Browse Category: Nature/Wildlife

Gray or Green?

frog
Cope’s Gray Tree Frog

I’m pretty sure this is a Cope’s Gray Tree Frog, as best I can tell by pictures I found online.

Luckily I saw him before I squished him under hand when picking up the water can.

A friend of his wasn’t so fortunate earlier in the evening. Our cat played a little too hard with that poor fellow before we noticed.

So Many Seasons in One Day

Lilac
Lilac – The First Best Smell of Spring

I Wish You Could Smell These

I wish you could smell these! We have been waiting for these lilac flowers to open. They have no scent until they open. Not even a tiny bit leaks out. But when they open, they are delicious. I had been telling my little boy about how wonderful these flowers smell. These are one of mom’s favorites. Today, when I showed them how they had bloomed and I inhaled deeply with my nose to the pedals, he leaned forward and forcefully exhaled through his nose. It’s hard to smell anything that way, kid!

This picture was taken at 2:26 PM. He had rained off and on through the morning. The sky was dark and windy most of the day so far.

Sleet on Plants
Oh no! Sleet in my plants!

From Spring to Winter in an Hour

No long after I took the lilac picture, the wind really whipped up. Then sleet came pelting out of the sky! Sleet? IN MAY???? Nothing has sprouted in those pots yet. So I’m thinking this won’t effect the plants. But really… sleet in May?

This picture of sleet was taken at 4:08 PM.

Next…

Hot
Heat Wave

We Interrupt This Season to Take You to Summer

At 4:47 PM, 39 minutes after the picture of sleet in my flower pots, it was nearly 70 degrees! I know what you might be thinking. No, that was not hail (,Mary,) in those pots. It was legitimately cold. It was sleet. There was even some snow mixed in with the sleet. True, we get hail with storms in the summertime. But this was not hail.

Strange Day

This was a strange day in the midst of strange days. The pandemic. Everyone wearing face masks in public. Most stores still closed. Most people not going anywhere, just staying home. It all feels so strange.

Ten Pots

Reaching
We planted stuff.

From left to right:

  • Lavender
  • Chinese Lantern
  • Echinacea
  • Wax Beans
  • Mammoth Sunflower
  • Mammoth Sunflower
  • Sugar Maple
  • Japanese Maple
  • Citrus Sunflower
  • Citrus Sunflower

The Pretty People in the Woods Receive Me Cordially

The bee is not afraid of me,

I know the butterfly;

The pretty people in the woods

Receive me cordially.

The brooks laugh louder when I come,

The breezes madder play.

Wherefore, mine eyes, thy silver mists?

Wherefore, O summer’s day?

-Emily Dickenson

So why don’t I spend more time in the woods? Why do I allow depression to prevent me from getting out of bed some early mornings? I should be more eager to be in the woods where I am know, where there is happiness.