the cave dwellers

Last week was freakishly hot and humid...and this week was almost like fall.  Pepita spent a lot of time rolling on the ground outside and I felt like doing the same!  While keeping a sharp eye out for ANYTHING changing colors/looking like a sign of fall...

...I also enjoyed the last of the mid-summer flowers.  

Guys, you're facing the wrong way!  The garden's over there!

Another sign of the advancing season...tiger bee flies are back!  Telltale signs include white drips on the porch...

...larvae cases sticking out of carpenter bee holes on the upper portion of the deck...

...and, of course, the bees themselves.

They hatch, they mate...

terrible cell phone pic

...and they're gone. 

Lots of wasps are making nests right now.  We've got paper wasps building nests on the porch and in some of our bushes...

...and grass wasps carrying long strands of vegetation into pre-drilled holes for nesting.

Cooler weather gives me a great opportunity to actually be outside...and see things!

raccoon print in the mud

eastern box turtle shell

a skipper

Todd's and my 17th anniversary was this past week.  We decided to go to Bluespring Caverns and take the longest underground boat tour in the U.S.!  I got a photo of our walk deep into the cavern...

...but unfortunately, a cell phone that takes fairly terrible pics in broad daylight is not going to do well in a dark cave.  Oh, well!

At home, Frances is finally reaching his potential as the fat, lazy cat I knew he could be if he just put in the work.

Of course, he's earned his rest...he works hard at keeping Pepita in line, mostly by sitting on her leash so that she's unable to move.

He is a great  partner in crime to the Barnacle (what we call Barnabas 90% of the time), too.

Still not allowed on the dining room table, not that they care much about that!

Pepita is still learning "Be nice to the cats!"  She sees them as romping partners, or maybe big squeaky toys.  

the side-eye

It will just take time.  This whole experience is definitely teaching me patience.  Oh...and SOMEONE took a very important test recently.  It turns out that Pepita is NOT an Australian Shepherd...not even a little bit.

(Her "supermutt" is Australian cattle dog, chihuahua, pug, collie, and German shepherd)

It's probably a good thing.  We rather impulsively adopted her without considering the breed.  I read belatedly that Australian shepherds are incredibly high-energy, tend to bark, can be suspicious of those outside the family...I'm glad that our lower-energy people-loving mutt is exactly who she is.

Have a great week!   

oh baby

I'm loving our new habit of daily morning walks.  Even the humidity has a silver lining:  the hazy air is beautiful in the sunlight!

At home, the ducklings may be nearly grown, but it's quite clear that it's still very much baby time for many others.  So much activity!

Sarcophaga Flies

Squash Bugs

"baby" Squash Bug

Skippers

Milkweed Bugs

flirtin' Spicebush Swallowtail

Twice-Stabbed Stink Bugs

Tiger Bee Flies

Squash Lady Beetle Eggs

Everyone is hurrying to mate, lay eggs, and for those young who won't be overwintering in eggs: a chance to live their brief life before winter comes.  Those recently born are doing what they can...

...like this Cecropia moth.  The pulsating body told me that it had recently hatched.  It has no mouthparts and cannot feed...its brief two-week life will be spent mating and/or laying eggs.

A group Tiger Bee flies, too, just "hatched" on the front porch. I've been absolutely fascinated by their mini drama!  I kept finding these strange shells dropping from our porch ceiling:

It turns out that these are Tiger Bee larval shells.  

These, too, kept falling.  They seemed to be immature carpenter bees:

I kept an eye on things, and was soon rewarded.

Tiger Bee flies don't sting or bite.  They're great pollinators, and they also have been helping us in another way:  they lay eggs in carpenter bee holes.  Their larvae hatch and devour carpenter bee larvae, which is why I kept finding those bee corpses.  We definitely have a excess of carpenter bees so this is a great development!  

Strange, though, that all of the new adults were dripping a white liquid. 

It turns out that it's meconium!  In their pupal state, they don't excrete.  When they emerge, they pump the liquid through their wing "veins" to help harden them.  Once they are fully filled out, they simply drip out the excess.  So interesting!  

Caterpillars, like this Tiger Swallowtail, are eat, eat, eating to prepare for their pupal stage.

This little guy was on the dill that I'd potted up on our porch steps, and I checked his progress every day.  Yesterday, though, he was gone.  Maybe he's made a chrysalis somewhere nearby!  

In other baby news, our young "chogs" have finally grown and left the nest.  We've gone from seeing them multiple times a day to a complete absence, and it's about time...it only takes about 44 days for young groundhogs to mature and leave the nest!  We're worried that a fox has moved in, though, judging from the smell and the increased digging.  A trail cam will be set up soon to verify!  

Phew!  It's been busy, but I'm loving it.  We're getting things done despite the suddenly-hot weather...

...but a little time to relax, too.

Have a great week!  

mint to be

Because of my sore knee, then traveling, then torrential rain, we haven't gotten out for a hike in a while.  It felt so good to stretch our legs in the delightful 65 degree weather we've been having.  I know it's only so cool right now because of the rain, but it's certainly a hint of things to come.

The cooler temperatures have been wonderful.  Apartment windows:  open.

Skies:  blue.

Sunsets:  awesome.

Still lots of signs of summer.  The milkweed bugs are still incredibly active on the milkweeds.  They're pretty good to have around.  Milkweeds are invasive, and milkweed bugs feeding on them help end their life cycles.  They're also awfully pretty, don't you think?

The adults are on the left and the young nymphs, with tiny wings, are on the right.  They're easy to spot if you have a look in any field!

Skippers are still out and about.

Unlike the moths and butterflies in their family, different varieties of skippers can be really hard to distinguish.  Some websites recommend dissection and close examination of their genitalia, which are unique to specific species of skippers.  However, I decided to just let this one fly away.  ;) 

I'm still seeing lots of late-season flower activity.  I love these beauties, despite their destructive nature.  It's bindweed, a perennial that's incredibly invasive. 

I've grown a variety of their gentle domesticated cousins, the morning glory.  They are annuals, but reseed readily.  They were so out of control after the first year that I decided to pull up the roots to get rid of them, but it took years to get rid of every last one.  Bindweed, apparently, is even more tenacious.  They're pretty, at least!

For every sign of summer, there's another sign of fall.  Brilliant ripe red berries...

...and those that are not quite there yet.

The most exciting...seeing red-tipped leaves in the woods.  Red!!

As the weather cools, I'm looking forward to more walks, more discoveries, and more beautiful sunsets.

Meanwhile, I've been stockpiling fabric and wishing for my sewing machine.  I might have to wait a while. The bad news is that the house deal fell through.  It's devastating.  Not only did I have my heart set on this particular house, but not moving in the near future means that my yarn, books, puzzles, craft supplies, fabric, and tools remain packed.  Doing a little online research, too, showed me that sewing in an apartment is frowned upon.  Cheaper sewing machines (like mine) tend to be loud, and mine sounds like a machine gun when I'm sewing.  Not to mention that I need a LOT of space and supplies to sew.  I need a sewing table, another small table for excess fabric and the quilt body, and another small table for ironing.  I need cutting boards, pins, rotary cutters, rulers...all of which are scattered in various boxes in various storage units.  So I wait, and buy fabric for "someday."  

I didn't realize how much I loved mint-colored fabric.  My first quilt had a lot of mint...

...and I continue to be drawn to it.  I just bought a quilt kit for this pattern:

I love this designer.  Check out this link to see some of her other patterns and fabric lines.  Swoon!  The fabric is called Vintage Holiday.  Reds, whites, and mint...what more could you want?

That is a true ice-blue mint, but I've also been drawn to a greener mint color and have noticed that my random fabric purchases lately have also dipped into this category...with red, of course.

I hate not being able to sew right now, but at least I can still knit.  Yes, most of my knitting supplies (including yarn) are still buried in storage, but I unearthed a few fingering-weight skeins and bought some cheap bamboo needles and stitch markers.

Nice fall colors!  I chose a really easy pattern since my cable needles and other tools are packed, a series of slipped stitches and stitches knit into the row below.  It looks like plain ribbing on the needles, but you can see the somewhat unusual pattern when the sock is worn.

It's nice for variegated yarn because it breaks up color "pooling" and allows you to see the individual strands.  It will look neater after the sock is blocked.  On to sock #2!

Have a great week!