going stag

 At long last...I'm finally seeing flowers in the back cutting garden.

nasturtiums

Mostly zinnias so far, but I love seeing those spots of color! The perennial garden by the house is holding its color nicely, too.

I always plant the usual solid colors:  lime green, soft pink, white, and deep maroon, but I love to plant more unexpected colors too.  Swoon!

Now, I love seeing the flowers in the field, and I love making bouquets, but I really love how flowers draw insects...my favorite thing to photograph.  

monarch butterfly caterpillar

Eastern pondhawk dragonfly

sarcophoga fly

ragweed leaf beetle

reddish-brown stag beetle

Sometimes the plants that insects frequent give the biggest clue to their identity.  I was combing my zucchini plants for squash bug eggs...again...and got a quick, blurry shot of this unusual-looking moth.  

It was just clear enough for Google Lens to identify it as a squash vine borer moth.  It lays eggs at the base of your squash plants, which hatch quickly.  The larvae burrow into the squash vine and eat, eat, eat.  Sure enough, the following week...

It's all right.  After a series of seriously huge zucchini...

...I'm ready to be done with them.   

Another interesting discovery...the pigweed flea beetle!  It feeds almost exclusively on amaranth, which made it pretty easy to identify.

 Its caterpillar form is already tearing into the amaranth leaves...

...but I'm not planning to harvest the amaranth and I don't mind a few chewed-up leaves.  

Still seeing plenty of deer...

...rabbits...

...and our wood ducks!  💗

(herons too!)

I love watching their progress.  Yesterday they were finally "allowed" by mama to swim the pond all by themselves!  She watched closely from the bank.

After the loss of so many young birds this year, I was ready to relax about our ducklings, until...

At first I thought it was a frog, but as I watched...

Another snapping turtle!  Argh! What do snapping turtles eat?  Fish, like the expensive grass carp that we just introduced to the pond...and birds.  Ducklings, full-grown ducks, and they've even been known to pull herons into the water!  They also eat frogs.  We're talking about trying to live-trap it and move it to the back pond, where it will do less damage.  

Otherwise, a bit of baking...

...and a bit of leisure time.

Looking forward to more.  Have a great week!  

season's greetings

 I love this time of year.  Hello, old friends!

I picked the first batch of pumpkins this week, mostly minis.  

It's a great harvest from just a few vines.  I will wipe these down with a weak bleach solution (1 teaspoon per gallon of water) to help them last until December.  I can't wait until the larger pumpkins are ready.  One of my favorites is the Long Island Cheese...

photo courtesy of Johnny's Select Seeds

...and I've got a few planted.  A single planted seed of a miniature variety will yield many pumpkins, but seeds of larger varieties will only produce a few pumpkins per vine.  I would love to get five of these this year, but I'll have to wait and see what happens!

It's been uncomfortably hot for the past week (summer's last gasp?), but I still make it out to the garden sometimes.  Strawflowers are shouting the colors of the season...

Zinnias are coming into their own.

Beautiful colors...

...and good hiding places for clever hunters (spider averse, skip next three pictures!).

Every single time I pick flowers, I hunt for crab spiders.  Sometimes tiny, and other times, big and bold...so to speak.

In reality, crab spiders are tiny, and they need to be, to hide beneath petals.  They wait for pollinators... and pounce.

And look who we have here!  So much milkweed planted, and at last...the face I've been waiting to see.

It's a monarch butterfly caterpillar, which feeds exclusively on milkweed.  

Hello down there!

It's the first (and only) that I've seen this year, but since I've suddenly started seeing a lot more monarch butterflies, I'm hoping to see these plants covered in caterpillars soon.

Hot days are uncomfortable, but combined with the cooler nights make a dramatic daily fog that we both look forward to seeing.

To help celebrate the season, I've done something that I don't normally do...purchase a quilt kit.  I love scrappy quilts and prefer to put together my own color schemes, but I've had my eye on this particular kit for two years...and decided to finally take the plunge.  It's always a gamble.  Quilt kits are expensive, and if you wait, you can sometimes find a bargain.  But they (and fabric bundles in general) are usually one-time releases.  Wait too long, and there's the very real possibility that you won't be able to find them for any price.  

I like this kit because it's Halloween-esque, but not Halloween patterned.  It's great for October and November, and for December, I can switch to another seasonally-colored quilt kit that I purchased last year (but still sits in its bag, waiting to be sewn):  Camille Roskelley's Patchwork Sky kit.

It doesn't SCREAM Christmas, but I think it's really cheerful for both December and January.  A nice bit of cheer during those cold, dark winter months.  I can't wait!

Have a great week!  

dew drop inn

 We've had especially heavy dew lately, which is easily seen on abandoned webs.

It's amazing...like silvery drops of mercury.

This time of year, I see spider webs everywhere...spun in between old hosta spikes...

...or tucked away in a sheltered place.

I'm glad we've got this dew to offer some moisture, because it is so hot and dry now.  I'm sure that it's been nearly 6 weeks with no rain, and there's no rain in the forecast.  It's gotten so bad that hearing rain on a T.V. show provokes a strong and wistful reaction.  Rain (I think I understand that scene in Tolkien's The Return of the King when Frodo tells Sam that he can't recall the taste of strawberries)! Our morning glories are wilted by mid-morning...

...but somehow, the rest of the garden seems to be thriving.  I almost never water, so I'm not quite sure how this is possible!

It's still a challenge to keep the goldfinches away from some of the flowers.

Claudia is doing her part...

...but so many flowers are being completely plucked bare.  A cloud of goldfinches rises from the garden if disturbed, every day.  They can have the sunflowers, but I've started covering my zinnias with small organza bags.  Hopefully there will be enough seeds for us both!

It's been a really rough summer, between Covid isolation (we're officially a hot spot), the news cycle (grim), and seeing so many people nakedly reveal their true hearts on Facebook (people suck).  I'm losing my battle to stay positive, so I'm taking a hiatus from Facebook and all other news for a while.  And I'm surrounding myself in rainbows, cheerful rainbows!

These gloves will be done soon.  This glove needs a thumb and a mate, and it will be ready to go!

I've been very slowly working on a rainbow quilt, while babying my shoulder.  One thousand, two hundred eighty tiny 2.5" half square triangles.  

To make them with the 8-at-a-time method, you have to iron your fabric...measure...cut...sew...cut...iron...and then meticulously trim to size.  It's been a very lengthy process, but I'm nearly finished.  Just a handful of squares to go!  Then I have to decide...do I want to do a jumbled-color design?

Do I want to go in "rainbow order"?

It's not only the color juxtaposition, but also the design itself.  Do I want to be orderly, like the above photo, or do I want an interesting positioning, like the pattern calls for?

The only way to be sure is to lay everything out, over and over again, and compare.  At least I have help!

He's been VERY helpful in general during the sewing process.

I don't think I could manage it without his vocal support!

Stay sane, and have a great week!