Dragging wings and insect things

Looks like gardenia season is nearly over, but I love the desiccated blooms nearly as much as the young ones.  They remind me of aged ivory parchment paper.

Thankfully, we have lots of new growth to fill in the gap.  Our "Jurassic ferns" are doing nicely in their new location.

Hostas are starting to spike.

The young lantana buds remind me of field clovers from home.

Our beautyberry bushes are sporting tiny purple flowers that are attracting lots of insects.

Trees are setting up their seeds, too.

It's hard to stay inside when all the tiny insects are on the move!  I love this iridescent fly.  Such beautiful colors!

The same goes for this pair of mating Japanese beetles.

I know they're destructive...can't you just hear him chewing?...

...but I can't help enjoying their lovely appearance.  Even relatively monochromatic insects have a beauty in the various shades of color.

These striped leaf hoppers are the same that we had in Indiana.  I'm glad to see them here!

I'm seeing assassin bug nymphs everywhere right now.

You can see their pale, immature rostrums, but just barely.  Soon he'll be able to deliver a pretty powerful bite!

I found a dead adult on one of our screens recently.  Check out the mature rostrum on this guy!

I have, unfortunately, been unable to be outside as much lately.  I was weeding in the yard a couple of weekends ago and was repeatedly bitten by a mystery insect that caused me to break out in head-to-toe hives and necessitated a trip to the ER because of my swollen throat/tongue.

Mystery insect unknown, but from a description of the circumstances, Todd's allergist thinks that it was probably fire ants.  There are two types here in South Carolina:  the native (Solinopsis geminata) and the imported (Solinopsis invicta).  The imported fire ants are the ones you've heard about that stowed away on some transport from South America and have spread like wildfire here in the United States.  They are quick, aggressive, and their bites leave a tell-tale pustule on the welt.  The native fire ants have a much smaller range and leave a welt with no pustule.  I was bitten/stung once or twice on the hand by a native fire ant two years ago.  My hand turned red and swelled, but no hives.  This time, though, I received 8 bites/stings.  But maybe it wasn't an ant at all.  I have an EpiPen now, but I still get anxious when I'm out by tall plants for very long, and I just won't crawl around on the ground to weed again.  Even staying upright, I'm still an insect magnet.  I was outside for about 2 hours this weekend and came in with TWENTY mosquito bites!  Ugh!  I'm mixing up an essential oils-based repellent this week.

I can't stay inside, though, when I see our "goz" coming.

They come right over to me...

...giving me the usual forthright look.

Their baby fuzz is nearly gone!

One gosling has a very noticeable problem.  When he walks, his wings drag the ground instead of tucking neatly away.

I read up on this problem.  I found that it wouldn't do any good to call a local wildlife rescue group. The nearest one is 45 minutes away and most groups - even relatively close ones - won't come out for a single goose, which is considered a bit of a nuisance bird anyway.  I read that it could be a back sprain or a birth defect. One nature blogger mentioned a very similar problem, and reported that the goose in question did eventually seem to improve on his own and was able to fly when the time came.  The fact is, this goose is fat and thriving on our pond.  It never freezes over, and there's plenty to eat.  If winter comes and he is still here, alone, and needs care, that will be another conversation.  I would love to rush in and feed him all winter, but that would make him dependent upon us.  I'm not sure that it's the wisest thing to do.  I'm going to watch and wait.

Have a great week!

Thorns, weeds, and errant seeds

It's May, and that means WORK TIME in the yard.  We've got almost two acres.  Much of it is wooded, but we do have a big front yard and huge swatches of mulched areas that have to be weeded.

But first comes the pruning.  Trees need to be pruned, vines need to be pruned, and shrubs need to be pruned.  These "mystery shrubs" were clearly not intentionally planted, because they come up everywhere and have to be cut down.  They are spiky, shaggy, and thorn-covered, so it's best to prune them into submission early.  I like the yard to have a natural look, so it's nice to have a few tidily-shaped shrubs to keep it from sliding into chaos.

When our large trees came down, a gigantic shaded, mulched bed suddenly became a full-sun bed. The spearmint, which had been tidy and contained, suddenly went wild.  It's the tall, spiky plant in front of the ferns here.

Mint is pretty tough to eradicate.  Even worse is this weed, which also spreads through an underground runner system:

When you try to pull it up, it falls apart in your hands.  Even one small segment remaining behind will sprout new growth.  I like groundcovers, but this could get out of control fast.  My goal is to not try to eradicate either, but to not allow them to spread beyond a certain point.  I'm also going to add 3 or 4 spiky purple plants, like salvia or speedwell, to give the space more structure.  I like it to look messy, but not so out-of-control that it looks like a weed patch.

Like this, actually.

These are all weeds, and just a fraction of what has to be pulled from our mulched beds.  The recent rainstorms and 85 degree days have caused them to go crazy!  After weeding, we're going to mulch again and plant easy annuals, like cosmos.

It's not all work, though.  Without any effort from me, and in spite of the fact that I haven't divided them in 5 years (gulp!), the irises are blooming nicely!

This pretty bush blooms every spring, nice white flowers that make beautiful tiny bouquets.

These bushes are blooming too.  I used to know their name...

Sedum is spreading and flowering...

...and so are the herbs we planted, like this oregano.

The ferns we moved to the back yard are doing well, too.

We hear birds all the time, but they're harder to see because the trees are fully leafed out.  I bought a clear trough feeder and attached it to the door of our sun room.  It's very unobtrusive...

...maybe too much so.  Five days and not a single bird!  I'm going to try it in a different space.

In my spare time, I've slowly been working on my quilt.  I did do a craft project recently, for Easter. I took foam sheets, traced plates, cut out the circles, and used brads to pin them in to a giant fortune cookie shape.  Tyvex envelopes, cut up, made the fortune cookie paper strip (and address/postage location).  I used Peeps stickers and the fortune was:  "Easter is better when you spend it with your PEEPS!"  It was a quick and easy project, but alas...I used thinner foam than recommended for the project and many of them were shredded during transit.  This is how they were supposed to look:

That's all that's happening here - work, and the cats grabbing naps wherever they find a spot.

Have a great week!

Goodbye, Yellow Brick Road

Or rather, goodbye to our beautiful azaleas and camellias.  It's the time of year when the buds are dropping off the bushes and won't return until next spring.  But until then, I'll always have the photos...

Well, the end of one stage is the beginning of another.  We do have lots of blooming clematis.

Ferns are growing new leaves...

...and our trees are following the 'out with the old, in with the new' philosophy as well.

Our tulip trees are dropping their buds, which I love.  They really do resemble tulips.

I'm working hard on my bird call identification, but it's tough.  We have a lot of birds and so many calls sound like random twittering.  Now the birds are able to remain concealed among the leaves, which make it a bit more difficult.  I feel excited that I'm able to correctly identify the calls of both the black-capped and carolina chickadee, the carolina wren, blue jay, cardinal, eastern towhee, eastern phoebe, grey catbird, and white-throated song sparrow.  I get a huge thrill when I hear any of these calls and I always shout out the name (even if I'm home alone!).  Here is one of our commonly seen birds, the carolina wren:

A group of american goldfinches appeared yesterday.  Love the bright colors!

I keep the feeders filled, but most of the visitors are of the rodent variety:

At least they keep the cats entertained. 

Have a great week!