A day like SourPatch Kids, but in reverse

What a good day, with a sour end... like SourPatch Kids candy, but backwards. (They start out sour, then get sweet, if you've never had one)


Filled with birds and bugs and a project.

It started with a Phoebe near the river.

I always get phoebes and peewees mixed up visually. I didn't have my field guide with me, but I had my BirdJam. (Hi, Jay!!!)
I played the phoebe call and this sweet little bundle of bravado sang it back to me.




At the same place on the river, a pair of wood ducks were checking out the massive old sycamores for a nest site.


Wood ducks astonish me every time I see one in a tree. I should be used to it by now, being a birder for 7 years...but a duck in a tree. It's weird and wonderful to see. I mean, how do they hang on??? They have...well, DUCK FEET!

I watched the female as she went from tree to tree. She didn't walk along the branches like a raptor would, or any other bird who normally perches up there. If she wanted to move down the branch, she would think about it really hard, bouncing her neck up and down, and then do a half-hop, half-flap to another spot. I laughed out loud quite a few times. The male let her do the house-shopping, and when she got too far away, he would leisurely follow.
Reading up on them at the Cornell All About Birds website, I learned that the babies can jump from heights of 89 m (290 feet!!!) without injury. Wow. I've seen documentaries that show the wee little darlings do their version of base jumping, but 290 feet? Holy Crap!
And the nest is lined with down from the female's breast. Imagine yanking stuff off yourself to care for your baby. I guess breast-feeding comes pretty close.

Later, a towhee visited our feeders.

They are a rare treat here, smack dab in the middle of our subdivision. No one but us has the necessary cover for them to feel comfortable. It's a shame, too. Lots of our neighbors have bird feeders, but they live on these wide, vast....green carpets with no bird cover to speak of.

The visit from the towhee got me thinking of a project I wanted to do. I got the idea from a book I received from Lynne's GIVEAWAY. Click here if you want to read the book. It's right up your alley if you are thinking of becoming a rehabber.

Voila. A Bug Pit:

(If you don't know what one is, it's just another way to feed the birds.)
I removed all the grass from the area, filled it in with nice, juicy organic soil (compost) and lots and lots of earthworms, centipedes, slugs, pill bugs....


Lorelei helped.


We then covered everything with leaves, to encourage birds to forage and do their kick-scratch thing. The only leaves we could find were dry, so we watered it down.

Note the purple purse. Even if she's gardening, accessories are important.
The girls are quite fond of turning over rocks and logs to search for insects, so now whenever they find something, it can go in the Bug Pit.

But. Heavy sigh. My dumb, dumb neighbors....
I went up to the top of the street to wait for Isabelle's bus, and the lawn on the corner was being.....treated.

TruGreen? ChemLawn?
Spray-Everything-With-Poison- so nothing can live there but GRASS- people?
I truly don't understand why people pay for this service. Honestly. I grew up on 14 acres of pure, untreated land and I could still do somersaults in the grass. In the current economy, people are PAYING for POISON? Kill ALL the bugs? Even the GOOD ONES?
Let me get this off my chest. Here's how it goes. You "treat" your lawn to this cocktail of gunk, which kills all the beneficial bugs. And then you need MORE poison to kill what the beneficial bugs would eat for you...for free. Nearly everyone on our street employs at least some kind of poison-service. When our direct neighbors get visited by the Scott's guy, I stand by the window and glare at him. When he gets too close to our fence, I find a reason to go outside, to my car or something, and give him a bit of the Stinky Eye. Keep that crap on your side!

What about fertilizers? WTF? You WANT your grass to grow faster and thicker? So you have to mow it more OFTEN? So you can pay for MORE gasoline and belch out MORE fumes into a rapidly thickening atmosphere?
Well, we have all the bugs. And we are happy about it. And so are our birds.
If Geoff would let me, I would kill ALL of our grass, plant native ground-cover and just grow native shrubs and trees. And wildflowers. And seed-producing plants.
FIFTY NINE bird species and counting, on our little patch (3/4 of an acre!) of Heaven, stuck in the middle of Suburban Hell.

Okay. I went on a rant there.
To leave you with something sweet....tomorrow, GHOW chick banding!

The Torso

While it sounds like a good, juicy, gory murder novel, let me explain...

About three weeks ago, we had a rip-snorter of a storm, and yards all over the neighborhood were full of downed tree limbs. We only had the "flags" of cicada damage blowing around (when the female cicada lays her eggs, she cuts into the skin of small tree limbs, and after the larvae have dropped out, the limbs die and fall off during the next storm).
Our neighbors lost one third of a multi-trunk maple, and we shamelessly asked for some of it to toss into the prairie to add some habitat.




This is the piece they gave us.....named "The Torso":

Kinda looks like a pair of pants, doesn't it?
(Mike, our neighbor, named this arty piece. It's nice to have a neighbor with a sense of humor. We like Mike.)

*Those who have noticed that I haven't been the Blogging-Dynamo lately, rest assured that all is well....we are just busy preparing for our Big Trip*

In defense of an unkempt yard

Thanks to all of you who let your thoughts be known over at Wallet Pop.
After all the broo-haha, I walked out in the yard with my camera to try and see it objectively, see it as a stranger would. Honestly, I couldn't find fault with it. I love it the way it is, and it's staying that way as long as we live here.

There are layers and layers of things to discover out there. It might be a new dragonfly skimming the prairie grass as it waves in the breeze. Or a swallowtail is investigating the Dutchman's Pipe in the "messy" corner, looking for a good place to lay her eggs.
A hawk might be waiting patiently in the "waiting tree", for a mouse or vole to peek out of the overgrown tree line separating us from the sweet elderly neighbors to the southwest (those neighbors grow the juiciest veggies, and share them with us every summer...you think they hate us?).

I stood in the prairie and took a picture of the house, to show everyone what the yard really looks like:

(The black and orange dot is Nellie trying her damnedest to carry her basketball to me)
Anyone see anything wrong with the yard?

Then I walked out to the middle of the yard and took a picture of the "BAD, BAD PRAIRIE".

Our neighbors to the northeast are also elderly (and two of our three neighbors live outside the subdivision, and they both owned at least part of the land that the subdivision is now standing on). The prairie ends at our fence, and the neighbor's yard has a nice, open space until you get to their house.

No worries about adding mice and snakes to their property (mice and snakes like overgrown areas...which is the whole reason we added a prairie)
We actually WANT rodents and insects and reptiles. Feed the raptors, they will be more than happy to stick around and continue the pest control for you.


(Gratuitous picture of happy Hooper, in front of the prairie)

If you want to make your yard a haven instead of a sterile monoculture, go check out National Wildlife Federation's Backyard Habitat page. It's easy, it's cheap, it's fun, it's good for the world, one yard at a time.

Enlisting the help of your neighbors can increase your efforts...I drew a simple diagram of four houses, with their shared corners as the focus of their backyard habitats:


*Don't laugh. I'm no Zick.*

Just so you don't think that all I can think of is my prairie, here's a shot of one of the blue million cicadas that are drowning out the bird song, scaring my children and generally messing up the place:


Please just mate so you can die and we can be rid of you for another 13-17 years...okay?

Do yourself a favor and go check out this video about the 17-year cicada invasion
(Brood X, larger and scarier than the emergence we are currently experiencing as Brood XIV). Though the little buggers are annoying and weird-looking, the video is very well done and captivating.

By the way, the feather from a recent post was from a Great Horned Owl. Finally, physical evidence that they are here! (And using the prairie, ahem.)

House Docs and Dog Docs

Geoff and I hired a "handy-man" service to come to the house and fix a few things that were beyond us. Mainly, the roof.
Our ever-so-helpful homeowner's insurance refuses to pay for the big-ass hole in our roof because they say it's a "manufacturer's defect". Yeah. Bite me.
The makers of our lovely house didn't use long enough nails for the ridge vent (the point of the roof) so every time it rains, large amounts of said rain enter the attic, run down the supports and collect in the drywall above our upstairs hallway. And a rather large moldy area has developed. So the handy man fixed the ridge vent today and will be back to tear out the moldy area and put up new dry wall. All we will have to do is paint the ceiling.

He also fixed the water line to our refrigerator's ice maker and water dispenser. I guess Geoff doesn't know his own strength, because as he was trying to clean behind the fridge (which qualifies him for canonization anyway) he pulled too hard and snapped the copper water line. So now we have ice and water in the door of the refrigerator.

We also got all-new smoke/carbon monoxide detectors throughout the house, the kind that all go off at once if there is a problem.

Tomorrow, a new toilet tank kit, since I couldn't for the life of me get the bolts off the tank to do it my own damn self.
It feels SO GOOD to get all this stuff taken care of. Geoff has been working his cute little butt off and the house is reaping the benefits.

Today was Hooper's turn to visit Kathi for a check-up and vaccines. We are going to Mammoth Cave this weekend and will be boarding the dogs so shots needed to be updated. It's always fun to see Kathi in action (though I giggle when I have to say, "Dr. Hutton".)


She's a great vet...calm, gentle, reassuring, fun....that makes her a great birder, too.

She scooted out to get a Poop-Collecting-Tube (yeah, that's the official name), and Hooper waited impatiently for her return.


While we waited, Lorelei, for some reason, wanted to smell Hooper's breath.



"Ewwwwww!" Duh, kid. I told ya.

Another project that we have been working on is the backyard. Right up against the back of the house, there was this boring, weedy area that was hard to mow and unsightly. Over the holiday weekend, we put down weed barrier, had mulch delivered, spread it out and planted some flowers. And Home Depot (which I hate, usually) had 8 foot landscaping timber for $1.97 a piece, so I grabbed up a few (another reason I am sporting so many band-aids...loading all of that into the trunk of my car was no picnic.


The weird thing in the middle is the air-conditioner. This is the south side of the house, and the hottest side of the house, too. Our electric bills in the summer are insane, so I put up a bamboo reed fence around the unit to block the sun but allow the air to circulate. The fence is a bit too high and isn't perfectly straight, so when all of my blisters heal, I will go out and cut it down a bit.
The plants:
Existing weigela
Something whose type name is "Tizzy"....big red/orange double flowers
Lamb's Ear (I can't remember if it was Laura or Delia who called it "Farmer's Friend" or "Hunter's Friend", because it's soft enough to use as toilet paper.)
Coreopsis
Something I can't remember the name of....knip-something.
Blue butterfly bush
Maidenhair grass
And Beard Tongue and Gerbera Daisies I haven't put in the ground yet.

True, that list doesn't include many native plants. But my source has dried up. The local native nursery is closed. Or open. I'm confused. I heard that they had closed, but I checked their website yesterday and it said they were open. I drove there today, and they were closed. WTF?

I'm sweaty. And it's humid. And I don't like it.

It was hot and humid and I didn't leave the house today except to flush out the brown sludge that has developed in the fountain.
I kept busy by repotting house plants, doing laundry, cleaning anything I could find, just to keep from going outside.
The girls are pretty good at amusing themselves, but...
This is what happens when you let them pick out their own clothes.

Plaid, stripes and polka-dots. Oh, dear.
And sine the birds were hot, too, there was very little activity at the feeders, so I was taking pictures of random things in the house:

I started collecting cobalt glass a few years ago, but as so many things do, it sort of fell by the wayside...and this is all I have.
But I cleaned the shelves!
And I hand-painted those stars, I might add. The kitchen is sunny yellow, with royal blue accents. Happy, happy!


On top of the pantry:
An aluminum pitcher that belonged to my Grandma, a piece of pottery from the in-laws holding a hyacinth bean plant, and some fake sunflowers in a rattan vase. The hyacinth bean is a really interesting plant, and the vine can climb to 10 feet. But since I don't want it outside, I will have to continue to build larger and larger trellises to keep up with it.


Whenever Mom goes on a trip and we watch her dog, she brings back a wind chime as a thank-you. This is one of many.

The poinsettia that I bought last Christmas is still alive! I can't believe it. I jazzed up the pot with stones and shells, just for kicks.

When it finally cooled off enough this evening, I went out to check on the plants...

The patch of wildflowers the girls and I planted is really taking off, even though the rain has been lacking. All that I can recognize so far is marigolds, cosmos...and that's it. There are some broad-leafed things, and some soft, lamb's-ear-looking things, too. And some stuff that is tall and thin and frosted.


We have a bunny hanging around that has a little white spot on his/her forehead...awww.

Finally! The bee balm is blooming!

And the Japanese beetles are eating like it's going out of style.
See how it's holding up its legs? That's a defense pose. Ugly little buggers.
Did you know that they were first seen in the country, in NEW JERSEY, in 1916?

Laura thought this might be coral honeysuckle, but I compared it to some photos, and I don't think that's it. It finally opened up, and the flowers are star-shaped. The leaf veins are red, if that helps anyone. And it's not a vine, but an upright, woody plant. I wish I had the list of flowers I got that day...
Well, anyway. It's blooming and it's pretty.

Blessed are the cheese makers

On Laura's advice, I got a Water Wiggler for "Mommy's Pond" as the girls call it.
Before the Wiggler, we had a bit of a larvae problem. Eeewww.

"Would you like some wine with that wiggle?"

The bee balm is just about ready to bloom. I can't wait. They are so beautiful, in a small, unfussy way. And all of our TWO hummingbirds will enjoy sipping from all the tiny flowers.
And is it just my milkweed that isn't blooming? I can't find when the blooming time is supposed to be. Nina's at Nature Remains is blooming. Grrr....

Did you know that milkweed fluff is superior to goose down in insulating properties?
Or that the "milk" can remove warts?
Or that it is used as an indicator for ground-level ozone air pollution?
Or that many different species are being examined as a source for natural rubber?
Or that there are almost 2000 species?
Pretty neat for a plant that has "weed"in its name.

I love moths who have big snouts.



I think I figured out the mystery plant in the corner of the yard. It really looks like Blazing Star. I read that purple loosestrife is very similar, but has more than one stem, and this one has a single stem.

And just because I am in a goofy mood (hence the title of this post):

Last night I lay in bed looking up at the stars in the sky and I thought to myself, where the heck is the ceiling.

Energizer Bunny arrested, charged with battery.

If love is blind, why is lingerie so popular?

Always remember you're unique, just like everyone else.

I think animal testing is a terrible idea; they get all nervous and give the wrong answers.

It's 11PM, do you know where your pants are?

Why is it called 'after dark' when it really is 'after light'?

What if everything is an illusion and nothing exists? In that case, I definitely overpaid for my carpet.

Gene Police: You!! Out Of The Pool!

This is a quantum car. I don't know where I am, but I'm going really fast.

Friendship is like peeing on yourself: everyone can see it, but only you get the warm feeling that it brings.

It takes 46 muscles to frown but only 4 to flip 'em the bird.

Flying is simple. You just throw yourself at the ground and miss

I'm always amazed to hear of air crash victims so badly mutilated that they have to be identified by their dental records. What I can't understand is, if they don't know who you are, how do they know who your dentist is?

They say men can never experience the pain of childbirth. They can...if you hit them in the goolies with a cricketbat for fourteen hours.

Just because you're not paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you.

Eat a live toad in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you for the rest of the day.

More frogs, sleeping angel, blood oranges and butterflies

I wanted to show the cute little statue (broken) in the garden. I don't know why, but it makes me happy to look at it.
The Toad Abode is right behind it.

The annual Krohn's Conservatory Butterfly Show is going on now, and I surprised the girls by driving there without telling them where we were going. They approved.
This is the first one we saw:

Isn't that just fantastic? A green butterfly.
Most of them were from Africa, so I have no clue as to what they were.

But some of them were local...

...and some were from South America.
(Very ripped blue morpho)

I could live in the Orchid Room.
I want one. A nice, simple one. Like a Phalaenopsis.



Security was tight at the Conservatory.
(All kidding aside, I like African statues. They have a simple grace, unblinking when it comes to anatomy. But the anatomy of the male figures needs an UPgrade, if you know what I mean.)





I want one of these, too.


The butterfly nursery, where the magic happens.



Ever had a blood orange? They are delicious, and raw-looking. I bought two of them recently but I really just wanted the juice.


Two oranges' worth. One eighth of a cup.
Hmmm. I seem to remember blood oranges being a little more...I don't know...juicy.
Oh, well. We mixed it into some Hawaiian Punch and gave it to the girls.

Tree frog story:
The past few nights, the love-juices have really been flowing with the tree frogs.
One has been so loud outside Lorelei's window, we had to put a fan in her room to drown out the racket. It sounded like it was IN her room!
Tonight, I found out why:


See the little dark spot on the right shutter?
That's him/her.
Wow. We need to paint the gutters.

If I could get close enough, I swear I would kiss one. I am in love.
They are so adorable. I love that we are sharing our house with them.
Look at the sweet little suction cups on the toes. Ack! I love it!
I have to research when and where they lay their eggs. You know, I almost CUT THAT BUSH DOWN this year? Thank goodness I didn't!
I said to Geoff earlier, "You know, some people who are ignorant, would grab that frog and fling it across the yard if it was on their house, right outside their kids' window."
The tree frogs chose the right house.

Later, at Lake Isabella (on the river side) we heard cricket frogs...they shut up before we could see any:

Click To Play

I have that nice, outdoorsy smell!

Farmer's tan...check.
Dehydrated...check.
Pulled muscles...check.
Dirt under fingernails...check.

It takes forever to do yard work by yourself.
But Geoff helped out the best way he could...he took the girls out for the day.
The hummingbird/butterfly garden is 90% done.
I would like to add a few plants around the bowl, but other than that, I am pleased:

Plants I used:
Milkweed, lobelia, Dutch Pearl fuschia, wild strawberry, beard-tongue, bee balm, and I think some moneywort has taken up residence. I also added a yellow bell-type of flower that I can't remember the name of. I need to find the receipt...
I threw in some broken pottery (My favorite piece of Fiestaware broke last year, and I knew I could use it somewhere). And there's a clay pot nestled in there for any toads who are feelin' froggy. Har.
And a fairy statue. And a broken angel statue, half-buried in the mulch, like she is sleeping.
There's also a hanging basket with a coco liner full of plants that I got for free from the nursery.
At my nursery, you grab a clipboard and write down all the plants you chose, then the staff knows what is being moved out. The last time I was there, a group of workers was standing there, gawking at me. I looked up, and one of them said that I deserved free plants for how precisely I was writing down my order. So they ended up giving me three different plants for free. Nice, huh?
There's actually four free plants, because one of the pots had a purple petunia growing out of some other kind of plant.
The only other one I remember is Oxalis, something or other. Very pretty, with triangular purple leaves.

The corner from above.

I am in love with moths. There, I said it.
This awesome dude was hanging out on the front door today.
I showed the picture to Isabelle, to see what she would say. I knew what was coming:
"That looks like really fancy bird poop."
I may just have to Google "bird poop moth".
UPDATE: I found it. It's a wood nymph moth, genus Euthisanotia.

What in the world is this thing? It's one of those caterpillar/worm critters that stands up on its head.

Every day, I love our yard more. I am turning into one of those people who can marvel at a wild onion in bloom.
Ooooh....Bloomin' Onion. Yum.

A dill plant sits at the edge of the prairie, waiting for some tiger swallowtails to alight.
(And I am waiting for some dill bread.)

The count of baby robins is now four. The last one hatched sometime today.

We had plenty of rain today...easy, soaking rain with some short spells when it would stop and allow the water to go down nice and deep without running off.
I could almost hear the sucking of all the trees and plants...like a million straws.

I would love for this to be milkweed, but I don't think I am that lucky. There's a whole lot of this growing around here. I would be happy with Joe-Pye weed or Ironweed, though.

Is this an oak sapling?
There are lots of these popping up on the side yard. Right now, they are the tallest things in the yard over there.

The sunset was a nice reward for such a long day of sweating and bending.


I think this is a new tree frog! The other one, at least what I saw of it, was more green. This one was brown. And damn cute. I heard them talking to each other while I was out there. Maybe some frog porn is in my future?
(Somehow, that just sounds wrong.)

Here's a quick video of the "Frog Love Song".

Click To Play