gifts of the garden

I just love love love the 'Evening Sun' sunflowers we planted this year.

The bees evidently share my infatuation. Or maybe it's just that most of our flowers aren't big enough for several visitor at once.

This is shaping up to be our prize pumpkin for the year. We orded seeds from Johnny's Selected Seeds and they've all been such a treat. This variety is the 'Rouge vif d'Etampes', the red Cinderella-carriage shaped pumpkin.

Chrysalis!

The kids were playing chase outside and noticed this little gem clinging to the siding on the house above the butterfly garden! One of our fat little friends from yesterday has obviously moved on! We're going away til next week, but I"ll take some pics when we get back to see how it's changed.


We also got a big jar and rigged it to house 2 small monarch larvae so we can watch their development on our trip -- they're at different stages, but hopefully both will make it to the chrysalis stage so we can watch the whole process.

Monarchy

I looked out the window to check the activity in our butterfly garden, and lo and behold! Some of our plants were nothing but stems! Upon further inspection, I saw several of these:

Monarch butterfly larvae! Whee!!

Another, earlier instar than the big one at the top. That's Dante's thumb, albeit at a weird angle, for comparison.

All summer I've been checking the milkweed we planted from the wild stuff we found by the beaver pond in Colchester. We'd also planted some Butterfly Oscar seeds (a milkweed variety)we'd gotten from Johnny's. Those plants never flowered because as the leaves filled in on the trees that surround our yard, that part of the garden was cast in too much shade. But evidently the monarchs didn't mind, and now their babies are nibbling the plants down to the stem.

We also spotted this Arrowhead Shaped Micrathena, a very cool spider from an interesting looking family of spiders. You can see more of this particular spider, as well as the others at Bugguide.net. Which is where I got this picture, since the one I took is too blurry. Someday I'll learn how to use my camera, but until then... here's my pic:

Snakes alive!

I came downstairs last night to find a snake just inside the front door at the bottom of the stairs. At first, I was thinking it was one of those little plastic snakes, but something in the way it was bent, as well as it's length, made me think otherwise. I called Luke and together we managed to trap him in a box.

I didn't want Dante to miss it, so I brought this lil bugger upstairs to show him. He'd just fallen asleep and was hard to rouse. He looked at it, smiled and said "Cool. A milk snake." Sure enough, back downstairs a few minutes later, I looked up milk snakes online and he was right. We saved the snake in our smaller fish tank so that the kids could release it in the morning. Now. How did it get in?

Please release me, leeeet me gooooooo...

Snake in the grass. Not on a plane.

Snake in a box, sir, Mr. Knox, sir.

Mud, mud, glorious mud!

Dante took a clay class at the Audubon Society this week. The kids walked to the Connecticut River and scooped up clay found on the banks. They brought it back and shaped it into pots, etc. Here are Dante's coil pots.

checking on the chicks

The chicks have spent a lot of time outside this week, since we're heading out on vaca for this coming week. Specks beautiful feathers inspired me to grab my camera and grab some shots of the girls.

Their heads never stop moving, always searching for some tasty morsel in the grass. Hard to get them not blurry.

Bandit gives Izzy a kiss on the head.

Tinkerbelle's posture always seems so formal to me.

Since I was cleaning out their quarters, I installed the linoleum floor that will hopefully make future cleanings much easier.

the summer squeel

Dante has spent much time this summer on the jetty, hunting in one spot in particular. He always returns to this spot, because beneath the rocks lurks a small, elusive eel. The crabs come for his bait, but the eel only slinks out enough to be seen but not bite. Well, things have changed.

Last weekend, the McCoys visited again and this time we went for the saltwaterexperience. The eel must've been hungover from the big end-of-summer party the night before, because this time, Dante was successful. He came galloping along the beach, trumpeting his victory.

Katie displays one of the crabs that didn't managed to escape when their prison tipped over.

The cloudy sky looked amazing. This photo hardly does it justice. It had smooth ripples in it that reminded me of the sand you see in the shallows when the tides goes out.

backyard chickens, etc.

We spent a quiet morning at home in the backyard exploring our various garden projects and watching the chickens. Back before easter we'd constructed this teepee in the hopes of making a cool fort to play in. It's finally starting to get there, except that deer, the japanese beetles and rust seem to have found our plants, so I'm not sure it'll get much more lush than this. The deer enjoy the tomatoes and birdhouse gourd blossoms, the japanese beetles munch the bean leaves into lace, and the rust seems to be primarily attacking the gourd leaves. The morning glories are the only thing that seem untouched.

Zooming in to see our biggest gourd. Lucia is after the green beans.

Dante found this katydid in the hydrageas behind the garden fence.

Our proud man struts about looking for treats. Dante reports that he began to crow this week, but I haven't heard it myself yet.

Dante cuddles Izzy.

Lucia, modeling a lovely bedhead hairstyle this morning, swings with Tinkerbelle.

Peepers joins Dante on the swing.

The girls love their greens.

rebels and redcoats

We went to Old Sturbridge Village last weekend for their Rebels to Redcoats event. "The Village is transformed into a military camp spanning over 150 years in early American history." The soldiers, etc, aren't employed by OSV, but rather people who do this for fun. We arrived just in time for the military parade, then dashed off to the Freeman Farm fields to catch a mock battle, heard the fife and drum corps, and talked to the people in the camps about cooking on the fire and life in the 1800s.

The campsites were scattered throughout the village grounds, and the re-enactors were happy to answer questions and expound on their area of expertise.

While Daddy and Dante chat up the man at the saw mill, Lucia tosses some stones into the mill pond.

And while Daddy and Dante talk with one of the British regiments about cooking on the fire, and life as a family of re-enactors, Lucia gets a ride in the play area.


I love this bottle carrier. We were talking to this group (Royal Navy) and when I asked about it, the lieutenant informed us that their sailmaker who made it also knotted the hammocks for Master and Commander. Ah, the lost art of macrame.

bikes and bugs

We went for a bikeride on the Airline Trail with Tucker and Grace. Lucia didn't have a bike, but she ran and kept up with the boys with little trouble.

Some scary monsters we met along the way.

Back at the cranberry bog, this grasshopper couldn't stay away from Dante.

We got a big box of sauce tomatoes from our weekly pickup at the Old Maid's Lane Organic Farm CSA, so we spent a day cutting and cooking and canning them. Here's Dante putting the tomatoes through the food mill. This was our first foray into canning -- I think next time we'll can the tomatoes as whole as possible.

Swinging chicks

Lucia chats with Izzy.

What, no eggs yet? Sheesh!

Dante plays with texture and makes sculpey ornaments.

Fly and Bandit, our speckled sussex girls, get some time on the swing.

Dante braved the interior of the coop to obtain this shot of Peepers -- his wattles are much bigger than those of the girls twice his age.

Sweet 16, poolside

My cousin Joe and Angela threw her daughter Alysha a surprise sweet 16 party, and the kids didn't leave the pool the entire time. Joe installed the diving board for the event, a novelty that quickly met approval with the youngest set. Somehow I missed a shot of Joanne, either off the diving board or skinny dipping after her mom got her dressed a bit earlier than Jo wanted.

Alysha poses with Caroline and Patrick, Jennifer and Peter's kids.

Dante, the 45lb cannonball. splash.

Lucia loves the tubular landing.

Lilly's up, Lulu's on deck.

Snack break!