hare today...

 Rabbits, rabbits, rabbits!

Every day...they are everywhere.

Standing still...and then streaking away.

We've got quite a few turkey vultures hanging around, looking for one of these tasty morsels.

The rabbits (and the deer) have done quite a bit of damage in the garden, but there's still enough flowers remaining to attract pollinators!

megachile bee

cabbage white butterfly

alfalfa bug

black firefly

cluster fly

eastern tiger swallowtail butterfly

spicebush swallowtail butterfly

Most are attracted to the milkweed, which is in full bloom - and fragrance - right now.

Insects have to watch out for the sticky sap.  This honey bee got caught in it!

I've found some pests, too...

tent caterpillars

Japanese beetles

false potato beetles

...but it's overwhelmingly positive.

great spangled fritillaries

It's hot now, so I'm not outside nearly as much.  Hanging out inside with the usual crew!

Hopefully next week will be a little cooler!

Getting things done when weather allows!

ice rosette, no spring yet!

 We've gone from this...

freak snow right after a 70 degree day, 3 inches!  The snow was completely gone by late afternoon.

...to this!

bulbs popping up everywhere!

actual insects!  This is a female Pale Brindled Beauty moth.

a bee!  Struggling between two boards on our porch.

Nice to get a few more animals-in-snow shots.  As his thick coat suggests, this coyote probably isn't bothered by the snow at all!

A little territory-marking by this bobcat.

Now that the snow's gone, I can see that we have a ton of Chinese praying mantis oothecas.

I think I've found 13 so far.  Normally I like to take a pretty hands-off approach to interference with nature, but these invasive mantises will kill our native ones.  They also kill bees, butterflies, and even humming birds!  I don't want them in my garden, so they'll all be collected and burned.  Each ootheca can hold up to 400 eggs!  My garden would be completely overrun.

Now that the snow is gone, we're at that strange place between winter and the first real green of spring, and it can be hard to see as much natural beauty.

Thank goodness for fungus!  ;)

It's not always easy to identify, but I love seeing the different shapes and colors.  

More color in the sky...

Something else that's kind of interesting...I've noticed these "stars" in our front pond.

Even Thoreau wrote about these strange things ("ice rosettes"), but there isn't a consensus on what causes them.  Some people think that it's a warm current of groundwater that causes this fracture, while others suggest that a flaw in the ice allows for water to move, spread, and separate out.  I don't think I've noticed it before this winter!  

A chilly start to March!  Not putting the quilts away yet.  We'll see what the next weeks bring!

an awful falafel?

Pepita has gamely worn her donut...

...but now it's off and she's footloose and fancy free!

We've had our first frost...

...but she's still out on the trail.  I bought so many size S and M coats for her, but she's a lot more...stout...than we anticipated.  She's a short dog, but pretty stocky.  Still, a few fit.

Despite the frost, the days are warm enough that bees are still buzzing around.

A few butterflies and moths too, but mostly I find reminders that their time is nearly up.

Despite virtually no attention, we still have quite a few flowers blooming.

I'd planted morning glories in a pot by our porch in MAY.  All summer long, I hauled jugs of water for it, but we just had a lot of leaves.  Disgusted, I stopped caring for it in September.  The pot dried up.  The leaves drooped.  Then, a couple of weeks ago, it started blooming. 

Another head-scratcher...we didn't have any apple blossoms (or apples) this year because of a fungus.  However, six months late, we're starting to get a few blossoms!  Crazy!

We've been hearing coyotes almost every night, and close.  Deer regularly visit the yard, including this buck...

...with the same leg infection that we've been seeing all summer in local deer.

Claudia is thriving in the barn but refuses to go outside, even on nice days.  That's all right...we have a new feral cat to focus on!  His name is Falafel, a word that I think is really fun to say.  It works on two levels, too, because Todd isn't keen to have stray around...just in case Claudia decides to come out.  So he can call him Fal-Awful.  But I've already decided to feed and house Falafel this winter.  We've got stray cat houses and electric water bowls, so I'll set up a feeding station in our white barn.  Yay!

Just a little bit of yard work in these waning days of October...

But for me, the weather has turned and I'm mostly hanging inside with the cats.

Loving fall so much this year.

Have a great week!