Welcome to July…

It’s July.  Where is the summer going and why is it going so fast?  I need a way to slow things down, isn’t it supposed to be the lazy days of summer???

The rain took out my milkweed jungle, rather the torrents of rain and wind that came with some severe storms did.  I tried to prop it back up, but it just didn’t work.  Now it looks messy and the sweet smell has drifted away.

The bee balm continues to bloom and attract lots of hummingbirds, the pink bee balm has had bees and butterflies on it.  Out of the mess the Joe Pye Weed and Goldenrod have appeared and will hopefully get a chance to bloom without being eaten by the deer.  They are eating things fast this year, I spray it rains, they eat. 

Case in point.  I noticed that my yellow daylily and my Cherokee daylily were close to blooming so I sprayed them.

 

Today when I went to see if they were blooming or not…

That’s what I found, it’s so frustrating.  I’ve got to get the rest of my plants moved this fall.

So far they haven’t reached my daylily called Joan, if they do at least I got to see it bloom!

Oddly enough they are eating my bonset this year, I wouldn’t think they’d like that it has very fuzzy leaves but..

It is usually a good five feet tall by now.  Sad, I guess it will have to be moved as well.  I’m thinking that a lot of the stuff at the front of the driveway and at the porch is going to end up at the deck bed and the deck bed stuff is going to end up in the shade beds.  That deck area is about the only place that gets enough sun to support all these plants.  Well, the former bee garden gets sun too, but that may end up as something totally different in the coming years.

I went out to do some weeding the other day, taking Tucker and Cooper with me and was trying to decide where to start.  I settled on the deck bed, thinking that I really need to keep after the jewel weed.  So I kneeled down and

decided on another location after almost grabbing this lovely visitor!  At least five feet long, it wasn’t too bothered by my presence, just kept laying there, but I suspect had I grabbed it or stepped on it that would have been a different story!

There are so many insects which you know is fine by me as long as they aren’t munching on me! What I have seen a lot of this year are these lovely garden spiders.

I haven’t looked up what kind they are exactly but they are all over.  Being the kind of person that doesn’t want to wreck their homes I weed around them and do my best not to mess up their webs.  They are really very lovely!

The damselflies are back, I’ve not gotten a good picture but I’ve got dragonflies galore too!

Nature just never ceases to amaze and delight me, except the deer, they just really frustrate me!

Natures Blessings..

There are so many beautiful and wondrous things to see.  I’m full of nothing but gratitude when it comes to where I live and the gifts that my Mom passed on to me.  Love of gardening, love of all of nature and the ability to connect with the earth in this amazing relationship!  I truly feel sorry for the people in the world that just never stop and take the time to see the marvels around them…

This is a dogwood called Golden Shadows, I got it oh like 3 or 4 years ago (could be longer!) with my mom at a plant sale.  It was just a stick and the poor thing didn’t stand a chance because the deer would eat any new growth that appeared. Look at that variegation, look at the depth of the grooves on the leaves, it’s even more beautiful in person!  I can’t wait to find a prime spot for it in the ground!

Apparently I’m on Mother Nature’s good side right now because she gave me this gift!  At first I thought it was a poppy but under closer inspection the leaf looks like a tulip.  In any case it is just beautiful and I have no idea where it came from! 

I just love snakes!  I was raised by a Mom who believed that I shouldn’t be afraid of nature.  I grew up with a respect for the things that could inflict pain but not a fear of any of them.  I am always finding these little snakes in the leaf matter and today in the wood chip pile.  There were actually two but taking a picture of a snake with one hand when he’s trying to hide in between your fingers was tricky enough.  My other favorite thing to ‘play’ with when I’m moving leaves or wood chips are the huge black beetles called horned passalus. These things are so cool because they kind of squeak when you hold them, I mean come on how cool is that a beetle that can make noise!!!  I didn’t get a picture though because when it started squeaking Cooper got really interested.

This is my lovely woodland bed all a bloom with woodland poppies, daffodils, snow drops, hellebores and trilliums.  It such a bright and happy sight, it’s nice to see it like this, it sadly won’t last because the deer, when desperate will eat all the woodland poppies (it’s in the unfenced zone) but for now, it’s so pretty.

Directly across is another bed in full bloom, bleeding hearts, hellebores and Virginia bluebells were all swaying in the breeze.   Or maybe from the buzzing of all the bees!  They love the Virginia bluebells and the plants almost humm, from all the activity.  When a bumblebee buzzed past Coopers head he jumped and tried to chase it.  I’m not sure what he thought he was going to do if he caught it!

The weather changed from sunny, breezy and 70.  To pouring down rain and insane winds that made the trees roar.  I sat and watched the trees dance, listened to the rain pounding and thought wow, I really am blessed….

A snakes tale..

Elaphe obsoleta (a.k.a. the Black Rat Snake) is indeed a friend of mine!

I know, I know the creepy factor is too much for a lot of people, including the man that I am married to! However even he has developed an appreciation for this particular snake. See it has been living in the garage (I knew this he didn't) for a long, long time.

Each spring I go about planting up my flower boxes on deck and I happened to look down to see a tiny head poking out from between the door and the wall. I moved in for a closer look and it was a very small black snake. We looked at each other a bit and I went back to planting my boxes and it went back to laying in the sun by the door. I saw the snake in the garage several times over the course of the summer and duly noted that the mice droppings had ceased appearing near my birdseed. I liked the arrangement as I will never, ever poison anything!



The following years proved to be replicas of the past, first spring day I open the door and start to plant up the boxes is the first spring day my scaled pal would appear. The above picture was taken in 2006. This snake doesn't so much as flinch when I walk past it, it's pretty cool and well what can I say, I love snakes!

Randy however wasn't really brought up to share that sentiment and it's taken a lot of work on my part to convince him that snakes aren't bad and that they really don't want to be bothered by you. It took a major event though to seal this snakes fate! See one day Randy discovered my friend in the garage during the early summer of 2009 and promptly insisted that I remove it. I tried to explain to him that the snake was keeping the mice out of the garage but he wasn't buying it. So I had to relocate my pal down into the woods.

Well, it wasn't long after that, that the mice started getting into the birdseed again. It wasn't until they brought their furry fury onto his car or rather into it, that he realized the value of that snake! You see the mice decided to chew their way into his car and they filled his blower up with dog treats!
They also chewed some of the leather on his seats, ate part of his bluetooth headset and to top it all off one got stuck inside the venting and died and wow did that smell! He had to completely disassmeble the dash to remove the treats and the body!


Well a few months later he came into the house and asked me to come out into the garage. There sitting perched atop his tool box (and looking quite smug) was my pal. Randy asked would I please move him, making sure to let me know that I didn't have to relocate him, just get him off the tool box. So I ushered him away to the other side of the garage.

Needless to say I was very happy to see him again this spring in the garage.


Once my pal got warmed in the sun I was really impressed! The size alone let's me know that I won't have any problems with mice as long as this one is around.


It's a face that I love and one that will always be welcome in my yard and garage!!!!