18 & Life

 Hooray - our 18th anniversary is in the books!  I just found the perfect t-shirt at an Amazon returns/overstock store for .50.  :)

We'd made plans to travel to a national wildlife refuge with Pepita for hiking, a picnic lunch, and board games by the water, but we got rained out.  Severe storms here and there, all weekend long.  The best we could manage was an hour-long hike at the local bog, but we barely made it through...the rain had started by the time we finished up.  

Pepita is still not much of a hiking fan.

But she finally complied...mostly.  

Wonderful to be out, lots of flowers...

purple fringeless orchid

...and waterways.

We'd used a spray for mosquitoes and ticks, but it didn't affect another common pest, the deer fly.

They have a pretty painful bite and can draw blood!  Mosquitoes use a thin needle-like implement, but deer flies saw clumsily through skin to create pools of blood to drink from.  

Thankfully, we don't seem to have any deer flies around our house.  Just lots...and lots...of butterflies.  Hundreds.  More than I've ever seen anywhere except for the butterfly installment at the Indianapolis Zoo.

Not just butterflies.  The flower garden is drawing all sorts of bees and wasps, and one of my favorites...hummingbird moths!

Milkweed tussock caterpillars!

Lots of other creatures too.  I love, love, love having this insect draw every year and it makes all the hard work worth it!

twice-stabbed stink bugs

red milkweed beetle

oleander aphids

milkweed bug nymphs

adult milkweed bugs

I had my camera on the wrong setting the whole afternoon but I think the photos turned out all right.  I need more practice with it...I've been relying too heavily on my iPhone camera this summer!   It's just too easy to grab it when I see something "important."

cousins and armchair rabbit hunters

As long as this nice weather holds, I'm sure I'll have more chances!

wiener woes

The weather has been so incredibly nice this past week...70s!  Low humidity!  We had a bit of smoke from the Canadian wildfires, but so many blue-sky days.

Crews have been hard at work, clearing the debris from the recent tornado at our park.

We see their daily progress.  Pepita, however, is not watching.  She's pulling...toward the car.

She is not a fan of our daily routine.  She sometimes slips her harness and makes a run for it...

...or balks until Todd carries her.

I've never had a dog that doesn't LOVE to go on walks.  We might have to let a professional handle this problem!  She's definitely the most stubborn and opinionated dog ever.  Her dachshund % is front and center!

This means bona fide access to an endless assortment of slightly off-color "wiener dog" bumper stickers.  I am all in! I may or may not have both of these...

...and a few more that I haven't gotten the nerve to use yet!  :)  

More beautiful moths...

virgin tiger moth

...and caterpillars this week.

virginia creeper sphinx moth caterpillar

And just-missed butterflies!

empty pipevine swallowtail chrysalis 

I loved seeing this ringed assassin bug too.

Other goodies...a big pile of chanterelle mushrooms, which are a delicacy (we left them alone)!

And more surprises!  I saw this "pile of leaves" against a back fence.

Upon closer inspection, I saw that it was a newborn fawn...with its leg caught in the fencing?

This had to be remedied, but carefully.  Deer can be really violent with those hooves, and I had no idea where the mother was...but probably close.  I didn't want to get between her and her baby.  But when I got closer in my attempt to free him...

...he jumped up and fled.  Not caught after all!  There are so many newborns around, more than I've ever seen in a single season.  I saw a different mother and fawn pair yesterday in the park, too, and I see these two...or another couple...every day or so in the back field.  

Now the weather's getting hot again, though, and more time inside.  Trying to get work done...

trying to work on my computer with a sleeping cat on my arm...

 trying to get some eBay photography done with a"helper"

...and even finishing a couple of puzzles in my spare time!

I'm really going to get back into more creative projects soon, but in the heat of summer with little motivation, a good podcast and a good puzzle make a nearly unbeatable pair.  

Here's hoping for more cooler weather soon!

tick magnet

 Still seeing multiple rabbits a day here!

Some really gorgeous moths lately, too.

clymene moth

stinging rose moth

tulip tree beauty moth

And my first caterpillar!  Looking forward to a caterpillar bounty this fall.

yellow woolly bear caterpillar

The garden is looking great, somehow!  Normally I have a lot of weedy-looking celosia, but the deer are so plentiful this year that they've mowed them all down.  All I have left are the things that deer don't really eat...like this beautiful perennial purple verbena bonariensis.

Coneflowers are going strong, too.

Nice to have reliable perennials coming up, like russian sage and yarrow.

We've been able to resume our walks in the main part of the state forest but wow, the damage is crazy!

Even with downed trees, the little lake is so pretty.

Still dealing with the usual pests...

lone star tick pulled from Pepita

...but overall, it's been smooth sailing around here.  At 99 days accident-free, Pepita has earned access to a new room...with a rug!

With hot, humid days, she spends a lot of time napping.

...as well as her kitten cousins!

Hoping for a break in the humidity next week.  I'd love to spend a little more time outdoors!