“Ya, but no, but ya,
but, ooooooo my god I cannot believe ESP
has changed his blog layout, or summat, or nothin”!
Times are changing for this large pecan tree also, expedited by the recent cold snap. The browning foliage looks spectacular right now against the blue sky days we are experiencing. I am still watering as if it is summer, the ground is still so dry, and there is still no rain in sight!
I have been taking advantage of this cooler weather by doing things in the yard that I had postponed in the Hell days of summer. The most disturbing of these was the shed “clean” up. I dont know if you remember
this?:
This summer I was a late setting some poison out, and one “Ratatouille” turned into quite a few. I fixed the vent where they were getting in, and a couple of them “passed away” inside the shed. Needless to say I avoided going into the shed as much as possible. The combination of 100 degree temps (120 inside the shed) and a decomposing rat or two is a disastrous combination beyond belief. I felt like I should tape up
the entire shed with police tape, that, or just set fire to the whole thing. My theory here was to let them “dry up” as it were, and dry up they did. The aroma went from a mind altering:
to a “what is that?, can you smell that?, oh yes now I remember”.
The recent bulk collection prompted my venture back inside the shed for a deep clean up. I will not go into details here, but lets just say there were moments of retching in between scrubbing, scraping and disinfecting, and some scrubbing, scraping and disinfecting in between retching. I got rid of so much clutter, sterilized everything, and now look at it:
Ahhh! order is restored again, and what is that, some empty shelf space? unheard of.
I learned a gruesome lesson here, one I never want to repeat…ever.
Now here is another tragic tale, I mean wing.
I found this dismembered Swallowtail wing on my pathway.
Perhaps this predator was the perpetrator:?
The “Jaws” ahem, of an agave beginning to open. The blood stained teeth, color and skin texture look like a great white.
“Everyone out! Get out now! Out of the cactus bed”.
Here is a happier Swallowtail with two wings, I caught this one on my satsuma orange tree,
The colors and markings are staggering, it looks like cathedral organ pipes, or a stained glass window.
Here she is in her finest angelic glory, busy laying eggs in the citrus. If you look closely at the top picture, is that an egg? You can see a couple more eggs on the image on the right. I never realized Swallowtail eggs were that big.
Here is the young tree’s only fruit of the year.
The bark on this tree is also interesting.
On a furrier note
As close as I can tell this is a true brushfoot:
Painted Lady Vanessa cardui
I caught this one loitering on the last of my coneflowers heads.
…and one final bird:
Brown Longtail Urbanus procne ?
This was the closest ID I could come up with-A fighter jet of the moth world.
the wing structure looks different though. Any ideas?I snapped a few images of this guy (whoever he is) all around
the garden in the last couple of weeks.
Copper Canyon Daisy Tagetes Lemmonii, a great companion
plant to other fall bloomers such as Mexican Bush Sage and
Fall Aster. Always a dependable bloomer, I like the way the blooms contrast my containered burgundy Canna Lilly.
Fuzzy Mexican Bush Sage and a large (very busy) bumble.
Feeding time!
Something has been feeding on my water lilies. Look at them!
Does anyone have any ideas?, we do have water snails
(that we did not introduce).
Seed head on a Damianita Chrysactinia Mexicana.
Amaranth seed head, a prolific self-seeder.
And to wrap-up, the other-worldly forms of a “baby toes” succulent.
Stay Tuned for:
“Dry as a Bone”
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