Showing posts with label monarchs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label monarchs. Show all posts

Friday, June 4, 2010

More Quick Trip Tips

Gosh, I have time to write for a change!

I haven't seen my yard in June for two years--this has been interesting! The back yard, where we had to take several trees down looks like a rain forest! Speaking of which, NW Ohio has had two record-breaking months of rain. Oh, shucks, I missed most of it.

I took a quick stroll in the front today--quick because my knee is killing me and because the skeeters nearly carried me away. Last spring I stained the front deck marine blue. Sadly, it turned out to be North Toledo Blue. Way too much of a good thing. This year I found some "fern green" stain, and DH re-stained it last week. Much more soothing on the eyes. I like it enough that I think I'll ask him to do the boardwalk this week.

And my flowers! Actually, they're mostly weeds, but that's the way I roll. Six or seven years ago, milkweed showed up in the rocks around the foundation in the front of the house. Since this is the host plant for Monarchs, I let the milkweed stay. Now it's growing like crazy, and looks really good around the house. I also bought a butterfly weed plant and a holly for each side of the porch. All are doing well. And wow! Today I found two itty-bitty catepiggles! I miss 'raising' Monarchs out west, so this has been a nice bonus for this trip.

The weedbeds between the yard and the road are looking good, also. Lots of native phlox and Sweet William that came from a can of seeds eons ago are also doing well. The Sweet William had several Tiger Swallowtails around.

The down side of Ohio in the summer? Humidity and mosquitoes. I managed to get about a dozen bites in my short foray. I know I'll be attacked by buffalo gnats in a couple of weeks, but at least I get to see buffalo! Nothing exciting about mosquitoes. All of my Claritin is out west, so I took a Benedryl--which induced a weird nap, complete with drooling. Sheesh.

The sky is dark and menacing now, thick with heat and humidity~~we're under storm watches for the evening. DD and DH are out rail-fanning with DD's club, FTD's best bud spent several hours over here, but when all is said and done, all is right with the world.