Please Don't Remind Me.

 Purple Passionflower 

You remind me of how old I really am…  She finds herself thinking this as this perfect lady flies by her and disappears around the corner of the waiting room.  Every single week this scenario repeats without fail as she waits to be next up to enter physical therapy. Young, thin and beautiful, while she is old, dumpy and seen better days.  This lady turns heads, while the only head she turns is her own.  She leans her head back against the wall, closes her eyes and sighs the longest of sighs as eyes open wide.  She hates being old.

That’s all I’ll write about my state of mind.

Butterfly Weed

Native Bush Honeysuckle, Diervilla lonicera

Eastern Leaf-footed Bug, Leptoglossus phyllopus

It travelled into the house on my shirt sleeve.

I panicked a bit, as it walks so fast,

I thought I would never manage to get it back outside.

My skin rains salty sweat as I clean out the birdbath of green slim that clings to the stone.  Isn’t it a bit daff, that in the middle of winter I wished for a day just like this, then today, when my wish has come true, I want to take it all back?  The humidity makes it all so devilishly hellish.  One clap of thunder this afternoon with rain falling elsewhere, but not here.  Last week thunder roared across the heavens with a five-minute drenching that moved out so quickly it felt as if a heartless joke had just been played.

Hairy Wild Petunia (Ruellia humilis)

'Autumn Minaret' Daylily - Flowers stand as tall as me.

Purple Coneflower with Carpenter Bee

One day we waited outside for the lightning bug show, and the players showing up could be counted on one hand.  Yes, I have photos of insects, but their numbers have taken a stumble and a tumble down the hill into oblivion, it would seem.  A pair of Carpenter bees stay busy in the field of phlox ‘Jeana’, and a stray butterfly did wander into the mix yesterday, but about the only insect staying abundantly abundant here are ants.  Don’t get me wrong… or do get me wrong, an ant is not my cup of tea as a garden buddy.

Phlox 'Jeana' with Carpenter Bee

We did manage on lightning bug night, after straining our necks and eyes for over an hour, to spy the young Mockingbird cocking its tail upwards while complaining about the food service from mom and dad.  It was nice to finally put a face to all that high-pitched begging.  A toad has been spotted, which makes annihilation of the aggressive Canadian Goldenrod, wild raspberry bushes, and Purple Passion Flower in the prairie garden that much harder to accomplish.  Carefully, a bit of herbicide is painted on the offending leaves to slowly do them in.  This will be an all summer activity :(

Beautyberry blush pink flowers

Phlox 'Jeana' with Silver-spotted Skipper

One of the largest of the Skipper Butterflies

Where the old Persimmon Tree once lived.

It's a bit dark this sultry evening, as the phrase of the moon is waxing crescent.  Fireworks popping off here and there in the neighborhood, and humidity hovering around the 80% mark, makes for an evening best spent indoors, don’t you think?  I’m sitting in my studio with a tall glass of tart cherry juice (I do love sweet and sour together), poured over ice, with my shoes kicked off, listening to calm music…wondering… wondering if I’ll ever finish styling this room.  If I consider past revelations about myself, then the answer is no.  I think I’ll take Ralph Waldo Emerson’s advice and consider this room a journey and not a destination.  I like that. 

New Maidenhair Fern added to right side of front door

Happy

Enjoy!

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Saturday's Critters

To the cat who walks alone.

Those liquid eyes that seem to pierce me to the depths of my soul.  They haunt me at breakfast, brunch, lunch, snack time, dinner, nightcap, and potty break at five next morning.  Doctors’ orders are to feed her whenever she wishes, to build her muscle mass back to wherever it ought to be but is not.  She’s quite demanding, you know, in a silent persevering way… those endless stares, and not a single mew from her lips… just those haunting eyes, wherever I am, staring at me until I give in and plunk a few spoonful’s of chicken bits into her dish.  When contented as her bowl is licked clean, she drifts into the woodwork never to be seen again until she gets the urge to seek me out once more and repeat.

Did I tell you she’s my favorite… yes, I think she’s still my favorite even though she behaves rather badly at times with a dose of indifferent these days.  She’ll touch base at bedtime for a few strokes under her chin, and if I’m lucky she’ll sprawl out by my side, if unlucky, she just bunch up at my feet so I can’t move them even an inch.  Of course, at some point in time she moves like a phantom into her dark place of hiding until five in the morning when on my potty break she lets go a rush of demanding meows signaling it’s snack time before breakfast.

It's her birthday this month.  I forgot it… so wrapped up in my own self, it never occurred that she even had a birthday any time this year.  I suppose she’s over the hill, sixty in human years – when everything about oneself begins to crust with rust.  I’ve already been there.  She has my undying empathy as she continues forward in her life.  She will always have the best I’m able to offer.  She will ask for nothing more than that.  I love her, and whatever she chooses to give back, I'll always call it love and leave it at that. 

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Saturday's Critters

A Bump in the Road

I’ve been sitting here at least two lifetimes with a brain that keeps whiting out its own thoughts, giving me nothing to write about.  I have no stories to tell.  

I’ve decided to talk about this moment in time… my time… mine and Charlotte's time, as she is watching with attentiveness as these letters magically pop one after another onto the laptop screen.  She did step onto the laptop keyboard to take a swipe at the screen and close me out, oops... and was nudged gently back into her place, so now she's fending disinterest, leaping to the top of her cat tree for a bit of personal grooming.

I've had to chuck out all ideas of how I thought I would be using this laptop into the trash bin and start anew.  It sits on a metal stand on a small table askew to my armchair.  A foam insert from a small gun case sits on my lap with a Logitech MX Mini Keyboard on it.  I store the foam and keyboard under the metal stand when not in use.  I also use a cordless mouse.  I had to make my cursor green so I could find the darn thing.

Life's in scorching hell this month with high 90's and a few low 100's thrown in.  A shade cloth has been ordered so I may plant the purple coneflower I have in nursery pots still sitting on the back deck.  Thunderstorms came along with a cold front from the north leaving temperatures in the high 80's for two days, then back to hell on Monday.

I've been icing the ball of my right foot to calm down the pain of one bone moving out of place and crossing another.  I'll eventually  have inserts made to fit my shoes to alleviate the pain.  An epidural shot last week to calm down a flareup of a pinched hip nerve, and I'm not as good as new.  So be it.  Sitting isn't easy these days.  A second and maybe third shot down the road may be needed.  

I have to say, as I so uncomfortably sit here typing away, this mini keyboard is fantastic.  Not much to offer with my photographs, as my foot slows me down.  Microsoft updated their photo and paint programs, which is where I work on my photos, and it was a few days of frustration before I mastered the new links.

The standouts of my week are all the honeybees hanging around the front yard birdbath, taking sips of water.  Wasps visit also.  Three birdbaths front yard - three birdbaths back yard, requiring water changes three times in a day, most days... keeps us on our toes.  The Leucauge venusta, commonly known as Orchard Orb-weaver is the spider that dominates the garden.  It's pleasant to see them, as so many insects are missing these years.

Charlottes moved down to her little hassock to finish her grooming, then up to the laptop to take another peek, then higher to perch on the back of my chair, gifting me with headbutts while drooling onto my hair... oh, joy.  A shake of her head and a spray of drool fans out from above to smother me in saliva.  Now purring fills my ears with contentment.  Thank you Charlotte... I love you, too. 

Lullaby Baby Daylily in partial shade

Orchard Orb-Weaver Spider

Seven-Spot Ladybug, Coccinella sseptempunctata 

Honey Bees at birdbath drinking

Goldenrod Soldier Beetle, Chauliognathus pensylvanicus

This one is young and small, trying to balance on a little grass blade

without much success.

Young Eastern Cottontail Rabbit munching on 'Paten' Aster leaves.

Rabbits usually live short lives,

 as there's much in nature working against them.

A new viral disease is emerging now that is also killing them off.

They have a cuteness about themselves 

that brightens my day, when I spot one in the garden.

Years ago I planted Purple Coneflower 'Magnus'

and these petals that barely curve look like it.

Its friend might be a type of Crane Fly.

Much love and thanks for stopping by.

Take care.

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Saturday's Critters

Little Bits and Pieces of any Day

 

Corinne Clematis blossom with her fuzzy underside.

Dug from old ghost towns in Nevada, and packed uncleaned in wooden crates.

A quarter each in backroom of Reno antique shop, 

if we scrummaged through the boxes ourselves.

A lovely reminder of my antiquing days with my mom

when I was in my thirties.

Goldenrod Soldier Beetle (Chauliognathus pensylvanicus)

with wings unfolding for flight,

and 

Winterthur Viburnum buds opening.

Dog walking at the lake formed by Percy Priest Dam

Itea virginica Saturnalia

Female Carpenter Bee

*

A pair of these gentle giants can be a bit intimidating

when they are protecting the larvae in their chewed out holes.

We accept them and put out leaning 4 x 4's of cedar

which they use after several years of drying out.

Lost the name of this Viticella clematis.

Winterberry, Ilex verticillata

with

Little Black Ant

Honey Bee

and

friend

Clematis viorna

Sweet Austin

and 

Zebra Jumping Spider, Salticus scenicus (an European import)

Bottlebrush Grass, Elymus hystrix

Top facing northwest - Bottom facing south

Cool season grass, meaning it grows in spring and fall.

In garden, most of the spring grass will dry and disappear by mid summer.  

The fall growing grass will dry with some disappearing, 

and some standing dry during the winter months.

*

Some years it fills most of the flower beds, some years not.

This year it is plentiful.

I love this woodland rye grass.

Clematis 'Venosa Violacea' (Viticella Group)

Life has a way of wearing me down into tears lately, so this is all I have to offer.  Until next time...

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Saturday's Critters

My Corner of the World