A Garden Month (to 24 Aug 2019) Pictures follow Even back in late July some end-of-summery things were already being noticed such as a small group of Waxwings taking berries from the Dogwood bushes on a hot and windy day … the sort of day on which it is perfect for Japanese Beetles to [...]
A little Sunday morning magicThis tiny bird appeared to accompany the Sunday morning cup of tea … the red flowers are Cuphea (Mexican cigar plant) and have proved to be the best attractor of Hummingbirds we have ever grown. They are not hardy, but plant some where you can nsee them next summer and [...]
HAL 9000 This isn’t product placement, just a comment. I pay just under a couple of $$ a month for added storage on GoogleDrive and last week Google invited me, “as a loyal customer”, to accept a free Smart Speaker which, naturally, I accepted. Yesterday I took delivery of small grey hamburger [...]
Berries and Birds Everyone has remarked on the amazing size and variety of the tree fruit crop this year - and it has not gone unnoticed by the juvenile American Robins in our garden who have started to fill and fatten themselves on the bounty - observed by some young Song Sparrows. [...]
Signs of the Season Turning Our first visit to North America was in 1987 at about this time of the year. A friend we were staying with mentioned that seeing Egrets on a lake in Minnesota was his marker that summer is nearly over while ours has become seeing Golden Rod in flower. [...]
Garden Creatures The sun at just the right angle illuminated a horizontal band of white "fluff" in a Pagoda Dogwood tree and it warranted a better look. At first appearances one thinks of Tent Moth caterpillars but this is the wrong sort of tree. Closer inspection found that most of the affected area [...]
A Service to Friends of My Age We are none of us getting any younger, as we all know only too well. Some problems have simply solutions however and I thought, as a service to you all, I would make brief mention of Birkenstock's sandals and shoes. I have an incipient bunion on [...]
I know everyone out there will be beside themselves with grief at the thought that there won't be any posts here after this one - for at least a whole week. I am in the process of transferring the hosting for the site to another and a better company so I am not [...]
A Baker’s Dozen of Cats in 46 Fun-filled Years Everyone posts cat pictures at some time. but we don’t do it often … recently, though, a blog post from 2013 accidentally surfaced on this website and, this being far too hot and humid a day to be outside, it seemed a good opportunity [...]
Another error of common naming A common tree/shrub in North America is the Sumac, around here mostly the Staghorn Sumac (Rhus typhina), athough there are several other species in the genus. A good row of them grow along the boundary of the Garden at Fritz where I volunteer every summer and shelter [...]