cat-astrophes

So many interesting little dramas happening in the past week.  I noticed a big pile of ants on...something...in a porch beam.

It wasn't long before they completely extracted the mysterious white lump, and it fell onto the porch rail below.  It was an immature carpenter bee!

They face a lot of predators before they're fully mature, but we have so many of them around that I guess it's not too much of a concern.

And, in the back yard, I saw thousands and thousands of ants swarming on a log.

It's hard to get a feel for the scope from this picture, but there was about 4 feet of wood on the ground too, and every inch of it was crawling with ants.  Winged ants rimmed the stump edge.

They're called the St. Valentine ant, because of their heart-shaped abdomen.  Both sexually mature females and worker males have wings, but these are most likely females heading out for their "nuptual swarm."  They will mate and fly off to start new colonies.

Speaking of wings, Todd found the wings of a beautiful Cecropia moth on a walk last week.

More wings...look at this gorgeous red admiral!

And eastern pondhawk!

On our way to a walk this week, we saw that someone had hit a possum.  The next day, only a few bones remained...thanks to these guys.

We have so many turkey vultures here.  I see them every single day.

I love having them around.  They seem so dignified and stately!  And they do a great job of keeping our roads clean.  

Another kind of turkey is around nearly daily now, too...and in great numbers!

It's baby time!

The young goz are out in the field, too, but in smaller numbers.

Both gardens are blooming now, which are bringing the bees.

I have one more group of seedlings to get into the ground.

But that's it.  I've been astounded, truly shocked at how poor germination has been, even with the good soil.  I started ANOTHER group of seeds - sunflowers and zinnias, the world's easiest things to germinate.  Todd built a cattle panel enclosure to keep out the groundhogs.  I started to get some small seedlings in the sunflower container, but then a pounding rain destroyed them.  In my older sunflower container, I had 6 healthy seedlings...and something popped off their tops.  A few desultory zinnias came up, but insects quickly devoured the leaves and they died.  I'm done.  I've got these zinnias, toothache plants, and ageratum up by the house, where they're thriving.  They're going in the ground TONIGHT and then I am officially, 100% done with gardening for the year.  Woo hoo!  

I've been doing more baking...

healthy flourless peanut butter cookies

a three-fruit coffee cake to celebrate the 1st day of summer

...including cupcakes and a couple of cookie batches yesterday, for a get-together, that I didn't have time to photograph.  

We've also been dealing with ever-increasing cat problems with our two boys.  They look so innocent...

Barnabas

Frances

...but they've been absolutely tormenting our elderly cat...and we can't keep them separated, because Barnabas has freaky outward-turned hind legs that enables him to jump up to 8 feet.  He's cleared every single barrier that Todd has erected to keep him downstairs.  It's been a pretty stressful and chaotic week, but we're hoping that we have something figured out to help.  Fingers crossed.

At least our outdoor cat is not causing any stress!

I'm trying to take a deep breath on the porch swing whenever I need it.  Love the view!  

Have a great week!

Leaf Hoppers and Tree Choppers

We had what I would consider a fairly mild storm this week, but it was enough to knock down one of our giant dead trees.  It fell into the pond, taking another tree with it.

It's hard to tell from the pictures, but the tree was huge!  It stretched almost the entire width of the pond.  The first few days, the beavers worked on the bark.  Beavers love to eat bark and the soft layer beneath.

Today, we woke up to discover the tree completely gone! 

How they sectioned and hauled off that gigantic tree in one night is a mystery to me.  They are amazing creatures!

Speaking of amazing creatures, Todd found an ant migration this week.  It was at dusk, and millions of ants were carrying eggs from a depressed spot in the ground to an existing colony location by the side of the house, a good 50 feet distance.  Since the light was so poor, I couldn't get a clear picture, but here is the general idea:

We were transfixed by the sight of these tiny, determined creatures, marching with a single-minded focus to their new home.  Today, they swarmed.  This well-established colony of ants produced sexually mature males, which will mate with the flying queen when she appears, and then die. 

More amazing...this ant dragging a lacewing insect three times its size, and so quickly that I was barely able to get a shot!

Spiders are out now, too.  This common orb weaver secures her prey...

...before climbing up to repair a tear in her web.

A beautiful yellow garden spider hangs on our back deck.

 It's an ingenious place to set up shop, right by a set of deck lights.  There's a never-ending supply of moths and other small flying insects.

We're hearing cicadas now, and seeing their discarded shells, too.

I don't usually see post-molt adults, but one attached itself to our sun room screen yesterday:

Right in line with the flowering of our front sun perennials...

...come the leaf hoppers.  Aren't they beautiful?

Here's a velvet buck in the yard, so called for the fuzzy growth on his antlers that will shed by fall.

And there he goes!

Finally, some sad news.  This is the last  picture of Little Miss's cardinal chick.

He was growing rapidly and feeding frequently, and then one day, he was just gone.  It was much too early for him to leave the nest, and I didn't find him on the ground beneath it, so I can only conclude that he fell prey to one of his many predators (snakes, owls, raccoons, etc.). 

I'll keep an eye out for other interesting things around the yard.  There's always something going on.  Have a great week!

Multi-Creature Feature

It truly feels like summer here in South Carolina, and we've got little creatures coming out of the woodwork...literally. 

The 3-foot long fish (we've been told that they're carp) have resurfaced in our pond.  They love to come to the surface in the late afternoon to take advantage of the sun's warmth.

I noticed a carpenter bee starting to bore a hole in our wooden flag post outside (coming out of the woodwork - get it?).  Only female carpenter bees are capable of stinging and rarely do, so I shooed it away.  In just a few minutes, it had already gnawed quite a hole.

I put a piece of Scotch tape over the spot to discourage a return visit, but the bee just settled in an inch below it and started a new hole.

I watched its progress.  In no time at all, it had gotten another good start...

...and more...

Look at it go!

I'm afraid it was pretty disappointed to discover the lack of space in that little pole, because the hole was abandoned after a day or two.

I did see a really interesting moth while out by the flag.  Its jaunty shape reminds me of a fighter jet!

I found this ant nest under a rock while clearing vines.  See the little white eggs?

I put the rock back so as not to disturb their little habitat.

This Eastern squirrel watched me weed this week.  I was surprised how close he came...Eastern squirrels are so much more timid than the fox squirrels I'm used to!

We've had a thriving nest of raccoons in a side yard tree since we moved in.  I'll occasionally catch one climbing down during the day and slipping into the woods.

This not-so-little guy was curled up in a flower bed right by our front door.

It's an Eastern garter snake and totally harmless.  They can grow up to four feet long!  These are definitely not the little garter snakes I'm used to, but I don't mind them.  They're great to have around.

I found a cardinal nest in the side arbor.

I had to clear out a foot of leaves from the side yard, most of it by hand, since the hostas had already come up, and the parents of the little ones were absolutely frantic.  Here's mom:

I really hated to upset them, but the work had to get done, so I just moved as quickly as possible.  Speaking of the side yard, it's finally leaf-free and weeded, although no flowers have been planted yet...

One of the best things is the fence, which means I can safely take the cats outside for a little outdoor time.  Bosewichte was an alley cat before his adoption, so he knows how to navigate the terrain...

...or beg for more time.

Tabitha isn't used to the outdoors, so she spends a lot of time crouching...

...and looking over her shoulder.

There hasn't been any time for baking or any leisure activities, really.  Besides the time my business demands, I've been doing all the outdoor work I mentioned before, plus indoor things:  sanding and scraping and painting (a concerted effort with Todd).  I decided to carve out a little time every day to unwind with knitting, and began making a sweater for myself.  Inevitably I got swept up in my work and laid the knitting aside.  When I picked it up again after two or three weeks away, I transposed the working colors and knitted a full two inches incorrectly before I noticed it.  See the blue at the top?

I frogged the mistake and promptly knitted it again, incorrectly.  Frustrated, I frogged it down to the ribbing and started again.  I'm very pleased with how it's turning out now!  It's also an incentive to work on it a little bit every day, so that I don't lose my momentum and start making mistakes.  This sweater pattern contains my first steek, where I'll actually cut through the knitted fabric to insert a fold-down neck.  It should be interesting!

Hope you're having a productive week, too!