approximation of what happens to innocent children and animals when American bombs fall on their homes.
