Bit of this, bit of that

What would a post of mine be without randomosity?
(Yes, I made that word up.)


First, the birds:

I think this is the first time I have noticed a juvenile grackle in the yard. He or she hopped up right next to a juvenile house finch, and it made a nice little moment.

And our mourning doves have started bringing their babies to the feeders. Well, to the ground under the feeders. I put Euro in the window, so he could watch his American cousins. He got so agitated, I had to move him. He had started cooing and bowing and raising a ruckus. It was both funny and sad.

I sent the girls and Geoff off to the CNC so I could mow the grass unfettered.
But first, I had to jump-start the mower, because after the last mowing, it ran out of gas and someone left the key on. I won't say who. But it wasn't me. Ahem.

While the battery was charging, I walked over to the sunflowers and was happy to see happy bees with full pollen buckets.



There are a zillion sunflowers already, but there are still more getting ready to open up:



We have big ones, little ones, and this weird, spiny, red/orange one:



I noticed what I thought was a curled dry leaf.
Then I saw that it had legs:

What the Hell?

It looked just like a dead leaf, curled up and just a bit open at the end.

This weird little thing has a red/orange furry head. I have some research to do.
UPDATE: I found it! It's a Yellow-necked Caterpillar Moth -- Datana ministra.

Nellie has to be wherever I am, so I let her jump in the car while I waited.

"Momma! The engine's running. Let's go somewhere!"

While mowing, I saw something that made me swerve and miss a whole patch of grass:
My wisteria is in bloom!

It's just one little bloom, but this is the first time it has done anything except grow and try to attach itself to a nearby tree. Three years it's been.
I read that wisteria takes quite a bit of time to bloom...like seeded specimens can take decades to bloom. I am rather pleased with the goofy thing. But it's not one of the American wisterias...I do hang my head a bit when I look at it. (I bought it before I began the whole "Native" thing.)
I looked a few of the blooms, and they reminded me of my Hyacinth Bean, and I thought it resembled a pea blossom. Did you know that wisteria is a member of the pea family? I didn't.

But something is eating the blooms.
Hmmm...I wonder if it's the five trillion Japanese Beetles living on it? Time for a few of those June Bug traps. Ugly little creeps.

Thanks to all of you who have purchased a copy of Geoff's book. Each one helps...and once the advance balance is cleared, those royalty checks can start rolling in and we can live in a way that we are not accustomed.
: )