Hibiscus Discus

Talk about BIG!

A Giant Green Catapiller

... ate my first tomato and finished off with the top greenery as well. I Didn't kill it when I discovered it because I thought I might get out and photograph it for all you folks to see. Well that plan didn't work, it was gone the very next day. I curse that greedy little bug and I hope one of the Mocking Birds tore it up and ate it.

It is funny because at first I thought for sure a deer had eaten that tomato or perhaps even a bird. The tomato looked like that classic "apple core" still hanging on the "tree". Mark actually discovered the catapillar, and it was huge, maybe a half inch in girth and four inches long in a very bright shade of green. The kind of gaudy green I wish I had noticed two days before when the damage had first started to appear.

As for the rest of the garden, my first squash has also disappeared. The first cucumber has withered and died on the vine before it was 2 inches long. The banana peppers give me some hope and I have had a chance to cook with my first one. It was pretty good. Could all this excess rain be part of the problem?

My flower gardens are looking quite nice. My echinacea or Cone Flowers have started blooming, as well as my perrennial Hibiscus bush (that I thought was dead). Also my Day Lilies are doing quite nice. I also failed to mention quite come time ago that my Salvia, Liatris, Veronica and Butterfly Bush have all made it back and are blooming nicely.

Japanese beetles are attempting to move in on some of these flowers and ruin my fun. I'll have to keep you posted.

Mush

Mush is the sound your feet would make in our backyard today. There is no standing water that I could see but things were so wet out there that I have aborted most missions to walk out too very far. The entire property shifts under your feet as you walk.

Yesterday the rain let up around 2pm. My area recieved about 2 inches of rain which was enough to flood creeks and topple older trees. The wind comming through just after the rain (the kind of wind tails that follows a hurricane) snapped a large limb off my Butterfly Bush.

Locally, aka Raliegh, received between 5 and 6 inches of rain which caused flooding that surpased the flooding of Hurricane Fran from a few years ago by about a foot. Apparently no one researched historic flood plains before building a two story mall next to Crabtree Creek which crested six feet above flood stage yesterday. The good news is that they made up all five plus inches of there rain deficit yesterday officially ending the drought and ending with a surplus of about a half inch.

Today I spotted one of those swallows (my grass is geting longer) and I think I will officially say that we have Barn Swallows here. Did I mention I saw a Chimney Swift the other day. That was kinda odd, they are usually in small groups I thought.

Alberto

It has been raining since sometime lastnight. As of noon the weather reports are saying that we are recieving up to 3 inches of rain an hour. I would not doubt that it could be that high.

My vegetable garden which is starting to see success with squash is standing under 2-4 inches of water. From the photos you can see that the Northwest part of our yard easily becomes a temporary wetland. Temporay and seasonal wetlands are very real and important part of our world - and therefore I am proud of my puddle of a back yard. It is in places like this that watertables get replenished. Water will still be standing there tomorrow.

Watch out Maryland this rain is headed your way!

Ticks, Mowing, Rain, and a Birds Nest

So I was bitten by a tick right on my ripe looking abdomen about a week ago. At first the spot just itched. But the itching was intense. So I pushed aside all these parts of me, lifted up my belly. It was a deer tick. It totally freaked me out. There was this small - yet ominous - parasite sticking out of my belly, beyond my breast, below the roundness in a spot I could barely see or reach. I made for the bathroom and the tweesers. I steadily, yet probably too quickly pulled this thing off. The spot has continued to plague me with itching. A few days ago I begged Mark to pick it open like a splinter and let out the ooze and try to find a tick head. There was no head that he could find but I took a tremendous amount of pleasure in having my belly picked at with a needle. It made Mark nervous and I kept making jokes about performing a ceserean. He didn't think it was funny.

Mowing the lawn has had some interesting effects on the veiw of our yard. It looks neat and clean when we are done and I feel proud as I begin to scratch. Chopping (mowing) up poison ivy in order to keep it from growing does infact turn it into an aerosol. Every time I mow I throw every item of clothing into the wash including my tennis shoes. Then I go straight to the shower and soap up a minimum of three times. No matter, each time I mow the lawn I get poison ivy somewhere. This time it is right next to the tick bite. Joy.

The bird population shifts in our backyard when it is mowed. Last week I finished up doing the entire yard once over. That eveing we had a flood of Starlings, a bird I hadn't seen here yet. Then we had a wave of Grackles, folowed by Crows. All these crews took great pleasure, in shifts, of eating all the exposed and traumatized insects.

Since then I have seen considerably more Mocking Birds. I have also heard Robins though I havn't seen them. The swallows I have been seeing are a little scarce now which is frustrating because I have yet to really nail their identification. They are either Rough Winged Swallows or Barn Swallows. Today for the first time in a while I saw the Meadowlark here again, sitting on our roof.

Mocking Birds spend alot of time being territorial. Yelling at eachother and chasing eachother around. One will chase another into the territory of a third one and around and around they go.

We have also received alot of rain here lately and a bit of hail as well. The storms have been very strong and now routinely scare Ginger into the bathtub - her new comfort tool. I have spent the brunt of two storms in the bathroom with her.

Now we have Alberto! A steady rain started this afternoon. I am not going to complain because apparently our area still has not recovered fully from our drought. My vegetable garden will also be pleased. I am working on a expantion project. If we are lucky I will have pumpkins for the neighbor kids.

The birds nest may not be getting any use. It is so neatly and tighly built, by a Mocking Bird. I observed the bird hanging out in that tree and I thought maybe it was nesting. The outer part of the nest is made of notchy and rough twigs. The inside is made of roots. I think the roots come from the garden I have been turning over where there is a ready supply of unrooted grasses. Just inside the nest are not eggs but what appear to be two leaves, hard, dried, and brown from our Magnolia Tree.

(The photo above is of the tree where the nest is located, perhaps if you use your imagination you will be able to see it. When out in the yard looking at it it is at eye level.)