king of the butterflies

 It's hooooooot again, so life feels a lot like this:

Working outside right now is sweaty business!

August is the month of blue skies...

Todd and Pepita by the house.

...and pink sunrises.

(Against my will) I've been outside quite a bit.  So many cool dragonflies in the late summer!

Slaty Skimmer

Blue Dasher

Widow Skimmer

...and other beauties.  I've been seeing a ton of Monarchs lately!

No, not THAT one.

And our own local dung beetle!

More encouraging signs of fall.  Naked ladies are out!

The leaves on the burning bushes are starting to turn, always an early sign.

Purple loosestrife, a late season bloomer, is brightening up the shadows. 

Pepita is working hard on her cat-nice associations, with some gentle assistance from Frances.

She's doing great with fetch and particularly loves oversize sticks!

Some pretty impressive growth in 7 weeks!

She's a happy girl.

Have a great week!

see no weevil

 It's already August!  It must be...the naked ladies are blooming. 

Hydrangeas, too.

The garden is finally springing to life.

Corn is getting tall...

...with kernels as tiny and pearly as baby teeth.

from a blown-over stalk

But now that it's closer to getting ripe, the birds have become interested.  I've found several stripped ears.

The only safeguard is to wind tape loosely around the tips.  That way, the birds can't tug down the husk.  Fingers crossed that it works!  

I harvested our first watermelon, which had seemed to stop growing in size and sounded hollow when I thumped it, telltale signs of ripeness.   But...

...whomp whomp.

Todd said that there was a surprising amount of edible sweet flesh here, so it wasn't a total loss.  Oh, well, trial and error!  Up to 15 robust tomato plants, too, and still no ripe tomatoes.  We're going to be swimming in them in a couple of weeks!  More trial and error...next year I'll start them inside, under lights, so that they'll be fairly sizable when they go in the ground, late May.  I'd like to have tomatoes before the frost next year! :)  

Plenty of wildlife around here lately.  So many turkeys and poults!

Snakes, like this harmless Eastern Milk, help keep down our rodents.

This green heron is having a tasty meal in the front pond!

I was really excited to find a summer fishfly on the porch.  They only live for a few days in this adult form...they spend most of their lives (2-3 years!) in the larval stage.

Another interesting find...this looper moth caterpillar.  They're nondescript brown striped caterpillars who disguise themselves by plucking debris from flower heads and attaching it to their backs.  They certainly look intimidating!  I've found several this week.

using the dark bits from the flower center....

...and this one is using immature petals from the exterior.

Having just finished The Last of Us, this next discovery was especially noteworthy.  Entomophthora, which means insect destroyer, is a fungus that attacks the brains of flies.  It causes them to climb, climb, climb, so that the fungal spores, when ready, can more easily and widely disperse.  It's easy to see when a fly is infected.  The fungus is sprouting everywhere!  

Speaking of flies, check out this bristly bottom!

This is juiniopsis adusta...a bristle fly.

They're sometimes used as biological pest control, because they parasitize some harmful moth caterpillars.  I just like watching them bustle!

More fun insect bums!  :)

This Asian oak weevil was hanging out on the corn last week.

They're pretty destructive to oaks and chestnuts, but at least our corn is safe!  I'm loving the wide variety of insects around here this year.

Nice end-of-summer days...

I'm loving it.   Have a great week!  

the way old friends do

 Nights are still cold, but days are warm enough to start working outside.  The more hands, the merrier!

I've been so happy to see the cheerful faces of old friends, slowly emerging from their sleep.   

Catmint

Obedient Plant

Phlox

Sedum

And, of course, all the new bulbs planted last year continue to push out leaves.

Daffodils

Naked Lady Lilies

Tulips

Most of my indoor growing is progressing, although I don't have enough experience to know if they're doing really well.  Some of the stems aren't perfectly straight...but I'll keep moving them along, downstairs to upstairs to potting barn...and if they grow, they go (in the ground, that is!).

They are so tiny!

My two most frost-tolerant plants are already getting their daily treatment outdoors.  Sweet peas love it cold, so every day I take them out into the cold sunshine and move them back inside at dusk.  They will go in the ground within...two to three weeks?  The netting over top protects from birds.

My ranuculus and anemones, also very frost-tolerant, are now in the ground.  I grew them out in containers to give them a little bit of size and strength:

I dug into the soil under the caterpillar tunnel, amended with compost and a bit of fertilizer, laid down some newspaper to suppress weeds, cut holes for the seedlings, and planted.  A layer of mulch held down the newspaper and will help insulate plants.

It doesn't look tidy...

And...whomp whomp!...I made the row too wide, so the caterpillar tunnel doesn't cover all plants.

Well, it's sink or swim around here.  Either they'll do well with the slightly below-average protection, or they won't, and I'll plant something else in their place.  For future beds I'll be using a large roll of brown paper from Uline.  I can just unroll it over the entire row and cut holes for the plants, rather than fussing with small bits of newspaper.  I hate, hate, hate seeing weeds in the garden so this extra step is necessary for me!

As a reminder, this is what the ranuculus will look like if they prosper.  Just the possibility of it is enough to make the work worthwhile!

photo courtesy of Eden Brothers

Claudia is still prowling around...

...and starting to deliver the daily vole again, which is great - because the yard is absolutely full of tunnels.

Tabitha is always on guard for this dangerous trespasser on our porch. 

This gives her something important to do between naps.

I love seeing the return of the red-winged blackbird.  They're so vocal and their call just sounds like spring.

The new season is definitely keeping us busy...we're replacing fences, having mulch and compost delivered, plowing another field, laying out walking paths, building a fire pit, having our front porch partially rebuilt...and that's with our regular work and all of my plant preoccupations.  But I love the hustle bustle of activity on our little farm.

Have a great week!