Articles written by jerry davis
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Naturally Speaking
Hummingbirds are to be marveled. So small and yet so energetic. Their tenacity would have made their name befitting a product, say a battery or...
Naturally Speaking
Antlers, the boney structures deer, elk and moose, produce anew each summer are a reason why so many people admire Wisconsin's white-tailed deer....
Naturally Speaking
Albinos and partially white members of most species attract more attention than the pigmented forms. White coneflowers, although not completely...
Naturally Speaking
Staying cool is as much a mental as it is physical. Tree shade works wonders to cut the heat index by 20 degrees on a sunny day. Other animals...
Naturally Speaking
Wild mushroom seasons are changing, as are plant flowering dates and corn planting times. Climate change? Probably. The fly agaric mushroom, a...
Naturally Speaking
This note should not embarrass the largemouth bass by revealing that it is scientifically a member of the sunfish family. Other sunfish members include bluegills, pumpkinseeds and green sunfish....
Naturally Speaking
We come to recognize many plants, animals, even individuals by their general appearance. Lumping characters together in our minds, this general...
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Homeowners have been known to have gardens on rooftops. Some turtles had that idea long before people put out those plant pots. Some green algae have found a turtle’s outer shell, its carapace,...
Naturally Speaking
Now is not a good time to pick out a Christmas tree. There are too many yellow leaves. Evergreen trees, like deciduous trees, lose their leaves,...
Naturally Speaking
Autumn comes in many colors, but yellows tend to predominate in most plants that use September as their blooming anniversary. Most of the yellows are in the sunflower family, too, with an eccentric...
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Other than in April, when landscapes parade dozens of shades of green before us, it is September when we most notice plant pigments. The fact is these two conditions, spring's greens and autumn's...
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About now, when we begin to move wood ever closer to home from its summer drying location, we should expect to see that other animals have been using the crude abode. While most animals living in a...
Naturally Speaking
Cicadas, including the dog day cicada, are one of those bugs everyone has heard but few people have seen. Seeing one may go unconnected with the insect's name because there's no sound. These true...
Naturally Speaking
Corn development stages may seem odd to someone uniformed of what happens when corn kernels mature. We eat sweet corn in its milk or dough stage. If you like sweet corn more firm, let it mature to the...
Naturally Speaking
It is interesting to think about where our food comes from and what's important getting it to our plates. The female side of many of life's equations is often reduced beyond fairness, wrongly giving...
Naturally Speaking
Blossoms are often the Rodney Dangerfields of garden, field and forest harvests. Tomatoes, squash, beans and even corn, oats and wheat begin productions with blossoms. But not all blossoms become...
Naturally Speaking
Botanists estimate 30 percent of all plants have hairs on their aerial surfaces. Some of these hairs - they're called trichomes by researchers - can be secretory, others glandular. That's to say they...
Naturally Speaking
A plant commonly called carrion flower cannot be a pleasant thought unless the smell of rotting flesh is what is desired. After the greenish ball of...
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The poisonous aspects of wild parsnip can be explained in a single word: phytophotodermatitis. Latin words used as science terms are a shortcut to...
Naturally Speaking
Summer "snow" continues to fall, drift, and float from eastern cottonwood tree branches, some reaching 100 feet into the sky. While the fibers of f...
Naturally Speaking
Fortunate is a person who has an occasion to see an orchid flower of any color. They are usually rare plants and should be left alone regardless of...
Naturally Speaking
Black raspberries, commonly called blackcaps, are thimble-shaped and are therefore hollow on one end. Blackberries are solid and contain a small...
Naturally Speaking
When entire trees began to show colors, particularly white, this is an indication that the black locust and wild black cherry trees are in flower....
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Maple trees, particularly silver and red maples, are more than sources of spring sap, summer shade and autumn color displays. Like most deciduous...
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Asparagus is a perennial herb that provides edible, above ground stalks during spring. While asparagus grows wild, those plants did not end up along...
