There’s some beautiful columbine that just showed up in our back yard this year, “volunteers” in gardening world parlance. Here’s the darkest one, with mostly a deep purple coloration, but there’s also a lavender one, and a cream one.
They’ve been part of a second wave of blossoms this spring, arriving along with the rhododendrons and Virginia spiderwort; after the apple tree, lilacs, bleeding heart and bridal wreath spirea, and just before the cascading weigela at the edge of the woodpile.
From a performance at The Kate in Old Saybrook, CT, on April 18, 2019. Went with two old compadres, JA and JG; hard to say which of us enjoyed it the most, though I’ll give a slight edge to JG, who grew up in Texas, where these gals were raised.
Three years ago, we picked up this young 4-1 apple tree (four types of apples grafted on a single root stock), and have had perhaps 15-20 apple starts each year, though the harvest was much less. In each of those years, there didn’t seem to be many bees around when the tree was blossoming.
This year, I thought I might help out with the pollination, but shortly after I went out with a q-tip, this bumblebee came by, and put me to shame. (S)he probably visited about thirty blossoms in the first couple of minutes, and didn’t linger on any one for much longer than five seconds. In looking at close-ups later, I saw the evolutionary wisdom of the natural world: pollen scattered over nearly every part of her body. So … as long as there are bees …
Shortly after we moved here, a neighbor predicted we’d be seeing fish in the strangest places: on lawns, in driveways, on roads. Lo and behold, a month later there was one in our driveway.
The ospreys in the area tend to drop the heavier ones flying back to their nests; such was probably the case with this catfish, which may have weighed as much as the bird itself. This was taken in the late afternoon; the next morning it was gone, scavenged by animals, or maybe just discarded by neighbors.
