Garden of Sneezy Mark
@mark-tabler
Board games & RPG enthusiast, native plant advocate & gardener, painter, pen & ink artist. Kentucky
So, we purchased a 99-year-old house, and my love spent a few hours tearing carpet/flooring from the kitchen to expose a cool antique linoleum pattern, which I tried to identify online, and that's how I found discussions about asbestos in flooring materials. We learn things the hard way.
A pearl crescent butterfly in my old back yard, and a polyphemos moth in my new back yard.
I am very fond of the brown eyed Susans at the corner of my house. They sprang up where I threw a bunch of cut, brown rudbeckia stems + seed heads last autumn. That's a nice trick that I will remember.
I've seen some of the great black digger wasps (Sphex pensylvanicus) on my mountain mint. They are impressive in size and glossy blackness. I feel like I've seen far fewer wasps in general this summer; even the common paper wasps seem in short supply.
Here's a wet bumblebee resting atop my gray-headed coneflower.
Here's a small part of a pen and ink drawing I just completed, using my homemade black walnut ink. I really do like looking at ink marks up close.
I spent much of last week in Oklahoma City, and I always look for scissor tailed flycatchers while I'm out there. Here's the best pic I could manage with my phone camera. It's always a delight to see them.
I'd fire off a few bottle rockets for McConnell but save the rest for a bigger celebration.
Last night we played our first game of Commands & Colors: Samurai Battles. I'm a big fan of the C&C games, and enjoyed this introductory scenario, although I was trounced 5-0.
Tonight was our epic finale to our 18 game string of Battle of Hoth games. (second copy loaned very kindly by a friend). It was a tough, bloody battle for both sides, but the Empire, under the leadership of my pal Marcus, emerged victorious with a score of 10-8. But at least I took out two AT-ATs!
Here's another wavy-lined emerald caterpillar that I spotted inching along on a day lily leaf. Its flower-petal shirt disguise doesn't work as well when it's scootching along a big green leaf.
I wouldn't have noticed it if it hadn't moved: This wavy lined emerald caterpillar is on my coreopsis. These caterpillars are the ones that have the very clever disguise strategy of fastening bits of flower petals to their backs.
Last night we played scenarios 15 - 17 of Battle of Hoth, and my Rebels lost every one. However, two of them were very close-- I would have won for certain on my next turn had the Imperials not beat me on the preceding turn.
I've had a huge amount of common milkweed flourishing this year, and I've been hearing the same thing from a lot of other gardeners. The bees and butterflies and other critters seem to love it.
We're being jumped by demented roaches at every turn in Mice & Mystics.
The adorable five-lined skink was furtively loitering on our front sidewalk today.
This gorgeous great spangled fritillary was in my back yard tonight, visiting my common milkweed.
I'm always excited when I find in my yard an animal I've never seen before. Here's one I just found on my elderberry bush: A sawfly larva. I'm sure there are a lot of these caterpillar-y guys there and that the nearby nesting wrens are enjoying the buffet.