The Poetry of Summer

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly

Type of Orange Paper Wasp

They chew on bits of paper, wood, bark, etc., mix it with saliva, 

and form the resulting pulp into a nest typical of their species

Joe Pye Weed

Cicada Hiding

Neofavolus alveolaris, I think.

Yellow gills on bottom that look like a sponge.

Phlox 'Laura'

Too hot and humid to enjoy

Wild Bergamot, Monarda fistulosa

With type of fly and an ant

Bumble Bee

Female Eastern Carpenter Bee on 

Hairy Sunflower, Helianthus hirsutus

My life feels in slow motion dragging itself across the landscape of a thousand trip hazards.  I’m in perpetual garden watering mode – a half here, next day a half there, next day what’s remaining of the first half, and so on… on and on and on.  Days of high 90’s F or higher, with too few days of reprieves in between since June.  Memories of watering only once a month in ancient times taunts me, as the heaviness of the humid heat drains me instantly as I step out into nature.  I seem to be keeping the tree frogs happy, though, as their night chorus appears wherever I’ve watered.

I’ve had better days and photographing summer now is rock bottom on my list of necessities.  I’ve had a setback with my neck that has sent me to hell for a while, but let’s not dwell on that.  I’ve dwelt on it enough, for all of us, just living it.  Dustin up and quit eating his kidney friendly food… he’s not the slightest bit interested in in anymore.  Senior canned dog food isn’t plentiful, but we’re trying Simply Nourish and Blue Buffalo.  So far, he’s eating them both quite happily.

Lacey’s not always interested in her Tiki Cat canned food, prompting us to visit PetSmart to buy one can of every without fish Fancy Feast Medleys and some from Instinct with gravy.  An appetite stimulant is applied to the inside of her ear flap when needed.    She has a drive to eat almost constantly, without any weight gain.  She’s healthy, according to her regular bloodwork, so we’re waiting results of a more extensive bloodwork profile to see if she has Crohn’s disease or Lymphoma.  We’ve been waiting a week.  It’s really a bummer… waiting.

Some days have passed since I began this… thunderstorms coming in from the north are a constant each day.  Yesterday we found a rather large, small branch from the Ash tree had fallen and broken the central branch on one of the winterberry shrubs, lessening its height by half.  It was the oldest winterberry in the garden and quite tall, so that was a disappointing discovery.

Searching the internet about gardens as engineered products, I came upon the fact that a National Garden Bureau exists in this country.  News to me.  One of the topics was re-engineering gardens, in my case , adapting to the shade created by maturing trees.  We have an arborist coming in Monday to trim back the two hornbeam trees… this is when gardening begins to cost a bit more than planned.

Although I garden naturally, my garden isn’t natural… Nature is natural.  I had a plan, executed it, and Nature has been working overtime since then to wipe it off the face of her earth.  It’s a bit annoying, to say the least.  How dare she mettle with my efforts to help myself to a little bit of her heaven concentrated into a tiny patch of land.  Just because I fill the space overflowing doesn’t mean I want every tree seed that hits the ground to grow into a forest, or every weed seed that hitchhikes with the wind to love me with a vengeance.  She refuses to listen to me, saying Mother knows best.

Yes, Mother…

Dustin

Miss Lacey minding the kitchen.

A cat's job is never finished.

These old shoes are the cat's meow.

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Saturday's Critters

My Corner of the World

The Bee ~

 

- by Emily Dickinson

Like trains of cars on tracks of plush
I hear the level bee:
A jar across the flowers goes,
Their velvet masonry


Withstands until the sweet assault
Their chivalry consumes,
While he, victorious, tilts away
To vanquish other blooms.


His feet are shod with gauze,
His helmet is of gold;
His breast, a single onyx
With chrysoprase, inlaid.


His labor is a chant,
His idleness a tune;
Oh, for a bee's experience
Of clovers and of noon!

Just Flowers Hiding

To Bee,

or

Not to Bee...

With nothing else to say, 

That's all you'll be hearing from me.

Except...

My photos being a wee bit smaller,

the details are a wee bit smaller, also.

An experiment, I'm not fond of,

but perhaps your cup of tea.

Reminds me of how much detail is actually working in my gardens, but lost

when I view it as a whole.

This Post is Linked to:

My Corner of the World

Saturday's Critters

As I look out my window ~

~ laced with spider webs around the edges between screen and glass, the view is beautifully filled with Goldfinches plucking seeds from the field of Rudbeckia maxima, tall coneflowers, each day.  The long seed heads will be stripped bare long before winters frostiness creates a sleepy landscape of crisp browns among the evergreens.

I think this is Hypericum densiflorum, or Bushy St. John's-wort.

A bush as tall as me, that is doing well in this partially amended clay soil border.

It has expanded at the base with new growth,

so when it fills the bed it will need to be pruned at the base to contain. 

Jumping Spider of some kind (slightly out of focus)

Rudbeckia maxima. Giant Coneflower

Seeds loved by Goldfinch

A bit of excitement last week as a larger bird landed on the patio in front of me, then flew up into the ninebark shrub, before disappearing.  I saw a dark curved beak; speckled chest and old clay pot-colored feathers… Brown Thrasher.  Phil, writer of Another Bird Blog, steered me to The Crossley ID Guide Eastern Birds, which I purchased… worth the money for someone who needs to see realistic views of a bird to identify it.  Maybe a once time sighting, I don’t know… rain has been relentless since then, and the house has been my sanctuary. 

Green Sweat Bees, Halictidae Family of bees,

on blooming Summersweet shrubs, Clethra alnifolia.

This shrub should bloom for over a month.

Maybe a Hover Fly with the Green Sweat Bee.

Many species of Hover Flies resemble maggots when hatched, 

and are predatory on other insects such as 

aphids, mealybugs, ants, caterpillars, froghoppers, or mites.

This has been my year of letting go of that which vexes me to no end with my life in its later stages.  The raised vegetable beds were cleared out by Vic – he worked hard for a weekend to remove all traces.  The clematis on the deck were cleared out, and only the pot of sage was left in the far corner.  Looks minimal now, and much to my liking.  Several varieties of daylilies were dug up and trashed, and now only some exist as pops of color during the spring and summer months.  I would say the gardens are about 95% native to this region or Tennessee.

While this bee looked like a small Carpenter Bee,

it does have the hairs on the segments of the abdomen.

After much research, I think it is a Brown-belted Bumble Bee,

Bombus griseocollis.

I could be wrong 😕

Vic’s been hard at it pulling up Canadian Goldenrod after a rainy day… runners everywhere.  Herbicides are being used on the wild raspberry bushes that have sent out multiple runners this year… a painfully sticky situation.  The prairie garden is a patch of hell, by human standards.  Bringing it under control, seems impossible at this point in time, but one must preserver.

Summer Azure Butterfly, Celastrina neglecta

From the family - Gossamer Wing / Hairstreak Butterflies - Lycaenidae

Note the lovely fringe on the wing edges.

Heavy rains fell this afternoon, then again, this evening.  Almost midnight… I’ve procrastinated a bit as it hasn’t been painless to sleep lately.   I’ve done something I’ve never done - opened the window in my studio and let in the trilling sounds of what I think are treefrogs, filling the room with summer music.  Occasionally a succession of tiny higher pitched chirps could be heard within the rhythmic melody.

One would have drifted off into never-never land, if not for the interruption of the low flying airline coming in over the neighbor’s house to approach the airport, but that’s life, isn’t it?  If I had left that window open all night, would I have gone a bit bonkers?  Maybe.  I’m not going to find out.  Sometimes the lack of sound is heaven also.

Hibiscus moscheutos, Swamp Mallow

Each bloom only lasts a day.

Tiny black beetles can be seen in the flowers.

They move so fast - very difficult to photograph.

Looks like it is eating pollen.

Honey Bee

After researching moths, hover flies, and beyond...

I think this is a Bee Fly (Bombyliidae).

Their larvae feed, indiscriminately sometimes, 

on grasshopper and locust eggs, 

plus solitary bee and wasp larvae;

but generally they are considered beneficial -

just another part of the ecosystem 

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My Corner of the World

Saturday's Critters