dead nettle mettle

I love this time of year.  Every time we walk, we see new things popping out of the ground and new green on formerly empty vines and branches.

My favorite right now is the ferns.  They are so beautiful as they slowly unfurl.

We're seeing so much activity, too.  Squirrels...

...geese...

...turkey vultures...

...and raccoons are daily visitors.

Chogs are back!!

Oh, hello!

We have a nesting pair of herons in our back pond!

It's a lot of excitement.  ;)  We've even got some insect activity!  Spiders have been making webs everywhere.

I've been frantically working in the back garden to try to stay ahead of the weeds.  It was cold, and then we had a week of rain.  Finally, it dried out, but the weeds got a head start.  This is the front of our side bed...

...and this is the huge weed patch in the middle of it. My perennial bee balm is growing up amidst the sea of dead nettle, wild cress, poison ivy, and other monsters.

So...much...dead nettle.

I've put in hours and hours and barely made a dent.  There's a lot of guilt, too, because in early spring, bees rely on dead nettle for sustenance...and I'm yanking it up by the handful.

I've left plenty for them, and besides...our crabapple tree is blooming.

Dandelions and violets are up, including some especially pretty varieties...

My late-blooming daffodils are still holding on, and vinca is blooming everywhere...

In short, they have plenty to eat right now.  

Claudia continues to come outside, briefly, on nice days...

...but she's definitely ready to go back in the barn after a few hours...and she never wants to be outside at night.  She and Todd have always gotten along...

...but he never thought they'd be roommates one day!  :)  She's always by his side in his barn office now, begging for attention or sleeping on her special mat.  She's definitely enjoying retirement!  

And, as usual, our indoor cats are enjoying...whatever.

Still not allowed on the table...but taking advantage of my distraction while working on a business project.

Spring is a busy time, but hopefully I can get the garden in shape in time for the hot weather.  Have a great week!  

cat-astrophes

So many interesting little dramas happening in the past week.  I noticed a big pile of ants on...something...in a porch beam.

It wasn't long before they completely extracted the mysterious white lump, and it fell onto the porch rail below.  It was an immature carpenter bee!

They face a lot of predators before they're fully mature, but we have so many of them around that I guess it's not too much of a concern.

And, in the back yard, I saw thousands and thousands of ants swarming on a log.

It's hard to get a feel for the scope from this picture, but there was about 4 feet of wood on the ground too, and every inch of it was crawling with ants.  Winged ants rimmed the stump edge.

They're called the St. Valentine ant, because of their heart-shaped abdomen.  Both sexually mature females and worker males have wings, but these are most likely females heading out for their "nuptual swarm."  They will mate and fly off to start new colonies.

Speaking of wings, Todd found the wings of a beautiful Cecropia moth on a walk last week.

More wings...look at this gorgeous red admiral!

And eastern pondhawk!

On our way to a walk this week, we saw that someone had hit a possum.  The next day, only a few bones remained...thanks to these guys.

We have so many turkey vultures here.  I see them every single day.

I love having them around.  They seem so dignified and stately!  And they do a great job of keeping our roads clean.  

Another kind of turkey is around nearly daily now, too...and in great numbers!

It's baby time!

The young goz are out in the field, too, but in smaller numbers.

Both gardens are blooming now, which are bringing the bees.

I have one more group of seedlings to get into the ground.

But that's it.  I've been astounded, truly shocked at how poor germination has been, even with the good soil.  I started ANOTHER group of seeds - sunflowers and zinnias, the world's easiest things to germinate.  Todd built a cattle panel enclosure to keep out the groundhogs.  I started to get some small seedlings in the sunflower container, but then a pounding rain destroyed them.  In my older sunflower container, I had 6 healthy seedlings...and something popped off their tops.  A few desultory zinnias came up, but insects quickly devoured the leaves and they died.  I'm done.  I've got these zinnias, toothache plants, and ageratum up by the house, where they're thriving.  They're going in the ground TONIGHT and then I am officially, 100% done with gardening for the year.  Woo hoo!  

I've been doing more baking...

healthy flourless peanut butter cookies

a three-fruit coffee cake to celebrate the 1st day of summer

...including cupcakes and a couple of cookie batches yesterday, for a get-together, that I didn't have time to photograph.  

We've also been dealing with ever-increasing cat problems with our two boys.  They look so innocent...

Barnabas

Frances

...but they've been absolutely tormenting our elderly cat...and we can't keep them separated, because Barnabas has freaky outward-turned hind legs that enables him to jump up to 8 feet.  He's cleared every single barrier that Todd has erected to keep him downstairs.  It's been a pretty stressful and chaotic week, but we're hoping that we have something figured out to help.  Fingers crossed.

At least our outdoor cat is not causing any stress!

I'm trying to take a deep breath on the porch swing whenever I need it.  Love the view!  

Have a great week!