Phenology Day - June Blooms Continue - The INK Filter - MyShadowProductions #227

Hello again everyone !!

As I write, scribble, one finger type this Post, the month of June has ended, the second half of 2026 is beginning and Spring has turned to Summer without skipping a beat. You might think that Mother Nature has been through this a few million times before but with never ending variety and tricks with sun and water.

Parts of that variety are the world’s Oak trees, belonging to the genus “Quercus”. Google says there are between 500 to 600 species of oaks worldwide and North America counts about 90 of those.

My volunteer opportunity at Morton Arboretum this year involves Phenology Monitoring of a group of 15 oaks, Quercus 4. There are about 35 groups of trees, Elms, Maples, Oaks and 2 separate observers per group.

So far, I have “monitored” 15 times and will continue about every 8-10 days until December. (So my goal of walking more at Morton Arboretum is working :)

Not a lot to write home about or even to “blog” about :)

Basically, leaf buds form in the Spring, opening to leafs that grow in size and eventually turn colors and “fall” to the ground. Also in the Spring there are flower buds (some oaks every year and some every two years) there are flower buds that open, flower, release pollen and produce fruit (acorns) that ripen and “fall” to the ground. Human scientists think they need to “understand” all of this and untrained volunteers like me provide “data” to muddy the waters :)

The following Video - Phenology Day was created from my photos during a couple of recent visits to the Morton Arboretum to give a quick look at the different leafs.

Not to be outdone but the perennial plants and “weeds” continue their personal routine reacting/growing from the changing daylight, temperatures, rain, weeding by volunteers :), etc.

Click here for June BLOOMS Continue !!

Milkweed

In the past I have experimented a little with the Filters that IPhoto and Google Photos offer and now I noticed in iMovie that after a picture is uploaded there are Filter options available. One of those is the INK Filter. I am curious what type of photos this filter would be interesting to apply. With that in mind I created a Video using the INK Filter of a variety of my pictures and pictures that friends have sent me time from time.

This is one example of an original picture and the Ink Filter applied:

See what you think of the INK Filter, a Video.

There has been plenty of hot, humid days, thunderstorms, people saying “stay hydrated” :), etc. as Summer is here, no time like the “present” to enjoy !!

LET’S BLOOM 4th !!!