Nick in NC @nicknc.bsky.social · 27/09/2026Building greenhouse, in my 30s: “This roof I designed is really high and looks cool. Time for a beer now.” Replacing greenhouse roof, in my 50s: “Who designed this ridiculous fucking roof to be 12 ft high and too steep to walk. Need to rest for a week now.” Replacing roof again, in my 70s: ?????? 1142
Nick in NC @nicknc.bsky.social · 26/09/2026Foliage of Tradescantia sillamontana doesn’t look great after heavy rain this week, but the flowers are cute. 🌱🌴 0184
Reposted by Nick in NCtaenia @taenia.bsky.social · 25/09/2026so anyway the North Cascades are pretty nice 17110
Nick in NC @nicknc.bsky.social · 25/09/2026My favorite plant family is definitely Orchidaceae, but Ericaceae (heather, rhododendron, etc.) is a close second. Because there isn't a lot flowering in the garden right now, I'm going to post one ericad photo a day until I run out or get bored. 1240
Nick in NC @nicknc.bsky.social · 24/09/2026The temperature outside has dropped to a frigid 16 C, and it is only 23 C indoors. Time to break out the fleece-lined flannel shirt. 370
Nick in NC @nicknc.bsky.social · 23/09/2026As I was sliding a tray into the oven, a flower crab spider fell from the ceiling with an audible plop, narrowly missing my frozen strudel. I whipped the tray back out, and the spider was non the worse for its brief sojourn in the furnace. Not sure why it was in the house instead of the garden. 081
Nick in NC @nicknc.bsky.social · 20/09/2026Bulbophyllum corolliferum. This was one of my first orchids, purchased 32 years ago and still going strong. Flowers smell like mushrooms. 🌱🌴 1305
Nick in NC @nicknc.bsky.social · 19/09/2026Me: “I don’t understand people who get angry at TV sports.” Also me, yelling at the screen during Jeopardy: “Grendel! Who is Grendel, you dumbfucks!” 1102
Nick in NC @nicknc.bsky.social · 18/09/2026The heck? No one else likes dung beetles? I think they’re pretty awesome. This one was cleaning up after a raccoon (I think) who ate too many persimmons. 070
Nick in NC @nicknc.bsky.social · 17/09/2026Dung beetles move like they’re animated by Ray Harryhausen. 140
Nick in NC @nicknc.bsky.social · 15/09/2026An umbrella makes a pretty good impromptu snake hook if you need to gently encourage a copperhead to get off the road. 050
Nick in NC @nicknc.bsky.social · 13/09/2026Jordan Lake yesterday afternoon. A bald eagle did a close flyby at sunset. 2183
Nick in NC @nicknc.bsky.social · 12/09/2026Big Bloomers in Sanford is always an exciting trip. You never know what what will be lurking in the greenhouses. Today I got Medinilla sedifolia, which I have wanted for literally decades, Pseudorhipsalis amazonica, and Orbea caudata. And gazed longingly at more than a dozen other species. 110
Nick in NC @nicknc.bsky.social · 11/09/2026I think this is a male Carolina mantid, but I have never before seen one with bright green legs. 2113
Nick in NC @nicknc.bsky.social · 11/09/2026Polianthes tuberosa (tuberose), originally from Mexico but no longer found in the wild. All surviving plants are likely derived from those cultivated by the Aztecs. I planted half a dozen a few years ago and forgot about them. This one survived several winters before surprising me with flowers. 🌱 1416
Nick in NC @nicknc.bsky.social · 11/09/2026We were at the end of a holiday in Ireland. Got to our B&B in Dublin shortly before the south tower collapsed, and the owner met us at the door with “come and see what is happening in your country”. 110
Nick in NC @nicknc.bsky.social · 07/09/2026Rhododendron 'Ne Plus Ultra' buds opening for the first time in my collection. This is the cultivar (introduced 1892) that James H. Veitch chose to illustrate his 1906 history of his nursery's 50-year vireya hybridization program. Judging by its name, he thought it was something special. 🌴🌱 1343
Nick in NC @nicknc.bsky.social · 06/09/2026Well, crap. I didn’t expect the shiitake logs to do anything in this extreme heat, so I wasn’t paying attention. Suddenly, I have the biggest crop of mushrooms ever, and they’re all too far gone to harvest. 2393
Nick in NC @nicknc.bsky.social · 05/09/2026Fuzzy pink sage. 🌱 Salvia oxyphora in my neighbor’s garden today. . . 2314
Nick in NC @nicknc.bsky.social · 05/09/2026Rhododendron ‘Aravir’ shrugged off the extreme heat this week. In fact, all of my vireyas are doing surprisingly well. 🌴🌱 0447
Nick in NC @nicknc.bsky.social · 04/09/2026I see the US dialect quiz is making the rounds again. Interesting how dialect/accent can be both malleable and fixed. I moved to the US as a teenager, and 5 years in the northeast had a permanent effect on how I speak. But 6 in the midwest and almost 30 in the southeast have made little difference. 020
Reposted by Nick in NCColton the fish squeezer🐟🪴📚🏕️🐝 @fishsqueezer.bsky.social · 02/09/2026I know #InverteFest ended yesterday, but I got to visit Musselshell Creek today for the first time and it was so beautiful and also still full of mussels. Please love it with me. 1381
Nick in NC @nicknc.bsky.social · 29/08/2026This guy is distressed that his favorite human has gone off to university. He keeps leading me back to her room to show me that she isn’t there. Then he yells at me. #Caturday 0231
Reposted by Nick in NCRachel Leggett @rleggos.bsky.social · 27/08/2026I got the shot. I've been scheming and hoping the conditions would work out for this for two weeks!! 🪶 17186901984
Nick in NC @nicknc.bsky.social · 28/08/2026This is the third or fourth lunar eclipse that I have seen, but it is still pretty cool. 030
Nick in NC @nicknc.bsky.social · 22/08/2026This little dude hopped out onto my arm when I opened the locker to get my new tank from the self-service propane kiosk at Home Depot. Set him free in the woods at the edge of the parking lot. 2245
Reposted by Nick in NCAlison Fisk @alisonfisk.bsky.social · 22/08/2026Happy weekend! Here’s an ancient Egyptian bead in the form of a curled-up blue hedgehog! Look at the little face and paws! 🦔💙 Made of faience around 3,600 years ago. National Museum of Scotland 📷 by me #Archaeology 201095283
Nick in NC @nicknc.bsky.social · 22/08/2026Sir, I understand that you enjoy a good wallow in a muddy puddle, but the middle of the road is not a suitable location for your ablutions. #herps 1313
Reposted by Nick in NCErik A. Rodriguez @erin-rod.bsky.social · 21/08/2026Today, I would like to honor the memory of Roger Y. Tsien, who died on August 24, 2016. His legacy lives with all who use his technologies, including calcium sensors, fluorescent proteins, the acetoxymethyl (AM) ester, & many more! #FluorescenceFriday www.nature.com/articles/nme... 012938
Nick in NC @nicknc.bsky.social · 21/08/2026From the second-hand bookshop yesterday evening. It’s always a good day when I find a John M Ford that I don’t already own. 000
Nick in NC @nicknc.bsky.social · 20/08/2026Green (Inca) jays in forest above Caracas, 1998. I don't have a new photo to post today, so here's my oldest taken with a digital camera, a Sony Mavica FD7. The FD7 saved 640 x 480 pixel images on a 3.5" floppy. I still have the camera but no charger and no way to read the disk that is inside it. 081
Nick in NC @nicknc.bsky.social · 17/08/2026Two 600g tubs of Marmite arrived just in time. I had almost run out. 121
Reposted by Nick in NCmossworm.bsky.social @mossworm.bsky.social · 04/08/2026Let us examine the set of circumstances that led to this Eulimnadia clam shrimp living out its entire live cycle in a styrofoam cup on the ground. 524369
Nick in NC @nicknc.bsky.social · 15/08/2026I got some new bookcases, so I am rearranging books that have been languishing in boxes. I received this “children’s version” of The Canterbury Tales from my godmother, so you can imagine my surprise when I read an unexpurgated version in high school. (The Miller’s Tale, lol) 000
Reposted by Nick in NCAinsley S @americanbeetles.bsky.social · 15/08/2026Out for a lil walk round the neighborhood, suddenly and unexpectedly PLEASED 410817
Nick in NC @nicknc.bsky.social · 15/08/2026There are few places with better energy than an American university campus on move-in day. 040
Nick in NC @nicknc.bsky.social · 15/08/2026About 75% of eastern box turtles clam up when I carry them across the road. The other 25% attempt to walk on air. This one was an air walker. It was surrounded by a cloud of mosquitos, several of them visibly distended with blood. #herps 2819
Nick in NC @nicknc.bsky.social · 15/08/2026So incredibly delicate. A pleated inkcap (Parasola plicatilis), I think. 1444
Nick in NC @nicknc.bsky.social · 15/08/2026Latest #SixonSaturday. I included some plants among the fungi this week. 🌱sweetgumandpines.wordpress.comSix on Saturday #101; August 15, 2026The biological diversity on our little plot of land never ceases to amaze me. I like to think I’m a fairly observant guy, but after nearly twenty years living here, I can still find things th… 1194
Nick in NC @nicknc.bsky.social · 13/08/2026Just the tiniest snek. Baby smooth earth snake, I think. #herps 2435
Nick in NC @nicknc.bsky.social · 13/08/2026Walmart is selling pine cones. In North Carolina. They’re selling pine cones in North Carolina. 280
Nick in NC @nicknc.bsky.social · 11/08/2026While out mushroom hunting in the backyard this weekend, I noticed that huge numbers of cranefly orchids are flowering. They flower while leafless, and the flowers are almost invisible against the leaf litter except when a sunbeam lights them up. 🌱 1327
Nick in NC @nicknc.bsky.social · 10/08/2026When I was an undergrad (late 80s), I had a prof who wouldn’t permit calculators in exams but joked that slide rules were ok. I went to the student bookstore and found an older employee. She led me to a dusty box in the basement full of slide rules that had been pulled from the shelves in the 1970s. 160
Nick in NC @nicknc.bsky.social · 09/08/2026Crinum ‘Infusion’ standing tall—about 4 1/2 ft tall. 🌱 0375
Nick in NC @nicknc.bsky.social · 09/08/2026Shaggy stalked bolete, Aureoboletus betula. Found two this morning. 0514
Nick in NC @nicknc.bsky.social · 09/08/2026Aaaaand another Hygrocybe, I think. This one has a yellow stalk and is larger than the presumed Hygrocybe miniata that I found the other dayZ 091
Nick in NC @nicknc.bsky.social · 09/08/2026So, I steeped myself in DEET and went outside for 20 minutes. Found ANOTHER blue mushroom. This one seems to be Lactarias indigo. There is a small cluster at the base of one of our biggest white oaks. 040
Nick in NC @nicknc.bsky.social · 09/08/2026Eeeeee! The color! Russula parvovirescens, I am fairly certain. Every time I go outside this week, I find more mushroom species. 820919