Flora & Fauna

We've enjoyed all the foliage here that is so unlike what we have at home. Along with the additional plants come more animals as well. Here are a few pictures of what we've enjoyed this summer.

The flowerbed out our window that attracts butterflies and even the occasional hummingbird

A street view of the same window and flowerbed. You can't really see the wonderful flowers from this angle, but they're there and gorgeous!

This bush right outside our window when in full bloom was gorgeous. Although most of the blossoms are gone now, a few continue to surprise us and pop out once in a while.

Close-up view of the bush across the street now. See all those funny looking streamers? 

This is what the bush looked like a few months ago. It's a bottlebrush buckeye.

Each apartment has a different flowerbox garden. There is so much variety around the area.

There's an interesting tree across the big grassy field from us. We wondered if it had been blown down by a storm, but nothing was being done to remove it, so we went and checked it out. It may have been blown over, but it looks like a second set of roots has started growing out of what used to be the top of the tree. It's a good place to lose a water bottle.

Lillies growing along one of the drainage ditches originally dug by the pioneers

Lotus plants grow in the Mississippi River because the current is slowed down by the dam. These lotus fields are on both sides of the river and extend several hundred feet from the shore. They've become more prolific during the summer. 

A single lotus flower

Birds love the lotus plants

While many flowers grow on their own, the flowers at the temple grounds are carefully planted by the grounds crew with help from some of the senior temple missionaries who like to play in dirt (that's not us).

These flowers are called Naked Ladies. No leaves, just stems and flowers. They suddenly started popping up everywhere and looked great for about two weeks and then died, leaving naked stems.

Rain, the reason for all the flowers, also brings rather large mushrooms. Big rainstorms = big mushrooms. Yes, they are poisonous. And all over.

And after the rain comes the rainbow.

And small waterfalls and full streams abound all over after a rainstorm and then nearly dry up until the next big storm. Now they're almost nonexistent.

Now the corn looks like this, ready to be harvested. We didn't expect it to dry up by the end of August. Everything around us is starting to droop, and the lush green vegetation is fading to brown because the heavy rainstorms have turned into occasional rain showers, not giving enough water to continue to sustain the greenery. It's happening quickly. Last week as we drove to church, we wondered if the green soybeans would be harvested before we leave--they're harvested when the plants dry up. This week a few of the fields look brown and almost ready. We're thinking they could start harvesting some this week.

All the cute little goslings from spring have now grown. We'll often have over 100 of them eating the grass and bugs in the open grassy areas around our apartment.When we first arrived, there were lots of smaller birds pecking at the grass, but they've disappeared as the geese have taken over. Lately, it's been hot enough that even the geese prefer the shade.  Some have already started to migrate.

We never expected to see these in Illinois. Yup, both pictures are of pelicans.

Other birds and critters:

Cardinals are more common here. Small, brightly colored birds.

Cicadas are out in droves this year. The noise sounds like a cross between loud crickets and a big flock of hoarse birds. We seldom see one, but we hear them almost every day. Unless they're particularly loud, we often don't even notice the noise anymore.

One day a small green frog hopped into our apartment as we were getting home. We almost didn't see him, and then he hopped and hid on the side of the chair leg. Dave was able to scoop him up and out the door so the excitement didn't last long. He was cute, but didn't belong inside.

Red spotted Purple Admiral

Surprisingly, we haven't had any problems with mosquitoes, although there are a few around. Chiggers, whose bites we've heard are worse than mosquitoes, have started making themselves known to people wearing sandals and shorts. Fortunately, we haven't had a problem with that yet, although we try to avoid areas with long grasses where they hide, waiting for unsuspecting prey.

A favorite of kids of all sizes--fireflies--are still hanging around, although much fewer in number. You have to look for them now, where earlier this summer they were everywhere at dusk.

We'll leave you with more pictures of the flowers around Nauvoo. Most of these have been shared by various people on our temple missionary What's App page.

Most of these pictures are again compliments of Brent Asay, who generously shared them on What's App. Interesting side note: our son Jeff noticed last week we said the pictures were taken by Brent Asay. Jeff called and asked if he might be the dad of his friends and former co-workers. While we know who the Asays are from various activities and serving in the temple, we don't have shifts together and haven't talked with them very much, so I called and asked. We have a connection with Brent and Wendy we hadn't known about!