chorus: don't fence me [out]

The visitors just kept coming this week!

Chogs ("chunky hogs," or what we call groundhogs) were out and about as usual.  

I found a dig spot beside our red barn, which we just can't allow.  It's one thing to let the chogs live under a dirt-floor barn that we're using for storage, and another thing entirely to let them tunnel under our big temperature-controlled concrete-floor barn.  We filled in the hole and are being watchful for other attempts!

Wild turkeys came to the front field to feed.

Best of all, they brought their BABIES!  So many turkey poults.

Believe it or not, they can fly at this age.

I startled them when I came around the barn and they headed for the trees!

Our heron is back almost daily in the front pond.  Yes, the algae is gross.  We're hopefully doing something about it next week.

The usual pests, the cottontail rabbit...

...and the whitetail deer were back, ranging into my garden and eating down my dahlias.

It's one thing to eat dahlia stalks, which will grow back.  It's another thing entirely to visit the row of 150 sunflower seedlings that I just planted this week and start digging them up.  I started yet ANOTHER tray of seedlings to replace the ones that were eaten, and Todd fenced in the row with cattle panels and stiff netting over the loud complaints of our furry friends.

I didn't have quite enough to replace the eaten ones, but we'll still have around 120 sunflowers if all goes well...hooray!  

Our friendly neighborhood possum comes nightly, too.

Meanwhile, everything in the perennial garden is in bloom (terrible cell phone pic):

Which brings out the bugs!  A pair of mating leatherwing beetles pollinated my yarrow.

Bees, bees, bees!

The milkweed is blooming...

...and causing a furor.  First, these little guys are about half the size of a rice grain, so it's hard to get a good picture...but after a lot of research, I've discovered their identity:  sugarcane aphids.

They're relatively new to southern Indiana and normally prey on sorghum, not milkweed.  Big infestations can damage the plants and keep monarch butterflies from laying eggs (they exclusively use milkweed).  I carefully hosed off each leaf, but they came right back.  I'm still deciding what to do...

Meanwhile, one of the "good guys" turned out to be more of a frenemy than a friend.  This spined soldier bug nymph normally eats garden pests, but this week he turned on our lone monarch caterpillar...

...and devoured him, making him a take-out meal as he moved him from leaf to leaf.  Poor caterpillar was a sad, wrinkled version of his former self.

Hopefully we'll have other monarchs, and I also planted dill, in part, to draw them in.  

So many visitors this week, and I even missed a day with my usual pukey hormonal migraine!  Even so, I still managed to have a couple of visitors in my sick bed.  Not great for an upset stomach, but a healing balm for the spirit.  

Have a great week!

nest, pest, and egg divest

 The flower garden is coming along!

Just as quickly as Todd lays out drip tape, paths, and rows, I drop in seedlings.   

It was so different this year!  No filling the barn with grow lights and heat pads, no soil blocks, no drama.  I have a shelf upstairs with a few grow lights and heat pads.  I seeded in plastic six-packs, and popped the seedlings outside to acclimate once they'd gotten big enough.  Then straight into the garden.  Repeat, repeat.  We're nearly done!  

Claudia is a huge help.

Meanwhile, the other gardens are popping and I'm getting plenty of bouquets.

Nothing fancy...just whatever I feel like in the moment.  A big part of being out in the flower garden is the insects, of course.  I absolutely love hunting for them.  I found two tiny praying mantises this week, both about 1 1/2" long and hiding among the yarrow blooms.

This Tarnished Plant Bug is pretty, but a big garden pest.  They can decimate vegetable crops, so I'm going to have to keep an eye out.

Here's a blast from the past!  I haven't seen woolly aphids since we were in South Carolina.  These little bits of fluff that float through the air like fairies are actually sap suckers, like the Tarnished Plant Bug.  There are many varieties that are tree-specific, but this aphid is probably eyeballing our apple tree.

The tree is already stressed from the drought (we seem to have no rain for weeks, a day of monsoon-level pounding, and then back to no rain for weeks), so I'll definitely have to monitor it and remove any aphids immediately.

Speaking of suckers...ugh.  Ticks.  They are RELENTLESS this year.  I've only pulled off a few attached ones, thanks to multiple daily showers and tick-checks, but I'm constantly pulling them off of clothing when I come in from outdoors.  The worst is the nymphs, or seed ticks.  They're freckle-sized, so almost impossible to see.  But they can attach to you and transfer disease just like full-grown ticks.  Here's one that I found crawling on my leg this week.  I was able to magnify the picture.  You can see that although freckle-sized, it's all tick.  Walk across cut grass?  Ticks.  Walk through the garden?  Ticks.  They are everywhere, which is one of the reasons I'm so pleased with the new fabric-covered garden.  It's ugly, but at least it's safe from ticks.  

At least I've seen some beneficial insects, like this syrphid fly (great pollinator)...

...and this Sarcophaga fly.  It's known as a "flesh fly" - sounds gross, but they're great cleaners in nature.

Our bee balm is drawing bees, and many other great pollinators!

From planting one little milkweed seed a few years ago, we now have about 10 plants that are going to be blooming soon.

If I remember correctly, they smell wonderful!  I love growing fragrant plants, like sweet peas...

...and dill.  I love the smell of dill so much that I planted 5 mature plants in a huge container on our porch steps.  Every time I walk past, the scent of dill is released.  Love!!!

While I love seeing so many things growing this time of year...

...this is also the time of year for nest mishaps.  Yes, we've lost another nest.

This barn swallow nest, which has been in our barn for years, was knocked to the ground and the babies eaten, just like the bluebirds.  Was it Claudia?  She's never bothered it before, but technically she can climb and could possibly reach it.

There are also a lot of stray cats around.  And snakes...and snakes climb.  But could they actually knock down a nest?  I've also seen evidence of raccoons.  They are born climbers and could knock it down easily.  I will never know, but next year we're going to take steps to protect the nests we find by setting up barriers below for intruders.

For now we'll just accept our losses and move forward.  There are a lot more positive things...the garden is looking great, the big project is almost done, the weather has been mild (although dry)...and we've got some great support when we come in from our hard work.

Have a great week!  

"fish" scales and this plant is...male?

 Babies!

Barn swallows are reusing the old nest in the white barn.  There are nests elsewhere...the air is full of dipping and swooping barn swallows in the barnyard!

More babies in our front junipers.  This is a song sparrow fledgling.

The parents are protective...maybe making a nest directly by the front door wasn't the greatest idea?

This paper wasp queen is making a nest, too.  She's been out and about, searching for wood fibers (any source of wood, even cardboard!).  She masticates the wood with her saliva until she has a ball of pulp...

...which she'll use to start building one of those papery grey wasp nests that are found in so many places.

Turkeys are gobbling in the early mornings, and scavenging during the day when the hunting is good!

I see the same deer almost daily.  

It's easily recognizable because of its strange appearance.

These warty clusters are called deer fibroma, caused by a papillomavirus.  It doesn't affect the health of the deer and can't be transmitted to humans.  It's just unsightly, not harmful!

Butterflies are out and about!

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail female

Great Spangled Frittillary 

Someone dropped a wing recently and I love examining them in detail.  Butterfly wings are covered in tiny scales, like a fish.  That's why their scientific name is Lepidoptera, from the Greek Lepido (scale) and ptera (wing).

Gnats are out in their mating swarms, which are tiny but mighty!

If you look closely, they almost look like they're holding hands in tiny joyful dance circles!

More garden work.

I'm a little concerned with my direct seeding.  The soil is healthy, but the top of the rows are covered in dry,  crumbly clay chunks.  I planted 22 pumpkin seeds but only 2 came up (I'm going to start more in flats this week...seedlings transplanted into the rows are doing just fine).  I planted over 200 sunflower seeds on Saturday.  On Sunday, we got our first real rain in a month, but hours of torrential downpours that likely washed the seeds away.  Sunflowers germinate quickly...if I haven't seen any in a week, I'll probably (sigh) fill flats with seeds and transfer the seedlings.  The garden will be beautiful...maybe not 'til August, though!  Next year, at least, we'll have our system in place and can get things planted a month earlier.  I've been working on more container planting.  The chogs ate all of the hyacinth bean vines that I planted, the week after eating half of my tomatoes.  I'm putting morning glories in their place.  On the front porch, I planted a pretty vine called purple bell vine.  They look normal from above. 

But at eye level?  I'm pretty sure this is really a purple penis plant.

I guess it's a conversation piece?  :)  This week I get the dahlias planted...the last of our landscape fabric comes in, and I fill in the rows with all available seedlings, and seed more if there's room.  Excitement!  The whole garden should be seeded and growing within a week!  We're all ready for a rest.

Have a great week!