Hunting the wild persimmons
Native persimmons ~ ripe when they fall from tree
Dustin raves about their tastiness
No persimmon on the ground escapes his teeth
One of a kind
Who knows?
A neat looking small wildflower
Youth has a way of perceiving life as forever. It isn't, of course, but that optimism is a great feeling while it lasts. Cervical degenerative discs, pinched nerve flare-ups, shoulder muscle spasms; there are days when being optimistic is like climbing a rock wall up the face of a mountain.
I recline outside today on my plush chaise lounge; a first this year. Actually, it's a first ever. There's a saying... better late than never... I know, there's also another saying... a day late and a dollar short. I'm a model example of why these sayings are still in use in these modern times.
I'm having a little skirmish with a pint-sized spider who thinks it's his chaise lounge also. I move him, he comes back to spin another web. It's never ending. Of course, I could just squish him, but that's not my style, so we co-exist with some trepidation.
Southern Bee Blossom with a fly, tree cricket,
and what appears to be another
type of crane fly
Second bloom on clematis after rains in late summer
Beautyberry ripening
Coralberry
Sends runners out on top of ground
that root to ground at stem segments
creating nice trip hazards
Black Stink Bug (Proxys punctulatus) on spicebush
Winterthur viburnum berries
turning from white to pink to blue
Crane fly (I think)
Natures artwork on a violet leaf
Porch plant
Maidenhair fern in 20" planter
The name of this blog has no rhyme or reason. It was pulled out of thin air as I realized from the form being filled out, nameless blogs don't exist. My bad. It was the best I could cough up in ten seconds flat. I've made fun of it more than once in my posts.
It's a play on words. It doesn't make any sense, but you know how we humans love to give a word fifty shades of meanings. Imperfection would fit me best today. Oh, poo..... Just checked the front bird bath, and six English sparrows are a dancing in the water while many others are pigging out at the feeder.
It all began in spring with the next door neighbor hanging a large feeder overflowing with low quality seeds that drew in the English sparrows and starlings. Upon discovering my feeder, they all made me the main attraction and my neighbor a backup. Thanks, good neighbor. We love you.
Spicebush swallowtail caterpillar
in its rolled leaf for protection.
Liatris aspera
Group of Hickory Tussock Moth caterpillars traveling across oak leaves
at base of red oak tree.
Wasp mud nest on swamp hibiscus stem
Purple leaf hopper - 1/4" long
Hickory Tussock Moth caterpillar munching on swamp hibiscus leaf
It's been near on five months of cicada songs with several different batches emerging out of the underground from late spring to now. The last batch sings for mates until dusk has fallen into darkness. I'm becoming quite adept at ignoring that eternal chatter of love to preserve what's left of my inner peace.
My vegetable beds are minus one cucumber plant that grew old and died with all the cucumbers still on it. All desire seems lost this year to care for or about them. Kaput! I'm still eating cherry tomatoes off the vine, but the seed packets for the rest of the veggie patch are still on the kitchen table. Oh, well.....
The almanac predicts winter will be warmer at this years end and on into the next. I want nothing of it. I wish ice and snow and thirty degrees below... well, maybe not quite that chilled, but those persevering little blood loving suckers called ticks embrace warmer winters to increase their brood ten-fold. I will be living with the devil come next spring.
Chaos
Brown-Eyed Susan
Rudbeckia triloba
Tiny Golden Green Sweat Bee
(Augochlora pura)
on Marjoram flowers
Blue Lobelia
Spiny Assassin Bug
Brown-Eyed Susan flower is 1" in diameter.
Waited 2 hours for this little insect to come into full view.
When I could see only its head peeking over the flower center,
it looked like something from outer space.
Sideoats grama grass seed head flowers
'Sparkleberry' Winterberry
Miniature Robber Fly on grass seed head
(Holcocephala fusca)
Fierce hunters of other insects.
Orchard Orb-Weaver Spider
(Leucauge venusta)
A small spider with a complex web
While autumn teases with a bit of her colors, summer is still in the air. The broomsedge bluestem, a tall grass that stands beautifully throughout the winter, is coming into its own. Artistically snaking its way throughout the sunnier parts of the gardens, it is usually left where it decides to reside.
The turtlehead flowers are slowly loosing blossoms from the bottom upward, and leaving those beautiful stately seed heads, while the drying flowers of the Joe pye weed remind one of the ghosts of all the yesterdays. Their neighbors, the swamp sunflowers are just beginning to see flower buds peeking out of their centers.
I saw a blue aster flower today, and many more will come as the days and weeks pass by. While these native gardens are not drama queens, they create many delightful pops of color before the end of one winter and on past the beginning of the next winter.
Buildup of afternoon clouds
While it's easy to idealize nature standing on the outside looking in, the reality I see in my native gardens is that life encompasses both goodness and cruelty. It is the nature of creation. I always think of my gardens as my Eden and my Hell wrapped up in pretty trimmings.
