The Odds and Ends of any June Day

 

Glistening metallic,

Your colors like an aurora

Of emeralds and gold

My tiny gossamer creature.

A lover of daisies

Of the fleabane type,

From one happy flower

To the next you fly

Gorging your belly

On pollen and nectar.

I’m not quite sure

Of your origin, my friend,

Being you are

So delicately small.

At first,

I thought a bee,

But further glances,

Just a fly.

An ordinary fly…

A little pest

By some accounts.

I kid you not -

Going about business

As you were meant to be,

With impeccable tastes

I must say:

After all -

You stopped by my garden.

Need I say more?

JUNE

June, thy beauty is a snare,

To waste time in visions rare;

Of vain dreaming, oh, beware!

~ Caroline May

The frogs are chirping

In the heat of day

Try to guess where

I am

I am

I am.

 

I water the pots

Filled with spicebush

And wild bergamot.

 

The frogs wait

For the rain

To reach them

As it travels

The parameter of pots

One

by one

by one.

 

Then again…

perhaps they are eager

for the dusk before dark

to travel the coolness

and munch on roaches…

One can only hope.

From the genus Malachius, a soft winged flower beetle

on Lullaby Baby Daylily

Above: Baptisia tinctoria - Yellow Indigo

Not enough of the black bee to identify it.

Above: Bush Honeysuckle, Diervilla lonicera

Below: Hover Fly on Thuja/Arborvitae Northern White Cedar

A Dwarf Sport, but not sure which one. 

Ruellia humilis, Wild Petunia

Dried Ash Tree leaf with raindrops.

Bumblebee on Echinacea purpurea, Eastern Purple Coneflower

Aster 'Paten' Growing in the crack of steps.

The flower is the poetry of reproduction. 

It is an example of the eternal seductiveness of life.

 ~Jean Giraudoux

There once was a quiet space, where I chilled.

I brushed the collection of cobwebs from its existence and brought in an armful of positivity to freshen the place up.

The gate keeper has orders that no one but me, myself and I may enter this sanctuary; but, of course, something always tries to hitch a ride in, only to be promptly removed.  I have a gate keeper worth their weight in gold.

Oh, drats!  Cat Austin’s at the gate complaining about being excluded. (sigh) The Gate Keeper reminds me that their union always allows cats, in order to cut down on the hospital expenses of their members.  Makes sense.

Just me, myself, and Austin sitting on a flat boulder by a gentle brook meandering out of the forest into the meadow of wildflowers.  Bird song in the air, with sun drops twinkling on the crest of currents around and through the water rocks, and tiny blue butterflies flitting here and there among the grasses…

It doesn’t get much better than this.

*

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A tick?

This can’t be!

GATE KEEPER !!!!!

Robin in Birdbath

Orb Weaver of some type

Spins a messy three dimensional web.

Through the window - Female Cardinal

Earwig

These are beneficial insects, so quit trying to kill them.

I plant with biodiversity in mind,

so I never see much damage from the many in my garden.

This one was found under a rock placed on the table at some point in time.

It had dried out and died.

 Earwig nests are a short tunnel in the soil, 

usually next to a rock or other object. 

The female earwig lays her eggs and then spends all her time 

with them to prevent mold from killing them. 

She eats the mold off of her eggs to keep them clean.

Failure to launch.

I think that having a garden I no longer can work in is a fate worse than death, until I actually do try to work in it and find out what a fate worse than death really feels like.  When will I ever learn.

Anyway, I’m on a task to find a hassock that will work outside to prop my feet onto, as the doctor orders, for the rest of my life. 

I’m also wearing compression thigh highs for eternity, and going to bed has never felt so good with those compression stocking laying over the back of my chair, liberating my legs.  Better than being in my happy place.

Charlotte was given a new toy by the kitty fairy, and as I laid on my cold gel packs to keep my tailbone chilled out before bedtime, I heard the weirdest muffled crunchy noise echoing throughout the room.

At first I thought it was the noise of a big cockroach.  Let’s just leave it at that.

Then I thought Charlotte, who is known to sleep under my bed at night, was playing ‘let me bat you around, my little cockroach friend, until you commit suicide’.  Don’t ask me why.

Lastly, I thought maybe a kitty paw is batting a ball around the track in one room over… but, then again, the sound does seem to come from behind the closed doors of my closet, or maybe under the foot of my bed, or maybe... 

The cockroach theory still sounds mighty plausible.

The timer beeped, gel packs pulled out from under my butt and tossed to the floor, music turned on by remote, and I’m so darn comfortable, I’m going nowhere.  So much for getting up to check out the noise. 

So why can’t I go to sleep?

A cool breeze brushing against my face – it’s so sublime sitting amongst nature with the persistent chirp of a robin in the background of neighboring trees.  Having escaped my house for an afternoon of sweltering weather, or so the news last night declared of how today would unfold, I am pleasantly surprised by the gusts of gentle coolness against my body.

Background chatter of noisy cars, sirens and obnoxious lawn mowers… no matter, because the chirping gives me comfort from the staleness of my indoors.  A slight rustle of dried leaves behind me reveals, from under my umbrella shelter, the feet of a squirrel in the gutter.

It seems I am left to my own devices on procuring methods of still enjoying my garden, so off I am on an adventure to see what I can come up with.  Never let it be said that I have ever given up.

It’s a bit mesmerizing to watch a leaf softly drift to the earth on the wings of an angel, or so it seems.  I’ll just dream away, as I look up into the azure heaven above my head in the cool of shade. I could stay here forever, but the take a pill alarm has been beeping for the last fifteen minutes… so irritating.  I’ll be back in just a minute.

*

Here I am…

Drats! 

Forgot the ice water. 

Be back in two shakes of whatever they say.

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There… all settled in.

I never realized how much mildew has gathered over the years and dried, as I look up at the dappled shaded umbrella fabric stretched overhead.  Not the best inducement for writing, yet here I am, writing about it.  Go figure.

The birdbaths on this side of the house have seen quite a bit of business since I came out here at lunchtime.  Cardinals, grackles and robins - it has never stopped from the time I sat down until now.

 

A thin sheet of transparent clouds has sneaked in overhead, and there goes a jet trail traveling across the sky with its tail fanning out and creating curves in the air currents like a snake slivering through the tall grass. 

Peeking out from under my umbrella, through the shrubs, then tall trees to the quarter area of a circle my house allows me to see of the sky overhead, it’s such a small world I see this afternoon.  A propellered airplane is heard overhead, drifting farther and farther away until it is gone.

A cardinal has flown in to partake of a bath, the flys have appeared to make a nuisance of themselves, and the mosquitoes are dropping by with their friends for dinner.  I’m out of here!

Until Next Time

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My Corner of the World

Saturday's Critters