Monday, 27 June 2011

• Yesterday was a pretty nondescript day. My father was supposed to come home from the hospital yesterday, but they held him until today due to a lack of portable machinery for him to use on the ride home. The animals were all fed and the plants were all watered, and we didn't have any unusual visitors for the day. My mom and I, however, went to town and visited a nursery to look for some more pond plants to add to the fish fountain. The prices for the plants were pretty reasonable compared to everywhere else we've looked and we decided to bring home a corkscrew rush, a water hyacinth, and some weird bunchy plant that looks like a more delicate and hairy version of anacharis but isn't anacharis.

  

  This morning, we moved the box turtle tub outside so they could get some fresh air and sunshine. While I was out there, I watered the tomatoes. They're starting to turn ripe, which is fantastic for everyone who eats tomatoes. Unfortunately, I can't stand their texture, but I do like to use them in cooking. The cherry tomatoes seem to be ahead of everyone else in plant size and ripening stage, but that's okay. The brandywines and beefsteaks are focusing on making big fruit!

  

  After watering the tomatoes and checking on the turtles, our yellow lab, Dusty, came out and rolled around in the grass and sunshine. He was suddenly startled by a pair of fighting humming birds dive-bombing each other just inches away from his face! The video doesn't do the humming bird situation justice. My back and arms hurt, so I couldn't stand still long enough for them to really go back to their behavior after I scared them off on the way to get the camera, but I captured a little bit of it. I think there were somewhere around 12 hummers all together, and none of them wanted the others getting to the feeder.

  Our mimosa tree is blooming pretty heavily and the humming birds really enjoy it, as do the butterflies. We had a black butterfly visitor taking a leisurely stroll through the grocery aisle to take some samples of produce. My apologies for the blurry quality of the photo. It was the best one I got of it, and I had to use digital zoom.

  

  We have a tub of other plants around that side of the deck, and our calla lilies' leaves are HUGE this year. I'm not sure what we're doing right, or if this size comes with age, but they're spectacular. I can't wait to see what the flowers are going to look like this year.

  

  (The tub serves as a block for the dogs so they can't just run into the front yard as they please. )

  The nasturtiums I planted this season are starting to bloom. So far, we'd only had three blossoms and I fed each one to Mango. Now the plants are on the very verge of exploding with color. The seed mix was supposed to be "night and day" (blood red and creamy white), but one of the plants has bright orange flowers!

  

  We also had this fantastic beetle that might be a Black and Yellow Longhorn (typocerus sparsus) specimen, though it seems unlikely due to the fact that they're typically from the Great Lakes area. I'm having problems identifying it because of its markings. It may not even be a Longhorn at all; it may actually be some other insect posing as either a wasp or a Longhorn (though I'm not so sure what the benefit of looking like a Longhorn would be, exactly).

  

  The beardies got strawberries for a snack yesterday. Mango usually loves them, but these didn't seem to be as ripe as they should have been. They were kind of sour. When I held one out to hand feed him, he licked it. Like, about a thousand times. He wouldn't eat it, but he licked it. I put the strawberries in his dish and though he still had a few when I woke up this morning, he's eaten them all now. He had to have a bath because he looked like a freshly-fed polar bear.

  

  Happy wishes for a good day!

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