Drawn out

I absolutely can't help myself.  When I see swaths of pink in the morning skies I am simply pulled outside to dawdle and gawk a while.  As my gaze was directed upwards today I was similarly struck by a starkly lit moon.  Without intervening atmosphere or trees, the morning sun can be harsh indeed.

Of course once I was outside, I realized there was a bit of early morning detective work to do, and potentially some clean up as well.

I knew "snails" as an abstraction were putting holes in the leaves of coneflower plants I'd recently brought home from the nursery, but whenever I checked the leaves during the day, they were persistently unpopulated.  Not so this morning.

I gathered up and tossed at least half a dozen snails in specificity, rudely interrupting the morning meet up at the coneflower bar.  Including one especially cheeky snail who apparently thought it could get away with nibbling on that nursery trip's impulse buy, a deep pink coneflower.  Sorry Mr. Snail, the bar is closed.  You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here.

On that same trip to the nursery, I made a planned purchase in the form of a handful of tropical milkweed plants.  I have eventual hopes of luring migrating monarchs into our spaces.  I say eventual, because the plants haven't bloomed quite yet, and there isn't anything currently for the butterflies to feed on. That hasn't stopped a small colony of yellow aphids or the ladybug I saw drawn to them yesterday.  They were all busy feeding in turn.

This morning the ladybug had moved on, so I took my garden paintbrush and carefully brushed as many of the rest of the aphids off into a soap bath as I could reach.  The milkweed cafe is temporarily closed, hopefully to reopen under new floral management.  With any luck there will be monarchs nectaring at this neighborhood eatery very soon.

Becoming a proper hostess

Ladybug, aka Multicolored Asian Lady Beetle

Years ago, when I began gardening in earnest, I found it endlessly fascinating (and impressive) when gardeners could walk around and identify every plant in their spaces (or anybody else's).   Honestly, I could bring home eight 4 inch pots from the nursery and if they weren't labeled I'd be just as likely to forget what two of them were by the time I got around to putting them into the ground.

Reakirt's Blue (Echinargus isola)

Which, come to think of it, probably explains a lot of my early (and a few of my ongoing) failures.

Red Admiral with folded wings (Vanessa atalanta) 

I became obsessed with figuring out what things are.  Courtesy of the internet, I no longer have to remember what every plant is called.  If I forget what something is called, I simply look it up.  I might not be a walking font of recalled plant knowledge but give me time on my computer and I eventually figure things out.  I consider the flora situation handled.

Question Mark Butterfly (Polygonia interrogationis)

Checkered White (Pontia protodice)

Unfortunately, as I've written here before, when it comes to the fauna, the birds and butterflies and bees and moths?  They don't so much hang around to pose for my close inspection or occasional portraits.  Peering at only the underwing, or the blurry feathered thing in the treetop looking away from the camera?  It's not always easy to figure out what it is flitting through our spaces day to day.

Red Admiral Butterfly (Vanessa atalanta)

Common Buckeye (Junonia coenia)

That doesn't mean I won't try. This year I've been going out as often as possible with my camera and capturing as many photos as I can of winged and footed visitors to our garden spaces.  After I've gotten the images I do my durnedest to properly identify every one.  Eventually I hope to have a library of images established to help me understand who my regular visitors are.

Sleepy Orange Sulphur (Abaeis nicippe) - I think!

Gray Hairstreak (Strymon melinus)

I feel it is only hospitable, to be able to greet them all by name.

Wordless Wednesday