"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!