Who's Your Daddy?

 Same mother sunflower plant, grown from seeds saved from last year. But since the bees are doing the heavy lifting of moving around the male pollen, any sunflower could have been your daddy. 

Yup, the power of genetics...

Tall Trees

Trillium Falls 
Redwood National Park

It's About Thyme

Wooly Thyme (Thymus pseudolanuginosus) in the morning

An Uncommon Visitor

Known as the common green darner (Anax junius), it's not anyone I've ever met up with around here. Blends in pretty well with the fava bean leaves, but somehow it caught my eye. Or its very large eyes met mine? Regardless, s/he hung around the yard for two days, and then, well, we lost touch. 

The End of an Era

It's been the powerhouse, the workhorse of the kitchen here for nearly forty years. Banana smoothies for me - no prob. Mixing massive amounts of basil for pesto for the freezer - easy peasy. More, more, and yet more of velvety smooth squash soup - kids' stuff.

And before that, who knows? It belonged to my best guy's Mom before it came to us, and she passed in 1986. And then, one day (last Sunday, actually), it met up with the sink faucet...

Thankfully, there are replacement units. One is now on order, and we are all hoping that it arrives very soon and in perfect working order. Because those bananas are becoming seriously ripe. 

The Last Squash

Promise. We ate or gave away all the other ones. And most definitely, the last post about squash for a very looong time. Promise.

But you have to admit, it's a beauty at 12.5 lbs. (although other people have said things like, "hilarious" and "gonna be a lot of soup"). All true, but not very nice to say out loud. 

(Banana for scale)

The Beach

It's been raining, and it's supposed to rain again. What better time to head out to Tennessee Valley for a hike. 

Sisters

Back in the days, as in, last year, when the wrens happily nested in their gourd house, life was good. But this year, it became all too obvious that the birdhouse was becoming a rickety tear-down. Something needed to be done.

A packet of seeds, a pile of compost and a long growing season later, we got some new housing stock. Potentially. All related, and all still connected. (Since then, they have been cut off the vine and moved onto the porch for shelter.)

I'm not yet hopeful, perhaps just wishful, that they will cure properly (or at least some small number of them won't rot out completely) and become new homes for the next generations of wrens. 

Charlotte

I was getting very worried, and even commented on it to a few people who wouldn't think that I was getting (even more) odd. 

But it's been years, literally years, since I have noticed orb weaver spiders hanging out in their (her, actually) large, round webs in the front yard. The last time I remember seeing them was probably in 2018; definitely since before the pandemic. 

Charlotte

But this year, perhaps because of all the rains this past winter, or for other reasons unknown to me, the spiders are back! 

My neighbor named her Charlotte (bless you, E. B. White) because she appeared while we were away on holiday and watched over Luna in our absence. And, no, she did not write, "Some Cat" in her web, but I'm sure she could have...

For a few months we dodged her web each morning, sometimes rearranging it for her in ways that probably didn't make her happy. She finally figured out the problem and positioned the support line from the top on the porch pillar and not at the middle. Brilliant!

I haven't seen Charlotte in a few weeks, so I'm assuming that she has moved on. I'm also hoping that at least a few of her babies will appear here next year. 

A New Fashion?

You can wear it:

Or sleep in it:

Or???