Author: Mike Dunn
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Plants That Bite Back – Part 2
It commonly chances that I make my most interesting botanical discoveries when I am in a thrilled and expectant mood…some rare plant which for some reason has occupied a strangely prominent place in my thoughts for some time will present itself. My expectation ripens to discovery. I am prepared for strange things. ~Henry David Thoreau, Read more…
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Plants That Bite Back
The great wonder of the vegetable kingdom is a very curious unknown species of Sensitive. It is a dwarf plant. The leaves are like a narrow segment of a sphere, consisting of two parts, like the cap of a spring purse, the concave part outwards, each of which falls back with indented edges (like an Read more…
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Bears and Butterflies
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do… Explore. Dream. Discover. ~Mark Twain I think that sentiment is one of Melissa’s primary views of how to live a life. But, even she was a bit reluctant to head out early Read more…
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Green Shelters
The distinctive roar of the longleaf was the sound the evening breeze made, and the odor of pine resin was the smell of the countryside…It was so much a part of their lives, so wound up with everything it meant to be southern, that it was as impossible to discern its influence as it was Read more…
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Crispy Cocoon
That which does not kill us makes us stronger. ~Friedrich Nietzche Last weekend we once again camped at Jones Lake State Park as part of an exploratory trip to the Green Swamp and surroundings. As we drove in, the campground looked quite different from last year at this time – it had been burned. The Read more…
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Bee-autiful and Bee-zarre
…even the insects in my path are not loafers, but have their special errands. ~Henry David Thoreau About two weeks ago, we took a hike at one of our favorite springtime destinations, Johnston Mill Nature Preserve, one of the many wonderful properties owned and managed by the Triangle Land Conservancy. We have been impressed and Read more…
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Another Milestone – #500
Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished. ~Lao Tzu Nature may not hurry, but this past year sure seems to have flown by. My personal life has been a blur these past many months, and the blogging has slowed a bit (you may have noticed). I blame it on that thing called work. I Read more…
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What a Difference a Week Makes
We discover a new world every time we see the earth again after it has been covered for a season with snow. ~Henry David Thoreau This past week started with one of those North Carolina spring conundrums – a snow storm! I have been working on some fact sheets on spring ephemerals, those spring wildflowers Read more…
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Developing, in a Pool Near You…
Every child should have mud pies, grasshoppers, water bugs, tadpoles, frogs, mud turtles, elderberries, wild strawberries, acorns , chestnuts, trees to climb…and any child who has been deprived of these has been deprived of the best part of education. ~Luther Burbank The arrival of spring is a stop and go affair here in central North Read more…
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Roads End Naturalist 