And Another

In addition to the not-so-welcome squirrels, another returnee is the monarch butterfly.  They come back every year when the lilac blooms.  What a beautiful combination that is.  This enormous hedge began with 12-inch cuttings...nothing but bare sticks...no roots, no leaves, just sticks stuck in the ground.  Honestly, I didn't hold out much hope.  Look at it now, taller than the eaves!  I'm grateful for the shade it provides the kitchen when the summer sun is brutal.

The lilac gets the butterflies, the rosemary gets the bees.  That's another plant that had a fighting start from a tiny pot from the nursery.  Now it's bigger than the juniper that surrounds it and is abuzz with a colony of bees.  Wouldn't that be delicious honey?  I have no doubt that Michael would fight lions and tigers and bears (oh my!) if called on, but we give the rosemary a wide berth on our walks.  I've been told that he was stung on a paw in the past and he's never forgotten that pain.  Let him see or hear a bee and he tucks tail and runs.  Steve was phobic about stinging insects, too, so I'm used to accommodating this fear.

This Virus is putting a crimp in my spring cleanup outdoors.  That lovely, lacy fern-like plant is growing rampant under the live oak by the woodpile.  Pretty now, it soon will put out tiny white flowers that, in turn, will put out bijillions of tiny, painful dagger seeds.  I need a helper dude to weed whack it all down right now.  The goats are keeping the grass (and it is grass) down in their pen, but weeds are growing in the pastures and along the driveway and Fu Manchu sits idle in the shed.  I can't ask anyone to take a chance on coming out of isolation in this situation, nor would I want them to.  Oh well, if looking derelict is the worst that happens....

Stay safe.  Be well.