Mystery Grape

See those vines? I’m used to watching my step when I climb past them. I’m used to hearing bees buzzing my ears. Lately, there’s bees under those leaves, and it’s a little unnerving to have them buzzing around my feet.

Squash Blossoms

Meanwhile, Mystery Squash #1 continues to take over its corner of the known world. It’s clambering over those daylilies on the right and powering up the slope toward Mystery Squash #2. There’s at least half a dozen more Mystery Squashes scattered out back. And they’re flowering.

Sunflowers are feeding bees

Presenting the big-ass sunflower that was just a tall weed that I hoped was a sunflower about a month ago. If you look close enough, you might see the bee on its face. And what’s the bee here for?

Weedercon

I love Readercon, but it’s still too many people, too many ideas, too much information in too little space. No wonder it doesn’t take long for me to go into buffer overflow. What? A writer who needs a little alone time? Never heard of such a thing. This year it was even hotter than usual […]

Virginia Creeper

Virginia creeper is one of those plants you have to keep an eye on and hack back when it goes too far. It grows so robustly because it’s a native plant, and also because it’s a native, the bees love it so much that you can hear the vines buzzing.

Competing for Greens

Today, I figured I would harvest some collard greens before the plants get too humongous, and some critters decided they doesn’t want to wait for them to cook. So impatient. A batch of greens is worth the wait, holes and all. And no, there was no additional protein on the leaves. Whatever they were, they […]

My Volunteer Army

You never know what’s going to turn up. This sunflower is one of at least three that decided to plant themselves in my yard. And none of them are the sprouts in the compost tub.

Still some honeybees here

It’s pretty sad that I can get excited about seeing more than one honeybee at a time, but there we are. No clue where their hive is. They seem to like climbing way deep into flowers, so lately I have lots of pictures of bee butts. Right now, the most popular flower is the tall […]

Shady Characters in the Garden

Stay cool.

The Lost Ladybug Project

It’s scary enough the the honeybees are disappearing. Now I hear that people are looking for the Nine-Spotted Ladybug. It’s called the Lost Ladybug Project.