Bugs on Bergamot

 

          My Bergamot is blooming!

          I love Bergamot! I love everything about it. I love the color, the shape, the aroma, and you can make tea from it!

          The bugs love Bergamot, too. I’ve got a bunch of pictures of bees on Bergamot but I’ll show you just this one. Sometimes they let me get quite close.

          By far my favorite is the Hummingbird Moth or Humbee as Momma would call them. Three views of my first two Humbees. 

          I’m pretty sure this one is named Clearwing Hummingbird Moth, which is the only species I ever see around here. If I do see a different one, you’ll be the first to know.

           Someone else who let me get quite close was this dragonfly.

He let me walk the whole way around him snapping pictures as I went and he kept an eye on me the whole time. 

          I took Bondi out with me when I hung a load of laundry on the clothesline. I was keeping an eye on her and saw her playing with a single Orange Hawkweed flower. My yard is full of the yellow Mouse-ear Hawkweed but I’ve not seen a lot of the orange variety and I wouldn’t’ve seen this one if Bondi hadn’t been playing with it.

          I broke a clothespin when I was pinning clothes to the line and tossed it to Bondi to play with. I kept an eye on her while she was chewing on that, too. 

“Peg, tell us about Orange Hawkweed,” you say.

I will!

This plant has many other names including Fox-and-cubs, Orange Hawk Bit, Devil's Paintbrush, Grim-the-collier, Flameweed, and Red Daisy. It’s in the aster family same as daisies and sunflowers are and closely related to the Dandelion. All the hawkweeds are considered noxious and invasive because they form extensive mats that compete with the native plants. It’s been reported to be allelopathic, which means it inhibits seed germination, seedling emergence, or regeneration of other plants.

          Let’s stick with bugs since I have a few more photos to show you.

          This one you probably know. It’s an Eastern Black Swallowtail feeding in the mud.

          Nearby, a whole herd of Cabbage Whites were feeding, too.

           A Monarch and a bee on swamp milkweed.

           A tiny little flower spider on the tiny little Daisy Fleabane.

           I was sitting, visiting with the Kipps one morning and see this guy walking up the post. Some of you call him a Daddy Longlegs and that is one of his names but they were first found during a harvest and are called Harvestmen.

          Harvestmen are predators, eating insect eggs, small insects like aphids and springtails, and critters as large as snails, earthworms, and even other Daddy Longlegs. A few species scavenge dead or decaying matter.

It’s been said these are the deadliest spiders on earth but that’s not true. They’re not even a true spider and have no fangs, therefore, no venom. They hunt for soft-bodied prey which it squeezes with its pincers and then stuffs into its mouth.

“It’s got red dots on its legs,” I said to no one in particular. “Do you think it’s got something?”

“He’s probably alright,” Lamar said.

I picked him up by one of his legs and gave him to Lamar to look at, but he didn’t cooperate and took off so fast, Lamar never had a chance to see. But I can see on my computer that he does have little bugs on him. I Googled it and found this on The Bug Lady’s blog site.

The tiny, red mites found on Daddy Longlegs fill the same niche as a mosquito or tick does on larger organisms. The Bug Lady always wonders what she would see if she could photograph the mite’s leg.

This guy with his square spots is Propylea Quatuordecimpunctata or called simply P-14. You and I would call him by his common name the 14-spotted Ladybird Beetle.   

      

I took Bondi out on a leash for the first time. We walked up past one of my Bergamot patches — did I tell you that I love Bergamot? I just can’t resist taking pictures of it whenever I go past.

Bondi and I had company on our walkabout. Spitfire and Tiger joined us.

I have a very nice patch of St. John’s Wart that I didn’t know I had.

Goldenrod is blooming. This is the first of many that’ll bloom here on our mountain. 

Something else I didn’t know I had was an oak tree. It must’ve been growing there for years and yet this is the first time I noticed its leaves. Upon closer inspection I saw the acorns growing.

Speaking of closer inspection…

There’s a tree behind one of the businesses here in town that looks like it has large reddish-orange flowers on it.

“What is that?” I asked Mike, but he didn’t know.

I even asked Miss Rosie but she didn’t know either.

We were in town the other day and I asked Mike to pull in and let me look at the tree a little closer.

Mike’s a good husband and pulled in for me. Turns out, they’re not flowers, they’re huge bunches of hanging seeds.

There was a worker-guy working close by and he came over and talked to me. “What is it?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he said.

I pulled a branch down to get a closer look. “I wonder if it’s a sumac.” 

“It does look like sumac leaves,” he agreed. “Maybe it’s poison sumac, and you touched it.”

It was too late now, so I just shrugged.

“There’s a Black Walnut over there. See it?”

I had to admit that I couldn’t. He walked over and pointed it out to me.

This is the infamous Tree of Heaven also known as Chinese sumac, Stink Tree, and Varnish Tree. It smells bad when it’s flowering. The only bad smell I smelled came from the nearby dumpster.

The Tree of Heaven is considered invasive. It produces many seeds, grows extremely quickly, and can out-compete native plants. It can rapidly take over a site and form dense thickets. Tree of Heaven is also known to produce allelochemicals that prevent other plants from growing around it.

When we left there, we followed a little dirt road back to the railroad tracks.

“What are those things?” I asked Mike.

“Switches, I think.”

There was a ton of stuff sitting around and you know me. I had to take pictures of it all. “What’s all this for?” I asked.

“Maybe for the new railyard at the LNG plant,” he guessed.

If it looks like this stuff has been sitting here for a while, it has. Nothing is happening at the site of the new Liquid Natural Gas plant that was supposed to be built. They did the ground work, then stopped.

I thought it interesting that all the ties had numbers on them. “Why?” I asked but Mike doesn’t know.

Oh! That reminds me. The tree I didn’t know in last week’s letter blog? My handsome brother David knew what it was. It’s an American Basswood Tree. 

My Glads are blooming. 

          Guess who likes to hang out in the Gladioluses bed?

          If you said Bondi, you’d be right.

          Speaking of Bondi, she was sniffing around the step that goes into what will be my exercise studio.

          “What’d’ya find?” I asked. I got closer and could hear the buzz of bees. I thought the hive that was in the wall last year had moved on. They have not. There were bees dead on the stoop, buzzing around in the air, and climbing the glass on the inside of the door. I snapped a picture and picked Bondi up.

          I was in the process of stuffing Bondi back in the sling when she started yipping. I thought maybe I caught her leg so I pulled her back out. She didn’t stop crying. That’s when I spotted a bee on her neck. I yanked it off and tossed it. The stinger was still in Bondi so I picked that out. Someone suggested (and I can’t remember who because it’s been almost a week gone by now) that I make a paste of baking soda and water. It works for us, why not for her. So, I did that.

          Inside, the bees are dying. I tried to get someone to come and get them but was told it’s too much work to get them out of the wall, with uncertain results. You could kill a lot of bees and you could kill the queen. I told them the wall was coming down anyway and the bees were already dying. But he’s not interested. Regardless, the bees will have to go.

          The floors were clean when we put the Advantech down. Do you think they’re coming out of the wall here? I know I see them on the outside of this wall. Why so many are coming down on the inside, I don’t know.

          We’re using a kennel for Bondi when we have to leave her at home. The door stays open when we’re home and little Miss Bondi has been known to climb in on her own and have a nap. I’m so glad she likes to be in her kennel. It makes leaving her easier. 

          Bondi likes to be on the patio and doesn’t even mind it when I leave her out there alone. One day, after Mike mowed our jungle of a yard, Bondi brought all the clumps of grass up onto the patio.

          We took her on a morning walk with the Kipps. Tux found Bondi too distracting — and who wouldn’t with that little jumpy thing gettin’ all up in your face all the time — so we didn’t go too far with them.

          “Look at the size of that Bull Thistle!” I exclaimed. “Miss Rosie, I want to use you for perspective.”

          Miss Rosie is a good sport and stood beside the Bull Thistle for me. It’s bigger than she is! I felt a tad bit bad about asking her to do that for me when she got too close and it stuck her.

          Wait till it blooms!

          We stopped to admire the neighbor’s chickens before we went home. 

>>>*<<< 

          Tiger isn’t spending much time at home these days. I don’t think Bondi is the whole entire reason either. I think part of it is he just likes to be outside, hunting and whatever else he does. I know he’s gotten at least one mouse this week.

          Smudge.

          That cat!

          Smudge got at least one of the Carolina Wren babies when it fledged. I know I shouldn’t take it away from him but I just can’t help myself. I made him drop it.

It was too late. The baby was already dead.

          Momma sat close by raising a ruckus. I couldn’t take it anymore, retreated back into the house, and shut the door. 

          A few days later, I’m going out back to burn garbage or dump scraps when I hear a cat fight. It’s almost always between Smudge and Mr. Mister. I found them out by the gas tank, Smudge on his back, Mr. standing over him. I ran him off and carried Smudge back to the house. This is all Smudge fur, at least what was pulled out. When I ran my hand down his side a bunch more came off.

          Poor Smudge.

          We’ve decided it would be in his best interest to keep him in the house from now on. It’s been about three days now and so far he hasn’t fought us too hard on that decision.

>>>*<<< 

          We had leftover chicken so I made corn tortillas. I got out my nifty iron griddle and my iron tortilla press and went to work. This is the first time I made this recipe and I can’t say I’m in love with it. I think they’re a little better for me than flour tortillas but what good is that if you don’t like to eat them?

          I pressed the last tortilla and pushed the press farther back on the counter. I guess I should’ve shut the lid first because it slammed shut and made me blood. I know! I know! It’s supposed to be bleed, but what fun is that?

          I found a Band-Aid and wrapped my finger so I could finish cooking. It’s pretty sore today, maybe because I didn’t use turpentine?

>>>*<<<

          Callie and Sugar.

          We could bring the outside girls in, but couldn’t take the outside out of them. One of them was urinating on our rug and I suspected it was Sugar. So, Sugar went into the cat condo but was unhappy and cried. After a day of that, she was put back outside. Then Bondi was giving old Callie a hard time so we put her in the cat condo. Callie and Sugar both used the litter box in the condo when they were in there together, but now Callie was peeing on the floor of the cat condo. It made the house stink. Callie is now back outside with Sugar. They seem happy enough and come to the catroom for breakfast every morning.

          They won’t be coming back in the house again and that’s where that stands.

          I think I’m going to put old blind Macchiato in the condo next week. He’s been yowling a lot lately! It’s bad enough when he does it during the day but it’s even worse when he does it in the middle of the night. Three times one night he woke me with his yowling! He was doing it before Bondi came to live with us but I know she isn’t helping the situation either. We’ll try the condo and see if having walls makes him feel more secure and he stops his yowling. Otherwise, I don’t know what we’re going to do with him.

          “Put him down?” you suggest.

          Nah. We can’t do that to a healthy cat just because he’s annoying. 

>>>*<<< 

          Mike ordered a new patio chair from the internet. The lady mail carrier grumbled a little that she had to deliver a box of that size.

          “Why didn’t they just put a card in our box and we could’ve gone and gotten it?” I asked.

          “I don’t know,” was all Mike could say.

          The chair was easy to put together and it’s sturdy. We really like it. I don’t know if Mike’ll order more or if one’s enough.

>>>*<<<         

I was sitting here watching it rain when the sun broke through the clouds.

“Maybe there’s a rainbow!” I jumped up, grabbed my camera and went out into the rain. There was a rainbow, albeit not a very impressive one.

          I turned and snapped a picture of the sun through the trees.

>>>*<<<

          In crafting news this week, I picked up a set of China cups and saucers at a rummage sale. This is the same pattern China that our handsome son Kevin has that belonged to his grandmother. I’m gonna guess he doesn’t need any more cups so I have something special planned for them.

          “What’s that?” you wanna know.

          You’ll just have to wait and see.

          But I won’t make you wait to see something else I made this week.

          “You’re gonna be so jealous when you see what I made,” I teased my beautiful sister Phyllis on the phone. I just hope it’s true.

          This week I steampunked the cover of a notepad.

          The front…

 …the back. 

          The spine.

          I really liked it better the first time I made it.

          “The first time?” you query.

          The first time, after I painted it, I applied a coat of polyurethane. It was white in the can and I assumed it would dry clear.

          I was wrong.

          It left a white haze and I hated it!

          I got a toothbrush (Michael’s, not mine) and using water, cleaned off as much as I could, then I repainted it.

          “What are you gonna do with it?” you wanna know.

          I thought I’d send it to my beautiful daughter-in-law if she likes it. It’s full of sticky notes and I thought she might be able to use them. But if she doesn’t want it, maybe Kevin, or my grandson Andrew would want it.

          “How did you make it?” I know you wanna know.

          It’s the same technique as the bottle I showed you a couple of three weeks ago. It’s just cardboard and glue and air-dry clay and paint, of course.

          I made the molds for the gears. I’d gotten a bunch of gears when I was making stuff with resin and hadn’t used them yet. I put tape on one side, covered them in hot glue, let dry, pulled the metal gear out, and I have a mold to make as many clay gears as I want.

          I had a lot of different gears so I made a mold out of each one.

>>>*<<<

          I’m thinking I’ll do an extra letter blog this week with your road pictures. For now, let’s call this one done!