The Entire Kale Crop Plus An Astonishing Natural Phenomenon!

My kale crop this summer was decimated by little caterpillars who merrily ate up about half of every leaf while we were out of town having fun.  Hence the entire crop fit nicely into this one medium-sized bowl, and I made a good kale salad out of it.

The three drawings on the right are memory drawings made from astonishing things that P and I saw on the Jones Mountain Rhododendron Ridge Trail late this morning:  a lovely little pink thistle, a hornets' nest being constructed around a ripe apple that is still attached to the apple tree by its stem;  and this year's first Indian pipe!  P wins the prize for spotting the Indian pipe, which was growing in the shade of a fallen tree in a nest of dry leaves and very hard to see.  Personally, I think the apple cum hornet's nest is a more valuable find in terms of rareness and unlikeliness;  but when I googled it I found that hornet's love apples and other sweet fruit and will sometimes actually burrow inside an apple and gorge on the flesh, and too bad for the poor person who bites into that apple!  And, although not often, hornets do sometimes build their nests around an apple or pear that is still hanging on the tree.