the cave dwellers

Last week was freakishly hot and humid...and this week was almost like fall.  Pepita spent a lot of time rolling on the ground outside and I felt like doing the same!  While keeping a sharp eye out for ANYTHING changing colors/looking like a sign of fall...

...I also enjoyed the last of the mid-summer flowers.  

Guys, you're facing the wrong way!  The garden's over there!

Another sign of the advancing season...tiger bee flies are back!  Telltale signs include white drips on the porch...

...larvae cases sticking out of carpenter bee holes on the upper portion of the deck...

...and, of course, the bees themselves.

They hatch, they mate...

terrible cell phone pic

...and they're gone. 

Lots of wasps are making nests right now.  We've got paper wasps building nests on the porch and in some of our bushes...

...and grass wasps carrying long strands of vegetation into pre-drilled holes for nesting.

Cooler weather gives me a great opportunity to actually be outside...and see things!

raccoon print in the mud

eastern box turtle shell

a skipper

Todd's and my 17th anniversary was this past week.  We decided to go to Bluespring Caverns and take the longest underground boat tour in the U.S.!  I got a photo of our walk deep into the cavern...

...but unfortunately, a cell phone that takes fairly terrible pics in broad daylight is not going to do well in a dark cave.  Oh, well!

At home, Frances is finally reaching his potential as the fat, lazy cat I knew he could be if he just put in the work.

Of course, he's earned his rest...he works hard at keeping Pepita in line, mostly by sitting on her leash so that she's unable to move.

He is a great  partner in crime to the Barnacle (what we call Barnabas 90% of the time), too.

Still not allowed on the dining room table, not that they care much about that!

Pepita is still learning "Be nice to the cats!"  She sees them as romping partners, or maybe big squeaky toys.  

the side-eye

It will just take time.  This whole experience is definitely teaching me patience.  Oh...and SOMEONE took a very important test recently.  It turns out that Pepita is NOT an Australian Shepherd...not even a little bit.

(Her "supermutt" is Australian cattle dog, chihuahua, pug, collie, and German shepherd)

It's probably a good thing.  We rather impulsively adopted her without considering the breed.  I read belatedly that Australian shepherds are incredibly high-energy, tend to bark, can be suspicious of those outside the family...I'm glad that our lower-energy people-loving mutt is exactly who she is.

Have a great week!   

Caraway eyes and robber flies

It's anniversary time!  I believe this is our fourth anniversary in the South.  One year we went to the coast, and the other years to the mountains in North Carolina.  This year we'd originally planned to go to the coast, but had some unexpected expenses come up last minute that made it seem a little less than prudent.  We then thought we might head to the mountains to hike, but my still-healing ankle made me a little hesitant to try really steep inclines.  We finally settled on a simple day trip to Athens, Georgia, to see the state botanical gardens.

I love that water lilies are always in bloom on our anniversary.

We saw lots of beautiful dragonflies.  These are both in the Erythemis simplicicollis family, with the common name pondhawk.  Isn't that a great name for a dragonfly?

Another great find was this robber fly who'd captured a carpenter bee.

Also called "assassin flies," they can easily catch prey in flight and insert a neurotoxin to subdue it.

Here's a lovely grasshopper!  His striped eyes remind me of stubby caraway seeds.

Finally, we saw some aphids deliriously sucking the fluid from a lily, little legs kicking in pleasure. These guys know how to have a good time!

I was really delighted to spot a lizard that I've never seen in South Carolina:  a five-lined skink. Check out that tail!

Skinks are tiny...only about 8 inches long, and almost half of that is tail.  They can detach these tails if needed, to avoid a predator.  Scientists theorize that this is the reason for the brightly-colored hue of the tail, to direct predators to that end of the body.  The skink can lose the tail with no problem...the head, on the other hand, is indispensable.

I saw my first cotton flowers - so lovely!  I love the clasping leaves and the way the light shines through the petals.

Beautiful light all around.

Their hydrangeas aren't doing much better than ours at this time of year!

Star-shaped seed pods...

---more lovely spirals.

I spotted this bulbous fungus on a juniper fir.  It's apple cedar rust gall.

Left to its own devices, these will sprout pretty cool-looking orange fingers.  They'll dry and then send spores everywhere. It's best to remove these as soon as possible!

After our easy walk around the gardens, we gorged on steak tacos at a hole-in-the-wall restaurant, then went to a local nature preserve to hike more.  A stomachful of steak and 95 degree temps do not a pleasant hike make.  We only made it a mile or two before I threw in the towel.  I truly felt like Michael Scott on his Cure For Rabies Fun Run. It was better to be at home - in air conditioning!  I did give Todd one of his anniversary cards a little early (he gets several!).  This was probably influenced by the fact that I've started watching Breaking Bad again.

I love making cards and don't do it nearly enough!

Otherwise, on the homefront, our goz are taking regular practice flights.

All except for - gulp! - a certain flipper-winged goose, who has been ominously absent from the group this week.  Maybe he's got a cozy nest at the other end of the pond...I'll continue to keep an eye out for him.

Have a great week!

Bottoms Up!

We went away for our anniversary this weekend.  No more August beach trips for us!  We went to Highlands, North Carolina...a temperate rain forest tucked away in the mountains.  We stayed at a kitschy '60s style mountain lodge and did a lot of relaxing.  It's been so hot and dry in South Carolina that any flowers that survived are basically singed, but oh, everything was in bloom there!

We did a little hiking...

...but we spent a lot of time at the nature center.  Botanical gardens, big pond, lovely shaded walking trails, and, of course, our anniversary just happens to coincide with the bloom time of my beloved water lilies.

We spent at least an hour watching 4 ducks feeding there.

How low can he go?

After a hearty meal, they pushed a path through the lilies...

...and had a nice bath.

So wonderful to see insects again.  It's just been too hot in South Carolina to get outside, even for insects!

So much vibrant green!

I love getting away with my special guy to celebrate our relationship.  He makes marriage pretty easy!

Have a great week!