Sometimes perfection is just a word in the dictionary.

 Purple Coneflower, Echinacea purpurea

with mating Japanese Beetles and friend.

I don't see any damage from the beetles on the flowers,

so perhaps the neighbors are feeding them.

This is the first time I have planted straight species purple coneflowers,

 and the shades of pink vary with each plant.

The size also varies from two feet high to taller than me.

The tall ones surprised me.

The books say they are drought tolerant, but they wilt in drought.

Gold Metallic Bottle Fly

Growing out of a Rock

20 June ~ 

It’s a feeling I get, that the things that matter to me are like dust in the wind, blowing into the cosmos and onward into the infinite, and yet… they still matter.  It’s complicated, that little list in one’s head of what’s precious and what’s insignificant, fluctuating like a ribbon in the wind.

As pathetic or maybe as marvelous as one might think it sounds, it’s the reason a cat or dog or both usually have worked their way into my life at some point in time, becoming a type of anchor for me, incapable of betrayal.  I have that calmness that makes me feel as if I will be okay, as long as they are in my life.

My day has been a bit boring, and I’m sitting here this afternoon under an umbrella on the deck with my laptop and a glass of tart cherry juice on ice, trying to think up something interesting to divulge while swatting a mosquito here and there.

The sprinkling of rain is beginning to run off the roof and umbrella edges, splashing at the hem of my dress.  The temperature is cooling to a lovely breezy feel, and I seem to have only minutes before a deluge will trap me at my table.  Oh, drat!  Now the kitchen timer is telling me it is time for a pill.  I guess I’m out of here until…

 Wild Petunia, Ruellia humilis

Not related to Petunias.

These have a taproot and do well in dry conditions.

Mine grow in clay soil and seem to love all the rain we get.

The flowers open when the sun, still below the horizon, 

begins to light up the sky.  Each flower lasts only a day 

and wilts early or late afternoon, falling to the ground.

Eastern Grey Squirrel, Sciurus carolinensis

on Rusty Blackhaw Viburnum.

After munching at the bird feeder

23 June ~

Seems like a waste of a day moving outside just past noon.  The sun around the umbrella creates warmth on my shoulders, causing me to turn my back to the garden for a cooler feel.  I sit here with my feet cushioned by a carry along foot stool and lean back to see all the grime of last summer, winter, and this spring collected in grunge mode above.  So inspiring.

The old white ash tree looks as if it could kill me at any moment.  Every storm brings down branches to the ground and deck, and leaves are plagued with fungal problems with the density of rain we get at times, even though it is a tree that thrives on moist ground.

Every two years treated to save it from the Emerald Leaf Borer, curtesy of across the ocean, it is fairly one sided these days with the patio left unshaded… hence the umbrellas taking its place.  Of course, the effect is all wrong, not magical anymore. 

Then… a bit of cloud cover and a breeze caresses me in cool as I listen to the Blue Jays, not calling but noisily chattering amongst themselves endlessly in the tree canopy.  If it weren’t for the suffering traffic past one house up the street, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, this moment would bring great peace to my being.

Wild Bergamot, Monarda fistulosa, Beebalm

Not agressive.

Growing with the Oaks.

Lacewing larva (Junk Bug)

Junk they carry around are the carcasses of the insects they eat.

They are beneficial, and one must be careful not to step on 

a little, slow moving round lumpy circle crossing a space.

Wild Garlic

Phlox paniculata 'Laura'

This usually has a sweet fragrance, but nothing this year.

26 June~

All plantings are on hold, as I don’t relish meeting another tick for dinner in the underbrush.  Most have been relocated into bigger pots until the fall when the bottle brush grass will be lying on the ground.

The Hairy Sunflower seedlings I’m mulling over their demise or inclusion, as I’ve heard it’s aggressive, even though I’ve had one that isn’t aggressive in the prairie garden for decades.  In fact, it almost died before coming back to life as the climate began changing.  I’m feeling too old to tackle anymore runaway plants.  Decisions, decisions, decisions…

Worked in the front yard this afternoon… I know, it’s hotter than hell in the afternoons, but having a partner who isn’t a gardener, well… we do lots of impractical things these days.  Braced the aromatic asters one month too late, so it was a full head on embrace to circle the plants into the curved supports.

Just now I am enlightened as to why this aster is called aromatic aster, as its flowers are totally scentless, but its leaves are sticky.  My arms were left sticky with a scent of aftershave wafting up around me for the rest of the day until soap and water sent it away.

Bumblebee on Northern Bush Honeysuckle, Diervilla lonicera

Some type of mushroom

Bumblebee with Coralberry flowers (Symphoricarpos orbiculatus)

False Solomon’s Seal, Maianthemum racemosum

1 July ~

It’s a surreal feeling, that exhilaration one gets as a seemingly forever rush of wind sends beings to shelter as a thunderstorm enters one’s space.  A little rain almost sideways across the street, then immediately a wall of rain carried by the wind, horizontally.

The flashing of heavenly lights are as flickering candles in the clouds, as the rumbling roar of thunder goes on and on and on.  Then louder thunder coming out of the bowels of hell vibrating the floor beneath you. 

It travels further southeast with the rumbling sound diminishing as one realizes the rain has stopped, and then suddenly a bolt of lightning as if it’s in one’s backyard and rumbles growing in intensity as the rain returns.  It’s going to be a noisy, wet afternoon in the garden.

Front porch with Maidenhair Fern.

Some type of mushroom getting old.

Clematis viorna with Bumblebee

1/4th inch long Hover Fly

3 July ~

The weight of my life seems to have fallen upon me this day.  It hit me, the knowledge that I would be alone in the garden, without the company of my little dog. 

Alone outside isn’t always my cup of tea, and his inclusion with me in my days of gardening always gave me purpose and a feeling of companionship.  I cried for some time on my own after breakfast.  All things pertaining to his existence seem to be vanishing off the face of the earth.

Whenever this is published, is when it will be published.  I’ve lost that drive that compels me to create.  I’m dead in the water.  I’ve had this wearisome stalemate before, like being put into pause mode at the same time I take my first step off the cliff.  I always manage to catch the edge as I fall and hang on for dear life, but I think this time, maybe, I’ve already hit the ground below…

 SPLAT!

It’s been miserably hot outside, like gardening in a sauna with the heat at cremation setting.  Needlessly to say, afternoons are inside, unless I’m crazy enough to venture into hell for a while before dinner.  It seems I’ll do anything for a good photo.

Cataract surgery on the right eye, then the left eye; so I’ll be gone as long as I feel I need to be.

Common Sage Salvia officinalis

This plant has seen better days, as my helper 

is an all-plants-are-watered-the-same type of guy. 

Phlox paniculata, Jeana

Pinned down after thunderstorm.

Summersweet, Clethra alnifolia

Fragrance of liquorice

I'm fairly positive that this is an Ambush Bug,

since I saw it eating something small as an aphid,

rolling it over and over with its front feet as it ate.

Hemerocallis 'Aabachee' Daylily

Insect on the buds of American Beautyberry, Callicarpa americana

After a thunderstorm

5 July ~

Bumblebees have quite a presence in the garden this year.  There must be nests nearby.  We did find an underground Yellow Jacket Wasp nest under a large steppingstone pushed up by an oak tree root.  We’ll wait until it’s abandoned next year to fill it in and reposition the steppingstone.

Something happened from last year to this year in the dynamics of this neighborhood’s home fireworks.  Sounded like a war zone for over an hour with smoke drifting across the landscape.  Big fireworks… popping all over the place high above the ash tree and house.  It brought to mind the house several blocks down the road that burned to the ground amid fireworks two years ago. 

Aside from fireworks, sleeping early this morning came at a crawl as wandering thoughts of our loss of Lacey wouldn’t leave me alone. It’s not easy handling two pet deaths in less than a year.  Memories, sooner or later, come to the surface when all is quiet around a restless mind.

It’s a nice day, except sweat covering my entire body after topping off the planters and changing birdbath water.  It comes with the territory this time of year when we wish it was cold again… we are such fools, wishing our lives away.  I’ll embrace this heat, as it gives me bloom after bloom, after bloom, and food abundantly for all inhabitants.

Cicadas sing here and there, the momentum is beginning to pick up as the music of  sex fills the morning air.  Fireflies embrace the setting sun as the time of poetic love.  A simple thing to wait for dusk and count how many fireflies are really in the garden.  It always ends with idle chatter, and that is so reassuring that all is well with me for another day.

Liatris aspera

Dog Vomit Slime Mold, Fuligo septica

The day before the photos were taken, it was pale pink in color.

It is harmless, but what a nasty name.

Bumblebee on Hairy Sunflower,  Helianthus hirsutus

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