Black Shouldered Spiney Leg Dragonfly

Also from back in June, it turns out this one isn't a new one though. I have much older pics of it from a previous camera I just never tried identifying it before.

Chalk-Fronted Corporal

A photo from back in June, at the time it was a new species for me to spot and I never got around to posting it, no idea why.

Happy Houseplants

October Shadow Darner

It's not often darners are nice enough to just land where I can photograph them. Most of them fly above head height and land on trees much too high to even see what they are, never mind get close.

Another Tricky Bug

I tried wandering Broadmoor again Thursday with no great results. On the way out on 16 I parked next to the Charles River at the Natick Historical Society. There's a small grassy picnic area right by the river. There are also numerous dragonflies right at the edge of the river. A few twelve spotted skimmers fluttered about and one widow skimmer. The widow skimmer landed a few times and I stalked it about. Eventually, I switched to a high iso and put the zoom lens on just to give me a shot at a good image.

One of the Tricky Ones

You'd think with a name like Common Whitetail catching one of these guys in a photo would be easier. While I do see them practically everywhere getting them to land and stay down can be frustrating. The worst part is they aren't always even reacting to me. This is just one of the dragonflies that tends to hop around. Now that I think of it the Common Pondhawk is quite jumpy sometimes as well. Maybe they got named common just because you see them everywhere, but can't get close enough to actually see what they look like.

An Old Standard

Slaty Skimmer - male

Just a slaty skimmer male. They're easy to photograph and ridiculously common. The only dragonfly I have more photos of is the blue dasher. It has gotten to the point where they have to be lined up perfectly for me to even bother photographing them.
This of course has a huge downside. I've found in some of my old pictures before I was paying attention to dragonflies that I've photographed a few species I haven't seen again. At this point I should be photographing everything and sorting out the images at home as you never know what you actually got until you research.

My Holy Grail... of Dragonflies

12 Spotted Skimmer - Male

I've been going on no hikes all summer, mostly due to work. Yesterday I got up early for something else and decided to suck it up and put my camera in the car. I went a few places, but only Broadmoor had anything I liked, even though I had to keep dodging the kids at camp who were all over screaming into the woods. At least I wasn't trying to look at birds, it would have been impossible with all the shrieking.

It was around ten in the morning and the usual suspects lined up along the Quacking Frog trail between Glacier Hill and Old Orchard Trail. It's the edge of a field with the sun shining into a set of shorter brush and trees and you can find dozens of dragonflies sunning there in the mornings. I picked my next trail about the time the camp caught up with me and wandered to the wildlife pond, which has grown huge and eaten parts of the meadow and killed off the trees that used to line it. The trail close to the pond was closed, but I found this dragonfly sunning himself about 6 feet off the leftover trail. I also almost stepped on several frogs as the footing was a little flooded.

Waterlily

Possibly a Sioux flower, but I didn't trace the stalk down to the pot to be sure.  What a difference 6 months makes.  It's been in the eighties, and not a bit of snow in sight.

Feeding Birds

This was all started by my Mom. Months ago I dumped the last of the peanuts into my homemade peanut feeders, and I left them. Last week Mom started complaining about the woodpeckers that kept landing on the feeders, wandering around then looking put out and flying away. I said I was out of peanuts. Three days ago someone bought more peanuts. I sucked it up opened up the gnarly feeders and dumped out the leftovers, refilled with new, and the woodpeckers showed up within hours.

A pair with three babies showed up and have been by hourly. A red bellied woodpecker with fledgling in tow shows up several times a day as well. The feeders had been on various hooks around the driveway, but I got tired of the squirrel trying to gnaw through the feeders. Since the big trees are gone I strung a wire across the driveway from the porch to a convenient pole. Following this idea I strung cut pvc pipe on the ends of the wire and now I just have to wait for the squirrel to try again. If it doesn't work I'll swap out the wire I have (free) with a thinner wire as recommended here.

Grasshopper

I know other gardeners might look at this guy and flinch, but I remember 20 years ago when we moved into this house the yard was full of grasshoppers, so full several would jump every time you walked anywhere. They slowly disappeared as we killed the grass, and the trees got bigger and bigger shading it out. I'm quite happy to see them return, though I'll be happier if I start seeing some preying mantis as well.

May Already?

Uggh. I've been working the last two weeks with some gardening in the afternoons, which hasn't left much time for other things. The strawberries are moving along. Last week I had to repot all my seedlings due to crappy starter soil (even though it was the same soil type I use every year) it was growing algae on top and not holding any moisture in the middle. No idea how that combo was working. They've mostly recovered and I've stopped dreading having to buy starts. And I've accepted that I can only use ridiculously good potting soil to both avoid Monsanto and keep the plants happy. I had a lot of losses over the winter with iffy potting soil from last year. It was bad enough I've re potted most of the survivors bare root and they're happy about it.

Since the trees came down last year in the fall this is my first year with true full sun. Most of the plants are happy, the hostas I just moved last year however are slowly getting dug up and moved before they burn. A few will stay, but most are being moved to the one shady section of the yard. To make the sun a problem it didn't rain much at all in April, and actually yesterday was the first rain of May. I'd like several more days of rain so I can fill the water buckets and stop having to hose down everything twice a day to keep it from wilting under the sun. The rain should also cut that wildfire risk they weather forecasters keep harping about.

I also caved and mulched the ornamental beds this Spring, partially because of the sun but also to make weeding more obvious. By the end of the year the grass in the beds is normally so thick I can't find what's supposed to be in there. I'm trying to stop it early this year so I can see where I can add plants and what is coming up where. I have a few plants still to move, and if our neighbors replace the fence like they said they were I can then plant a few shrubs I've been keeping in pots due to a lack of locations to put them.

The one other thing in the works is doing two more large pots in the front and moving the much abused front yard hostas into them. They had a wood border but I ripped it out last month so we have no wood touching dirt in the yard to tempt the termites. I also ripped out the 15 foot wide by three foot tall pile of cut tree limbs we'd been storing. I removed them because the neighbors might replace the fence, and they would have been in the way. Plenty of them had disintegrated to mush anyway. (Okay, Mom was worried about termites in them too, though I never found any.)

Note

Planted potatoes today, And radishes

New (for me) Amaryllis

No going to plant stores for me, or my mother the enabler. Of course it is mighty pretty.

Forsythia Blooming

of course all I have are tiny cuttings from last year. A few look like the didn't survive the winter but two are blooming.

Notes: Outside lettuce is up and peas are just starting to come up.

My Unbelievably Good Dog

So, Tuesday morning while being coerced (read told repeatedly then dragged so she'll stop whining at me and bouncing around) out of my bedroom Toka got a toenail stick in the threshold of the door. I thought is was just a broken nail and after getting her to stop bleeding all over the house (really, everywhere), wrapped it up to keep out the dirt until I could check it and put a dog boot on it. I got stuck working and finally looked it over last night. Mind you she hasn't been touching it, or chewing on it, and wasn't limping. I cut the wrap off and found she actually split one of her nails and has to go to the vet, to have it dealt with. That's not the interesting part for me.

My dog, who needs to be sedated for vet visits so she doesn't injure herself or anyone else, put up with standing in my bathtub with her injured foot in a bucket of water, for quite a while. She put up with my poking and prodding to get all the dried blood off so I could actually see her foot. She let me dry it, wrap it back up and put the boot back on and has gone back to ignoring her foot. I expected her to pull the boot off the moment she was left alone. I'm extremely impressed with her behavior. There was some grumbling, and I did need two people (thanks Mom!) to put the first wrap on, but wow.

She did just start limping this morning and at this moment is sleeping the sleep of the drugged while I wait for vet appointment time to come. (last time it took over three hours for her to start falling asleep, this time it was barely an hour, I might ask about lowering her dosage so she freaks me out less, she'll still be a little loopy tonight I expect.)

Update: $55 later the nail is clipped and the dog is fine.

Note for Me

Planted some lettuce outside yesterday, and some peas today. Strawberry Seeds just started coming up.

Cold Frame Attempt

This is what I finagled to keep the snow off my blooming bulbs. I made a second one and scraped all the leaves off the first planting bed. The sides are open, so it will really only raise daytime temps a little, help dry out the planting bed and keep off snow. I used four windows that have been languishing in my basement for over a year. I'll be using two more to fix the wall of the shed I kind of left open over the winter.

Note to me, the lettuce and tomatoes came up Friday, but I missed the lettuce for a bit too long and some of it got leggy before going under lights. I might just leave it as I'll be planting some more next week anyway. So far nothing on the strawberries.

Upgraded Plant Table

I needed more space for the seeds this year. I had to chop the existing hangers shorter then added a second level. I have another shelf to add but I'll have to dismantle the tables base to add another level. I probably shouldn't go lower then table height, as the dog's tails already hit the pots sometimes.

Planted More

Tomatoes (6 each of Mortgage Lifter, Super Sweet 100, Gardener's Delight, and San Marzano), Alpine Strawberries (21) and first set of lettuce (12 total, three varieties) planted today. I've got to get my plant stand finished this week.

Iris ‘Katherine Hodgkin’ - Just in Time for Snow

With more snow on the way I did build a jury rigged side less cold frame so I could at least drop the pot these are in under it to maybe keep them from freezing. These bloomed just a few days earlier last year and they live in a pot so i can keep track of them.

Other notes for me, Peppers and Eggplant seedlings are coming up, got to get back to building a plant stand with lights to take care of them.

Downsizing Fish Tanks

I haven't made up my mind about what I'll be doing with the big tank, but most of the tiny fish are staying. The bigger unfriendly fish are getting rehomed. I might pick up a few harlequin rasboras to keep the single one I have left company as well. While digging through the tank I've found 4 fish I haven't noticed in years, 3 different kuhli loaches, and an extra candystripe pleco in the tank. I thought I only had one left.

Taking down the big tank is going to be sad. When I first started keeping fish my goal was a 75 gallon tank. Sadly, it took years to get to that point, and in the intervening years my interest and finances have waned. It has taught me a bit about interests. Suck it up and after the initial attempt go for what you want rather then taking tons of little steps in between. I wanted a 75 gallon planted tank with lots of lights and little fish. If I'd pooled all the money I spent on smaller tanks and stuff in the intervening years I could have gotten the tank and other setup bits easily enough. I might not have ended up with as many tanks (24 at one point), but I might have gotten what I wanted more, and I might be less annoyed with the tank now.

It's sad but right now I look at the big tank and see something taking up space in my living room using electricity I could do something else with. I still like the fish enough to keep them, but the big tank is just a drain, and though I thought of repopulating it I haven't for several months.

Crocus

Spring is coming...

Peppers, Eggplant and Streptocarpus

Yesterday I finally planted some streptocarpus seed I got months ago off eBay. It was also time to start the slow growing annuals, so six each of banana peppers, king of the north red peppers and eggplants got set up as well.

July Amberwing

Amberwing Dragonfly

Since I'm freezing, here's a pic from last July. This is from a set I took then got annoyed with. I'd left the ISO high to get a photo of something else, and I find these photos too noisy. Never mind that you can barely see it even when zoomed in all the way.

Close Up Frost

Another one from a few weeks ago. This time I cropped it so the detail is a little more visible.

Happy New Year

May you enjoy your weather as much as I enjoyed mine.