milkweed glee

Summer is going by so quickly, which always amazes me.  But the signs are unmistakable.  Blackberries are ripening everywhere.

Flowers are starting to go to seed...to seed!  It seems so early.

bupleurum

Spring hatchlings are looking more like adults now.  This bluebird is just about ready to leave the nest...

...and these young barn swallows are practicing their low, swooping flights every late afternoon, filling the air with their exciting chirps.

Young rabbits, too, are getting more bold.

(side note: ANOTHER TICK)

Our young turkey poults are half grown now!

Our trail cams pick them up quite a bit.

The local fawn is steadier on her legs, too.

This grass-carrying wasp is preparing her nest for eggs.  They take over old insect nests (in this case, a carpenter bee hole) and stuff them with grass to make soft places for the next generation.  

Caterpillars are everywhere, eating quickly to gain mass for pupation.  Here's a black swallowtail butterfly caterpillar on my dill (another excellent reason to plant it):

And a new-to-me one on the milkweed.  These are milkweed tussock moth caterpillars.  They look destructive...

...but they serve a purpose.  Both monarch butterfly and milkweed tussock moth caterpillars rely on milkweed for their larvae, but monarchs prefer new leaves, and tussocks prefer old.  They happily co-exist. Milkweed spreads rapidly, so these tussocks ensure that they are not too widespread.  They eat a few of them, and the sap from the milkweed makes these caterpillars taste very unappealing to predators.  Win win!  

Milkweed really does provide for a vast array of insects, and they are all readying to lay eggs for next year.

red milkweed beetles

milkweed bugs

It really is a wonderful plant to have around!

Well, although we're nearing late (!) summer, there's still plenty of insects around.

cluster fly

wood nymph moth

oleander aphids

agreeable tiger moth

meadow spittlebug

There's so much to see that I've gotten into the habit of carrying my camera when I go outside.  There's only so much summer left!

Well, as seasons end, so do lives.  Borga gave her last WOOF last week.  

She had a good, long life here!  Todd is really going to miss his little companion.

Hopefully these guys will help him feel a little bit better!  It's tough to lose a pet, though.  They really do leave paw prints on your heart.  

(yes, they're on the dining room table...again.)

Have a great week!

a little spittle

May and June are truly lovely months in the Midwest.  Before the really brutal humidity hits...there's plenty of time for porch picnics...

...cats lolling in open windows...

...and easy bouquets from random corners of the yard.

It's not quite time for peonies yet, but irises are looking lovely.

Oh, little bits of color everywhere.  Especially my favorite...chartreuse green.

Despite zero effort on my part, winter sowing was a great success.  These are just the cooler weather flowers!  Warmer weather stuff starts...whenever I get around to it.

My goal is to plant one...container...daily.  I put on my grubby clothes, coat my pants in DEET (it's a bad year for ticks)...carefully weed a large space...plant...and water.   Long ago, I accepted that I cycle through hobbies with varying degrees of obsessiveness.  I hit a gardening peak two years ago and now it's on the decline, although I know it will come back again, hard.  So, I've mentally let go of the back plowed plot, thigh-high with weeds and a few straggly biennials.  I've let go of my expectations for the larger plowed plot, too.  Weeds have come roaring into the beds, and I just do a bit every day.  I have hundreds of sunflower seeds, lots of easy zinnias, cosmos, and celosia too.  All can be direct-seeded into the soil, late May.  Shovel up the worst of the weeds and just let the rest go.  Laying down new fabric paths will help.  

Since I'm so apathetic about gardening this year, I find little things to make it more pleasurable.  Digging up toads while weeding is a nice surprise!

Finding spittlebug nymphs in a froth of bubbles is, too.

The bubbles protect the nymphs from predators - even pesticide! - and keep them from drying out.  They're fairly harmless in the garden, and I always think that they look like they're lounging in tiny luxurious bubble baths.  

Todd spotted this luna moth on the porch.

They have no mouth parts, since they only live for a week and their sole purpose in that week is to reproduce.  Love them!

Claudia, of course, is always great company outdoors.

Our yellowwood trees bloomed this week.  They're odd ducks, sporadically blooming every few years.  Their distribution is patchy as well.  We live in that tiny northernmost circle...the only place in Indiana where they grow.  But they're everywhere here, and we even have a Yellowwood Forest locally.

The cascading white flowers look lovely in bud vases.  They dangle over our country road, neatly replacing the spent redbuds for color.  By the time the yellowwoods are done blooming, every tree will be completely leafed out, and it will truly be summer!  

Have a great week! 

Flying creatures and positive features

The monarchs are out in force right now!  With temperatures still in the 80s and the milkweed in full bloom, butterflies are really happy.

Positively giddy!

Here are the milkweed flowers they love, looking like tiny ballerinas.

Halloween is just around the corner, and it certainly felt like orange and black were the colors of the day on our recent hike.  First you have those brightly-colored monarch butterflies...and then, the spiky-backed ladybug nymphs...

...and finally, the milkweed bug, keeping the color theme going strong.

Does yellow and black count?

I also noticed another theme...babies!  Here's a group of eggs that I think belong to the southern stink bug...

...and if you can handle it...a huge spider egg sac!

If you look closely, you can see all the babies!

I think these two are going to be producing some of those babies really soon!

He's not an ostrich, but this anole was pretty sure that we couldn't see him.

We did catch a glimpse of a bolder fellow.

Here's another unseen creature...a slug.  He left a silvery trail on our cobblestones, but I have yet to catch him in the act!

And another cagey fellow - this spittlebug, hiding under his clever protection.

Here at home, I've been doing a little baking.  Spicy pumpkin whoopie pies!  The recipe is in the Sally's Cookie Adventure cookbook and they are the most delicious whoopie pies I've ever had. 

Sugar cookie bars with cinnamon chips and buttercream frosting, also from the same cookbook.

Official Halloween baking begins TOMORROW!

Speaking of Halloween, I just finished a quick quilting project.  I had the idea to make quilted Halloween banner flags to hang up this week.  I used Hocus Pocus fabric from Moda and a pattern from my Farm Girl Vintage book.  The squares were 6.5" x 6.5".

I was just winging the flag design and made several mistakes before deciding to sew banner jags onto the bottoms.  So, they look a bit like little teeth...

...but they sure feel festive!

Another project is a positivity plan I started about a month ago.  I started writing positive sayings on a white board in the kitchen, but they soon devolved into corny jokes, puns, and cartoons.

Some I make up (SNARK-EOLOGIST!!) and some I crib from the internet.  It's so much fun...I think I get a bigger kick out of them than Todd does!  Hopefully I have enough material to keep the white board humerus humorous for at least another month!

Have a great week!