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!

Deer-ly beloved...

Rain at last!  After a week of stifling 90 degree temps plus high humidity, the recent rain has been so refreshing.  I'm not the only one to think so, either!  This spotted leopard slug (Limax maximus, or literally, the 'biggest slug') was out feasting early one morning.

Slugs are pests, but I like them.  "The homing instinct is strongly developed in this species, which, after its nocturnal rambles or foraging expeditions, usually returns to the particular crevice or chink in which it has established itself." (Wikipedia).  Just like me!  :)  

I caught sight of a mother deer and her two fawns after supper recently.  The babies were so young that they were still spotted, but they were still able to streak across the yard like two tiny bullets!

Fawns tend to keep their spots until they're about 3 months old.  Such sweet faces for the future devourers of our hostas!  

Lots of southern toads out too...so tiny.  This one is perched on half of an acorn, to give you an idea of size!

The heat and humidity after a rain always brings out the mushrooms.  I love to see them pushing through the mulch.

More flowers are blooming too.  The lantana bush is about four feet high.  It will eventually reach eight!

Daisies are opening up...

...and our front garden is mysteriously full of calla lilies.

This kind of weather brings a lot of work, too.  All helleborus flower stalks must be trimmed down, and their ground-level leaves snipped.  We have thousands of them now.  A SEA of stalks.

Bosewichte loves to help.

Borga is all smiles, too, once she gets outside.

It's not so bad, trimming all those helleborus.  I get to see all sorts of interesting creatures, like this fancifully-named Cloudless Sulpher caterpillar. Its Latin name is Phoebis sennae, so named for Apollo's sister Phoebe, the goddess of brightness and radiance.  I think the name fits, don't you?  

[If you are spider-sensitive, skip the next two pictures!]

I also see quite a variety of spiders.  This nearly translucent crab spider perches on a flower stalk and uses those long front legs to grasp its prey.

This tiny female wolf spider carries her egg sac with her wherever she goes. There are around 100 eggs in that little sac!

Away from the yard, I've been plugging away at my latest quilt.  I hope to have some pictures soon. Have a great week!

Ceti Eel Appeal

It's been really, really hot here, and it wasn't much relieved by a recent rain.

It's beautiful in South Carolina, with mostly wonderful weather, but June - September is a bit of a trial.  We're near 100% humidity...not too different from Indianapolis...but cool fall weather arrives much later. 

At least we've got some nice flowers coming up.  Our lantana bush has reached about half its eventual height, but still has lots of blooms.

Our butterfly bush is going strong.

Some mysteries...an amaryllis that we didn't plant bloomed in the garden earlier this summer, and now we have these little pitcher plants coming up everywhere.  They're pretty, but how did they get there?

Same with this small patch of daylilies.

These giant shamrocks (3" across!) come up at random times.

This Rose of Sharon-like bush is just starting to bud out.

Our late-blooming gardenia bushes are going strong, and the abelia bushes are starting to put out their little trumpets.

We see a lot of fungus this time of year, especially if we've had a lot of rain.  Sometimes it even pushes up through our blacktop!

 I love seeing more insects in the summer, even this pesky black beetle eating through one of our dogwood leaves.

All over the yard I saw tiny balls of fluff moving industriously over leaves.  It's the debris-carrying green lacewing larvae, a great insect to have in the garden.  See the jaws?

The larvae is hidden cleverly beneath.  He uses his disguise to get close to prey without arousing suspicion.  Genius!  And...am I the only one who sees the resemblance to Star Trek's ceti eel? 

Look away, arachnophobes...this beautiful venusta orchard spider is making short work of this little insect that's stumbled into her web.  I love those colors!

I've only seen our "goz" twice this past week, but it's easy to see that these 6-week olds are pretty near fully grown!  They're nearly indistinguishable from their parents, who still keep a sharp eye on their activities. 

The "lucky seven" are all accounted for, but the second group of 3 hatchlings is now down to a single chick.  We've got foxes and other predators here, so this is a pretty dangerous time for this little guys.

I've been doing  a lot of crafting inside (as time permits), but I hesitate to post future gifts.  However, sometimes the project takes a different direction.  I decided to make a pair of heavily-cabled socks for a friend.  The cables spiral over the heel and cover the front of the sock, all the way down to the toe.  I'm not keen on cabling without a needle, so I'm pretty slow.  Two weeks of night work on these guys and I was not even done with the first sock, and thoroughly tired of cables.

Second Sock Syndrome is a real thing, and I knew that I would never do all that cabling on a second sock.  Worse, I was 8 stitches off somewhere, so the cables on the existing sock weren't centered properly.  I frogged this guy last night and will use the yarn for something else.  I have an embarrassingly large queue on Ravelry (3000+!), so I've taken a little time to go through it and organize for future projects. I've found some long-forgotten gems and feel inspired to take up the needles again soon!

Have a great week!