If Looks Could Kill ~

There is always that distance you are from me, where you seem more like a spirit
in the wind than a real-life creature of feathers maneuvering like an acrobatic ninja from one clematis bell shaped flower on to the next for an early breakfast this morning with me.  

I am honored.  I do wish you would stay awhile, but we all know you have little time to say hello and less time to say goodbye before off you go…

and where (does one ask?)

Well,

Only the heavens know, and they aren’t telling.

Why is it that this creature can jump start a cold heart into a roaring fire when it is sited?  What unseen tether binds this little soul to mine in a way that only friends may know?

What keeps me anticipating the reappearance of one hovering eye to eye even though year after year it never happens again? 

Perhaps it is a gentle reminder that we might never take even the smallest things for granted.

My garden is a weaving of warp threads, that which was already here, and waft threads, that which I added to create a tapestry uniquely me.  It changed the boredom of my life into happiness, even though it has been wrought with doubts, hopes, triumps, and failures, joy and sadness throughout its existence.  It still gives me pleasure.

While I tend to write using my feelings as far as nature is concerned, I do know it is not true nature.  It is my feelings.  Trying to survive on a planet out to kill you if you let down your guard is true nature.  Sometimes I write about it, but honestly, few ever really want to hear it.  La La Land seems to be preferred.

The ending of mommy's story 

and 

the beginning of my story -

Ms.Charlotte FeatherBender's 

Adventure in La La Land

Not a word, or it's curtains for you, fuzzie cheeks!

Mommy's at an impasse, in that her head can't agree as to what her fingers might type.  In contrast, mommy's been teaching daddy the concept of overwatering and he's becoming exceptionally good at it.

After I pointed out to mommy her only other option for a little time off was to pick daddy to finish her blog post, I got the job.  She did refuse to forego the proofreading, ergo forcing me into bad kitty mode.  The story shall be written.  I'll reprimand myself afterwards.

Mommy asked daddy about the asters and coneflowers that no longer seem to exist in the front garden bed under the windows she looks out of everyday.  Daddy's been weeding there, so he's not talking.

  

He put his foot into his mouth, shoe and all, the other day when mommy tried to stuff the words it's all about you back down his throat.  I didn't think that was humanly possible, but mommy proved me wrong.  You go, girl!

You might be thinking mommy and daddy have been married forever, and you wouldn't be wrong, but the banter keeps things lively for this feline during a boring afternoon, while Austin hids under a bed where he can't sit on my head.  A nice win for me.

Found this meter gadget in daddy's tool cabinet with a glass window on the front, collected probably before he met mommy, encrusted with rust... you know, all that stuff daddy meaninglessly stockpiles just in case it's ever needed.  I wonder if it works?

(shake, shake, shake)

What the...?

(shake, shake, shake)

Good Grief!

I'm beginning to talk like mommy.

(shake, shake, shake!)

I knew it!

Too much rust.

(shake, shake, shake, shake, shake)

Maybe a few more...

(shake, shake, shake)

YIKES!!!

Darn it, dropped it on the floor.

It's history now.

I dropped it into my water bowl to finish it off.

I wonder what else is in daddy's tool cabinet?

~ The Tool Cabinet ~

It stands impressively tall, too heavy for its wheels to be of much use.  It was an agreement between the two – not a necessity for him, but to her it was a way to organize a bit of the chaos that seemed to collect around him.

She wanted to purchase the largest of the brand, but the next one down was the more practical of the two.  She hated always being practical.  It was not her life as she had invisioned.

She brought seven tools into the marriage, as she purchased only when one was needed.  Lovingly used, they looked immaculate compared to his.  He brought in the old metal handled toolboxes, maybe nine in number, packed with rusty dulled edge tools that looked abused and worn out.

She wondered why he had tools.  He was not a handyman.

He filled ten drawers of their toolbox with his tools leaving her a small half size drawer for her tools, and a regular four-inch-deep drawer for purchases down the road to take care of the house and garden.

The largest of the drawers, the bottom one, carried so much weight in tools that the flat metal bulged under pressure and formed a gigantic bowl that scraped across the bottom of the cabinet when it was opened or closed.

Three handheld toolboxes full of tools remained cluttering up the garage.  She told him to get rid of them, so he stuffed even more into the bulging, overburdened tool cabinet before giving up the rest. 

She ignored it all.  He was so unchangeable.

He used her tools without asking, and put them back, not in her drawer, but his.  Sometimes she would hunt through his drawers to reclaim her tools, but the day came when she moved her tools into two drawers in the kitchen and never looked back.

I’m not sure the moral, if any, this poignant tale encompasses.   Perhaps this little saying says it all –

“Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass; it is about learning to dance in the rain.”

People!  We felines embrace life head on.  So does mommy.

I guess the heat put mommy in pooped out mode, as her first photo looks simply weedy.   Poor mommy.  I'll put my magical toes to work and see what I can do with it.

Crap!  Uh... right, people are reading this.  Drats!  Mommy left notes.  This beauty is Fatoua villosa, translates to densely hairy and is part of the Mulberry Tree family in Asia.  Well...la te da.  A weed is a weed.

Lovely Spicebush berries

An omnivore, in the front garden, hiding from carnivores.

Cottontail Rabbit

yummy yum!

Pesty Austin at his lovable best.

 Broadleaf Plantain (Plantago major)

Ekking out a living in the cracks.

Bumblebee feeding on the Joe Pye Weed.

Stunning against the orange edged violet leaf.

Maybe a Zabulon Skipper Butterfly

Chelone lyonii, Turtlehead 

Maybe a leaf from a Tulip Tree (Liriodendron tulipifera)

Lonicera sempervirens, Coral Honeysuckle

Mommy has it cut down every year,

so it doesn't grow up into the blackhaw viburnum

and drag the limbs down to the ground.

Tiny Spicebush Caterpillars

hiding for the day.

These caterpillars are very small, 

but they already have the two dots on their thorax

used to mimic a snake when larger.

Looks like appetizers rolled in a leaf

Mommy says I have that 

tired, 

disgusted, 

would rather be somewhere else look 

that could kill in a heartbeat.

Dang it.

She knows me so well.

I have no ending for this post,

as I live in the suburbs 

where dogs are loved 

and cats are hated.

I am never allowed outdoors.

  

I live in prison for my own protection.  

I'm returning to one of the cell blocks 

down the hallway to take a snooze.

Charlotte

This Post is Linked to:

Saturday's Critters

Summer days drag their feet towards fall ~

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.