Sunday Photo: Hydrangea

When we moved into Chez Knit last year I knew that there was a bank of some sort of flowery thing planted under the front windows, but I wasn’t sure exactly what it was because the house had been empty for over a year and the landscaping crew that does all the outside plant maintenance didn’t seem to care that the deer yuck patooie! had eaten the plants, whatever they were, down to the stalks, leaving a leaf or two but nothing else. I was puzzled and more than a bit annoyed. But I had an idea that what was there might be hydrangeas. So, I started spraying with deer begone and hoped. And this year I was rewarded with a huge bank of Hydrangea that bloomed madly all summer and into the fall. Now the blossoms are all dry and brown and just fabulously beautiful. Yesterday I went out and cut all of them. I am not sure what I am going to do with them but it will be something.

The 8th Plague

Saturday. A happy Day. A day filled with crossing things off of the never ending, ever growing to do list. My to do list is never too done. Dang List Master app that makes it SO easy to make list after list after list. Never ending list. It makes my heart sing with joy.

Now back to my Saturday. I had cleaned the floor. I had done a bit of work. I had answered emails and inventoried the freezer and the canning goods. And then it was on to harvesting some of my basil. I had several basil plants growing on the patio this summer and they have been all happy and please pick more leaves for your pizza. But we are making our way towards Fall and they are getting a bit tired. I figured that I would just "top them off" and see if I can force a bit more growth out of them before the end.

Out to top off the basil I go. Look at the pretty sky. Happy sunshine shining down. All is right with my gardening world.

In I come with the basil in hand, putting it down on the counter. Lovely green basil. SO happy. I get all my stuff prepped for drying. Paper towels? Check. Old and clunky but still functional microwave? Check. I go to pick off the leaves so that I can dry them in the microwave.......

And something flies out of the basil at me.

I should probably tell you that there will now be some bad language. You have been warned.

Where were we? Ah yes, something green and possibly the size of a 747 flies out of the basil at me.

SHIT!!!! Oh shitshitshitshit! What was that???? Is it on me?? Where is it.

At this point I might have screamed just a bit. Or more than a little bit. And, even though I will deny it if you mention it, I might have done a little jig in the kitchen. Sort of a jumping around and waving my hands in terror kind of thing. My biggest fear, other than the fact that I wasn't exactly sure what had scared the ever long poopoo out of me, was the fact that I didn't know where the offending green flying agent of insect doom had actually landed. I stood there for a moment in quivering fear, waiting for little insecty feet to start climbing on me. It has happened before and I have never quite gotten over it.

And then there was movement. Right there on the lip of my clean coffee travel mug. I drew a deep breath and moved closer.

Run for your LIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVES!!!!!!!!!

I looked at him. He looked at me and had the audacity to rub his little front feet together as if in anticipation of doing something awful to my psyche.

And then I thought, "I have to take a picture!"

You know I would. How could I not. Thank goodness I had my iPhone in my pocket because I didn't want to actually step away from him in case he decided to go walk about. Several pictures later I was then confronted with what to actually do now. The easiest thing, it would seem to me, was to just carefully pick up my coffee mug and transport the offender to the outside. He was big. I wasn't going to actually smack him with anything because that would then cause a major exposion of bug guts and i just didn't think I could handle the clean up. Call me squeamish. I picked up the mug. I took two steps.....

And he flew at me with evil intent.

I might have dropped my mug, screamed a bit more and yelled some words that even I cannot put up on the blog.

I didn't feel any evil buggy feet crawling on me so I figured, correctly, that he had flown somehwere else. There he was, walking along my cabinet, bold as you please.

What to do now??? I SO wasn't going to actually pick him up. I am brave but not stupid. Then the lightbulb went on. I will get a plastic container and put it over him, slip a piece of paper under to slide between Mr. Locust and the cabinet, thereby trapping him in my homemade cage and then I will transport him outside. The first part worked like a charm until I realized I had forgotten to get a piece of paper.

Well shit.

I removed the plastic container and Evil Locust moved on to climb around on my window. By this time I had both plastic container and paper in hand and I managed to trap him. But even at this time he was still trying to fly out and kill me. He kept throwing himself at the paper as I quickly and gingerly carried him to the sliding screen door.

And then another problem arose. How to get the dang door open. My hands were very much tied up in keeping the killer from getting out. I stuck my little pinky out like I was at High English tea, slid the door open, and just as I did that....... the paper slipped away from the plastic container and Evil Locust made a break for it.

I screamed yet again, loud enough that the neighbors might have thought to call the police. I didn't see where he flew to but I decided to take it on faith that he didn't want to be inside any more than I wanted him to be. I quickly shut the screen door and retreated to my woman cave to survive.

If I act this way with just ONE Evil Locust can you imagine how the Egyptians felt!

 

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Photographical Fungi

It’s Monday. I am actually on the road today. But through the magic of the internetz I am still invading your blogosphere like something out of a bad 1950’s Sci Fi movie.


The light. Oh the light that shines late in the afternoon right onto my little back patio. And it was shining right on this lovely little fungi. 

And in case you are wondering what it looked like in actual fact…….



Seriously, there was no resisting the light.

And the fungi.

The Bucket Brigade

For most of the winter I have been mulling over in my menopausal mind about my patio space. It is small. The footprint cannot be changed. There will never be a deck. Just a slab of ugly concrete.

As the snow fell, I pondered. As the winds blew, I mulled (and drank an extra glass of wine). As the winter dragged on and on and on and on and….I thought.

I also watched the pattern of the sun and where it fell over the course of the day. Yes, I know that the sun pattern in the winter is different from the sun pattern in the summer. But I could at least get a feel for what was going to be the amount of sun vs shade. Was there enough sustained sun to be able to grow a few herbs and flowers? Time will tell.

I cogitated on what I should do about plants. I cannot actually “plant” anything in the ground because the ground doesn’t belong to me, well all except for that scant one foot of soil extending out from the house. And I can tell you if I took my shovel to that one foot space and dug it all up and put in a flower bed, well, I would get calls. And possibly strongly worded letters.

But, I don’t have to actually dig anything up to have a few herbs and flowers on the back patio. No indeedee.

This is the beginnings of my bucket garden. Last year these galvanized buckets were a part of the decorations for Shoe Queen’s wedding. This year, planters! I love it when I repurpose things.

To be honest I had been thinking all winter about going in a different direction with this little space of mine. I was actually going to buy some square wooden planters. But each of those beauties cost about $30 and I really hated to spend that money. I hate to spend money in general….

Stop talking about the yarn. There is nothing to talk about. Moving on.

Where was I?

Oh, planters, that was it.

I didn’t really want to construct the planters myself, although I am quite capable of doing that. So I really was all set to spend that money but I wanted to make sure that there wasn’t something else around Chez Knit that I couldn’t use instead. And there they were, sitting on the shelf in the garage, just waiting to be used. On Monday I had gone out and bought some of the plants that you see here, despite the fact that it was still colder that a well digger bahookie in Montana. I also picked up some blue spray paint. Today it is lovely outside so I fired up my painters tape and got out the tarp and painted my buckets and planted my plants.

It is a work in progress. I don’t like that the buckets are all on one level, it offends my artistic sensibilities. But that can be worked out somehow. I will keep an eye open for something in someone’s garbage that will fill the bill. I really had to restrain myself from picking up that lovely toilet in the garbage around the corner. I love those things as planters. Oh wouldn’t THAT just be the talk of the next neighborhood dinner.

Dang, I might just have to do that. Someone, restrain me.

The next thing will be making sure that the four footed hordes deer don’t nibble. I think I am going to make a hot pepper spray and possibly some netting to go over them. It is them or me and I have the opposable thumbs so I am going to win.

And then there are also the bunnies.

When everything is planted and all is set I will take a better picture.

I Will Not Let It Die!

I know that Spring has finally arrived when I plant pansies.

I am in such a different gardening "place" than I have ever been before, other than our first apartment which had north facing windows and consequently wasn't good for growing anything other than moss on trees. In that first place my gardening gene was still dormant.

Here at Chez Knit the landscaping isn't my job anymore, it is the job of the landscapers who are hired by the association. That is good and it is what we were looking for when we bought this house as it frees HHBL and I up from all the yard work that we had been saddled with for so many years. I don't have to dread Spring any longer and all the beds that needed to be cleaned out and the never ending battle with the weeds and the 20 yards of mulch that needs to be spread before it starts to cook down to China.

All of those facts may be true but it doesn't mean that I can stop this urge. It doesn't mean that my once dormant but now very active gardening gene can just go back to being dormant. I may not be in charge of those bushes, especially the very sad and woebegone hydrangea, but I don't think that the landscapers care either. Believe me, if they did care then that hydrangea bush wouldn't look like it does and it wouldn't be all eaten and decimated by those rats with hooves deer.

About those deer (as I rabbit trail for a minute). There seems to be three of them that are regular visitors. And they are bold as brass. My neighbors all shake their heads at me and say, "Oh I don't think you should plant any flowers. Those deer are terrible." I scoff at them! I shake my fist at them (the deer not the neighbors). I have opposable thumbs and they (the deer) do not and I will win.

Now back to the gardening

It isn't that I won't be gardening any longer, it is just that I will be gardening in a different way than I am used to. I cannot add anything new to any of the landscape beds as they are not technically mine to rearrange. I can stick some flowers here and there but I must maintain them and they cannot be perennials. I believe that most of what I will be doing will be confined to pots and containers both in the front and on the back patio, which isn't the sunniest place in the universe. There will not be any hostas (which is most likely a good thing knowing my addiction love for them) but there will be clematis. And I don't even have to go out and buy them. When we moved in I noticed that there were two very sad, mis-planted and deer ravaged clematis in one of the front beds. I am not sure who planted them and what they were thinking when they planted them but it was a strange place to put a clematis. So yesterday I carefully transplanted the first one over to an area where it will get a lot more sun. And that made me happy.

After digging a bit in the dirt I filled up a pot with dirt and planted some pansies. And that made me even more happy.

Then I trimmed back the hydrangea bushes. I have absolutely no idea about hydrangea care at the moment, I will have to do some research on that. But all I can say is that looking at the state that they were in I didn't think I could do them any more harm. To be honest, I can actually ask the homeowners association to replace the bushes, they are their property after all and not mine. But I just have this urge to try and save them. To not give up the hydrangea ship as it were. Call me a cockeyed hydrangea optimist if you will. Just another one of my Scarlet O'Hara moments....

As God is my witness, I will not let that hydrangea die!

After trimming the hydrangeas and cleaning up my garden mess....I pulled out my jug of deer retardent spray and gave the bushes and the clematis and the pansies a good dousing, all the while hoping that my neighbors don't wonder why the 'hood suddenly smells like the day after a giant frat party. Vomit, how lovely.

Garden waste is another adjustment that I am having to make. At OCK I could just lug all of it to the edge of the ravine and chuck it down the hill or stash it in the woods or something of that nature. But here I actually have to bag the stuff up, small amount that it is, and put it in the garbage can. I don't even own a wheelbarrow any more! And I only have one shovel which actually proved to be a problem yesterday as the only shovel that I do currently own was a bit big for the digging job. I managed.

I am not always one to embrace change (stop laughing HHBL) but my brain is just a whirl with the different gardening possibilities.

Now if my little town would only get their community garden up and functioning.........

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Spuds McSpuderson

Remember way back in the early part of the gardening season when I might have mentioned that LL and I were going to try a different method for growing potatoes this year? Last year we tried the “potato tower” which was not so great (meaning that we didn’t get any many potatoes). And we also had one “potato bag” that was actually much better.

So this year I sewed burlap potato bags.

I hate sewing burlap. Hatehatehatehatehate. Maybe it is the smell of the dang things. Or maybe it is just the burlap.

At any rate, I made 5 potato bags which we then filled up with lovely soil and planted potatoes. And then as the plants grew LL would put in more soil and roll the bag up a bit to cover the vines. She was doing that because really after about the end of June I was pretty non-existent over there. The whole selling a house/having a wedding/moving thing sort of took up most of my summer.

Summer? There was a summer this year? I don’t remember that. I have been a bit busy.

Well, this week we made plans for me to venture over to the garden so that we could dig up the potatoes, hoping against hope that we would have more than the few potatoes that we got last year. The plants that you see in the foreground are actually volunteer potato plants that we dug up from the compost pile and planted in one of the bags. We don’t like to waste anything.

And today was the big reveal.

No, that isn’t two feet from two different people. That is me. I couldn’t find the matching clog from either pair so I just went with what I had.

I am trendy like that.

I bet that pretty soon you are going to see vast numbers of people wearing mis-matched fake crocs.

You know you want this look.

Hmmmmm?

Off topic?

Ummmmmm, where was I?

Drum roll please……………

Folks we have potatoes!!

I will refrain from describing the squealing noises that we made when we realized that there were actually fairly decent size potatoes in the bags.

And of course I bring home potatoes from the garden on a week when I am not going to be cooking a meal until the weekend.

But guess what we are going to have on Sunday.

17 POUNDS

You know what I love about the Frozen Northeast Ohio in the summer time?

Well other than the whole it isn’t freezing and snowing thing of course.

It is that I live in an area where various orchards and farms grow an amazing variety of veggies and fruits. And this time of year…..

It’s Strawberry season!!!

Obviously, by the picture above you can deduce what I was doing at 8am this very morning. These babies are literally right off the the strawberry plant in the very hot and muggy field.

I will admit that there has been strawberry picking going on for several weeks at Monroe’s Orchard. But I have not been able to participate. Every time I thought I might get out there something would prevent me from it.

And I was worried.

Cuz I could only find two more small bags of strawberries in the freezer. I looked all around on the shelf where I usually keep my bags of frozen fruit and that was all I say. I thought there was more but nada! And not having a boat load of strawberries in the freezer would be a very bad thing. My smoothie obsession habit would be severely hampered if I couldn’t pull out some luscious berries and throw them in with the yogurt and other fruit. And I wouldn’t be able to indulge in my mid winter frozen fruit slushie mania.

Life as we know it might cease to exist if I didn’t get out there and pick some strawberries. You think I am kidding?

See what happens if you tell me that I cannot have a smoothie made with my own yogurt and strawberries. Or that there will be no Strawberries and Vanilla yogurt drizzled with chocolate sauce. And that Strawberry shortcake will just be a longed for memory.

I. Dare. You.

So after walking a vigorous two miles around Sunny Lake, I got back in Coco and went to Monroe’s, where the lovely strawberry row wrangler assigned me a row and gave me the low down on what to do. I get the same instructions every year but I think it is like flying on a plane, you need to be reminded of the safety instructions JUST IN CASE, even after ALL the plane flights you have taken you STILL don’t remember that you need to put on your oxygen mask first before helping others and that the bag might not inflate but the oxygen will still be flowing normally.

Hmmmm, I seem to have taken a tangent there. SO, I worked my way down my assigned row. Or is it up my assigned row. Down. No up! Oh whatever. I picked in the hot sun. Thank goodness it was breezy cuz otherwise it would NOT have been a pleasant experience. But the berries were very plentiful. And I only sampled one just to be sure that they were good.

And after one short hour…..

60 short minutes…….

I had picked……….

17 pounds of strawberries. Let that sink in.

Seventeen. POUNDS.

I didn’t mean to pick that much. It didn’t look like that much in my containers. I just kept picking and thinking and all the containers filled themselves up. I knew I might be in trouble when I lifted up my fruit and staggered under the weight. One of the owners came by as I was trying to make it back to my car so that I could go and have my haul weighed. He pulled up beside me and suggested that he could take the containers back to the store for me. Was it the redness on my face that clued him in. Or the fact that I was staggering and wheezing like an asthmatic at a pollen festival? Who knows.

The fruit was waiting for me when I got to the check out and finally I had those lovelies in the car and then home in the kitchen.

And that is when I found the other strawberries that were in the freezer but not in the place where I normally keep all the frozen fruit. They were in the wire drawer where I usually keep all the nuts and things like that. The place that I didn’t check because I NEVER put frozen fruit in there. I kept pulling out bags of frozen strawberries. It was like they were multiplying before my eyes.

There were…………

8 bags of frozen strawberries from last year. So I don’t feel like I am losing my mind because I thought I had more strawberries. But now I have 17 POUNDS of fresh strawberries PLUS a bunch of frozen ones. And so, I am making strawberry fruit leather with the ones from last year. And I may make a batch of strawberry/cherry jam as well since LL and I are picking cherries on Thursday. I think that sounds like a good combination.

And I think I need to go and get some vanilla ice cream……cuz we have a lot of strawberries.

The Greater Garlic Internet Lied to Me

The other day, Tuesday to be exact, LaurenLeap handed me a small burlap bag with a number of heads of garlic contained therein. It was the remainder of the garlic that she had ordered to plant in the garden.

She asked me how I stored my garlic and I told her - in an old piece of pantyhose, knotted at one end and hanging in the pantry where it is nice and cool and dry. No problems. She commented that this particular garlic that she was kindly handing me stunk too strongly too do that.

At first I didn’t believe her.

But she was very right. By the time I drove home from the garden Coco smelled like she had been sitting in the middle of a field of garlic.

Well THIS stuff certainly wasn’t going to be sitting in the pantry for very long. An hour might have been more than I could take.

But what to do with all that garlic? You know I hate to waste anything if I can help it.

Well anything other than liver which should be immediately disposed of in a biohazard bag.

But I digress.

First things first was to figure out how to peel all those cloves of garlic without having my hands smell permanently pungent.

Despite the sheer beauty of this method that Saveur assured me would be foolproof…….

It did not work.

And believe me I tried. But it might have been because I don’t actually own two large metal bowls. Oh I own bowls alright. Lots of them. But they are almost all ceramic mixing bowls of very ancient age, not metal ones. I had the brilliant idea of getting out my metal roasting pan and lid and doing it that way.

Not so good.

All I succeeded in doing was making a great deal of garlic skin chaff that floated around the kitchen for a bit and made me sneeze.

There they sat, still in their skins, mocking me with their little garlicky voices.

SO I did what I normally do. I laid those cloves out on the cutting board and gave them a good whack with the bottom of the metal bowl. They gave up their skins pretty darn quick after that.

But then the issue was what to DO with the cloves now that I had them. Peeled cloves of garlic will last for a bit in the refrigerator but not forever. Do not be fooled if you buy your garlic in vast quantities from CostCo and it lasts forever in the frig.

They treat it with something so that it will last beyond the Zombie Apocalypse.

It is also not good to store garlic in oil either on your counter or in the frig. Not unless you want a really nice case of botulism.

What to do. What to do.

The INTERNET! The internet told me that if I chopped the garlic in my food processor and then added a literal boat load of olive oil and then put all of it into the freezer that it wouldn’t freeze solid. The internet assured me that olive oil doesn’t freeze solid and that when I needed a bit of that garlic I could scoop it out of the container and cook with it.

The internet had the audacity to lie to me! I can tell you that the container of garlic and oil that I pulled out of the freezer this afternoon is a solid block of garlic and oil. There will be no scooping involved unless I use a jackhammer.

So I am just going to thaw the whole thing and somehow figure out how to freeze it in small portions that can be pulled out and used.

I still cannot believe that the internet lied to me!

The internet NEVER lies.

Did you know that Elvis is living in NYC! The internet told me so and I obviously believe EVERYTHING that the internet tells me.

The Last of the Pansies

Pansies are such a happy flower. And they have a fragrance that I love. They scream “SPRING” to me almost as much as snow showers in May.

But they do not last for very long. Warm/hot weather makes them go all leggy and insolent like a teenager and then you need to rip them out by their little roots and show them whose boss.

Today was that day.

But before I consigned them all to the compost bin I cut one last glass full of flowers. They won’t last all that long but whenever I look at them I will be reminded of Grandpa.

When In Doubt…Improvise!

I have never been what you would call a traditionalist when it comes to garden landscaping

After all….

I use bedpans for planters….and there might be a toilet planter too.

A garden dilemma had arisen this Spring. A problem. An issue.

My garden does not look like this at the moment, obviously. This was taken in June of last year. See the trellis at the back of the picture. The one that the clematis happily climbs up each year?

It met a sad and unhappy end this past winter. The posts had not been seated in the concrete tubes correctly by the landscaper when it was installed many years ago. Posts that we were ASSURED would stand the test of time.

Don’t get me going on THAT particular landscaper.

The posts were rotten right through. And the first good wind over the winter sent them toppling down. And I have no wish to spend a boat load of moola to have them replaced.

I will IMPROVISE!

Voila! My stick trellis tower.

Hey it’s BEAUTIFUL!

And practical!

And in about 6 weeks it will be covered with clematis.

It was a bit chilly yesterday afternoon but totally sunny and I was feeling inspired. So….

I got out my drill. I tromped around in the woods till I found enough dead branches that were about the right circumference. I dragged them onto the driveway. I sawed them to length. I drilled holes and screwed in screws and I set it up. Not a tape measure in sight.

Sure maybe, just maybe the screws are sometimes….a bit on the not quite screwed in side even though I drilled pilot holes for everything.

And it might be a bit wobbly. That is why it is propped up on all sides with nice heave pieces of sand stone that I just happen to have laying around.

Really Alpha! Do you think this is your best work? What would Norm Abrahms say to this?

I think Norm Abrams would say,

GOOD JOB Deb! Way to go with your use of power tools and wood screws.

There was really no time to lose though. The clematis are already up and reaching for something to hang onto.

I like it! My Leaning Tower of Clematis. Come June it is going to look AWESOME.

You just wait and see.

Thar Be Dangers Midst the Leaves!

Ah Fall. A time of chilly air and waning light and the smell of smoke in the air.

A time to get out into the brief days of warmer weather (it was 65F yesterday!!) to rake the remaining leaves off of the lawn and out of the garden beds and tuck everything up tight in anticipation of the cruel and biting Winter winds.

But my friends you must be careful when you are raking the leaves.

And you have a big dog.

And you do not “police” the yard.

Hey it is fertilizer after all right???

Thar be DANGERS that lurk in the grass and under the leaves. Hiding and waiting for the unsuspecting shoe.

And you have NO IDEA how long I sat in front of my computer and debated with myself as to whether I could actually post the original, un-modesty patched picture. I debated long and hard with myself. After all poop happens. But in the end I went with a covered up photograph.

You can thank me later.

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!

ALPHA HOW COULD YOU PUT A PICTURE OF MY BODILY FUNCTIONS UP ON THE INTERNET!!!!!!!!!

Quite easily as a matter of fact. Quite easily indeed.

Just In The Nick Of Time

I am not sure why but when Fall arrives all the time that was available all Summer for working at the garden just sort of evaporates. No more morning hours available for digging in the dirt. No more afternoon hours for weeding and chatting and planning.

Poof!

Does it pack up and go to Arizona for the winter? Does anyone know?

But today LaurenLeap and I thought that perhaps we might be able to score a few hours in the plots to get things cleared out some more. There was rain forecast. It was VERY windy. It was pretty cloudy. But we had hopes.

The garden is looking pretty raggedy by this time.

We have had a good frost so the beans are over and done. So sad, just their spindly little stalks. The sunflowers are dead, dead, dead. The beets were on their way out so we harvested those.

Amazingly the broccoli chugs on, sending up small side shoots. But it’s time is short as well.

Such sad, sad beans. But we have a boat load of beans in the freezer so it is OK.

We had been working industriously for an hour or so, pulling up plants, adding things to the compost pile, carting things up to the dumpster. Working up a nice bit of sweat in the very stiff and increasingly chilly breeze.

And then I looked up.

I looked at the sky.

Oh that cannot be good.

Oh dear. I looked at LaurenLeap. LaurenLeap looked at me.

LaurenLeap: How long do you think we have? Five minutes maybe?

Me: No, I think that is a very optimistic thought. I am guessing about three minutes.

We could already see and smell the rain coming. Even feel a few drops here and there.

It is absolutely amazing how fast 50 something women can move when confronted with the possibility of a good drenching.

We grabbed our equipment and hightailed it up to our cars, struggling to get the gate closed and locked in the every increasing rain and wind.

And closed the car doors just as the deluge was upon us. Now that is a very nice feeling indeed. So we had to sit in our cars, right next to each other and talk on our cells phones to congratulate ourselves on how fast we had moved.

Technology, you gotta love it.

This is what the drive looked like all the way home.

Oh yes, just in the nick of time.

Things To Do? What Things To Do?

Tonight is the last summer concert at Blossom. We are going with some friends. There is food to make.

I am shooting a wedding tomorrow. There are preparations to make.

And what do I spend a boat load of time doing this afternoon.

Why taking pictures of the humming birds of course.

And I was just so frustrated with the fuzzy, woo woo quality of the photos because I was shooting through the light limiting screens that we have on the windows…..

I took the screen out. Heck, we would have taken them out in a month or so anyways. So what if Chez Knit is on the market and one of the windows in my office now looks funny.

Sacrifices must be made for art.

Much better. Hopefully no one drives by and sees me hanging out the window with my camera and long lens attached to my face.

The feeder greatly resembles O’Hare Airport on a Friday afternoon before a major storm. Everyone is trying to land. The clump of bees will get so large and vigorous that they all fall off and then fly back to start all over again.

And then there are the humming birds that are also trying to feed. Everyone gets a tad crabby and aggressive. There is much buzzing and chirping and trash talk.

I am sorry but I am totally fascinated by the tiny birdy feet.

Coming in for a landing…..

ABORT! ABORT! ABORT!

Coming in for a second try after a go around.

Success! Mid-air refueling accomplished.

I have so much to do.

And yet I cannot resist the siren call of the humming birds.

What the HECK is THAT!?!

Oh the garden. The never ending interest of the garden.

There are Stick Bug behinds. I thought this was it’s face at first but I believe now that it is the other end.

There are these nasty little buggers.

Look, Mama Lady bug. Or is it Papa Lady bug. How can you tell the difference?

Lady Bugs? Are they good to eat? Can I have one?

But what on earth is this bug?

I was walking through the garden, having spent several hours weeding the paths and just neatening things up because, you know, I am all about the neat and tidy around here. I almost walked past the thing without even noticing that it was there. I caught a flash of blue out of the corner of my eye that just didn’t seem like it should be there and……

There he was, waving his creepy little antennae at me. Getting’ all up in my face with his bugginess and talkin’ trash.

I have no clue what this beetle is. I zoomed in and decided to let the internet tell me but the internet she has failed me. All I can find are strange references to The Blue Beetle.

This is not the beetle I was looking for.

I went back out with camera in hand and snapped a bunch of pictures. Stepped away to put the lens cap back on and when I looked back…….

He was gone.

Or she was gone.

Oh blue beetle our time together was so brief.

And if you are eating anything in the garden you had better know that I am going to find you and pound you into oblivion.

Just so that you know.