Welcome!

Welcome to my Backyard Blog. This website started as email messages to friends about what I see when I step out my back door. My back yard is untidy and not too often weeded. We have a small goldfish pond dug in 2006 by a friend. Everything there started when I put my old calico fantail Seymour into the fresh water. He looked so lonely that I bought him a friend. Within minutes (so it seems in hindsight) Seymour started putting on girth and the new fish (Audrey, a comet) started chasing him around. This bit of fishy behavior is a dead giveaway as far as sex roles in fish go. It is always the boys who chase the girls, hence the irony in their names. In a couple of months the tiny progeny who had survived the parents' love of smorgasbords began to appear. Seymour and Audrey died when they were nearly eight years old. Their last surviving direct child Goldilocks died in 2014. Since then I've tried to diversify the orange and white gene pool by adding a few shubunkins (nice variegated fish with beautiful blue patches) and a few more comets and fantails.

Gradually other fauna moved into the pond on long or short term bases: water striders perform acrobatics as they interact. A green frog or two may take up residence for a month or more. If it's a nice fat male green frog, he will converse with you or any other noisy being. He doesn't want to be alone. Then the American toads show up and fill the pond with tadpoles who grow and climb out in a few months, losing themselves in the yard. A long-jawed spider shows up towards fall in the asters and makes a long rope so that he can sail down to the pond and go fishing for visitors. Dragonflies, craneflies, mosquitoes, etc. dip their tails into the water laying eggs.

The pond sits under a redbud tree. At various times of the year other plants grow and bloom or just grow. One of my favorites is the family of New England asters which start to bloom in September, following the goldenrod. On the deck I pot a few annual/perennials for the deck rail. These attract a menagerie of butterflies, flies, and various other surprises du jour. Various other pots contain a magenta hibiscus and all the plants that languish all winter in the front porch. The hibiscus is loved by various kinds of bugs (hemiptera) and a resting place for many tiny flies. The yard has gradually filled up with weeds. Besides the redbud, the yard hosts a few maples, oaks, walnuts and a tiny elm. I never tire of standing in the bushes snapping photos of the visiting or established critters. I decided early on to try to get acquainted with the spiders and to my amazement found many many kinds, each with its own kind of (or no) web, its own method of capturing lunch. Some so tiny (less than an eighth inch long) I would never have seen them before. Over the years, and especially during last summer, I began to be able to see things I had overlooked for years. It has been a wonderful journey of 10 steps. 

One by one,  flowers have been coming up and blooming out for a couple of months.  Here you see a budding Hyacinth,  then the blooming one.  Last on this row is the first  Golden Celandine Poppy (yellow).  After a while the floor will be carpeted with lots of these glorious Poppies.  They will also bloom for a long time and then re-bloom!

Some very early flowers:   First,  Western Honey Bees on a Woodland Crocus patch;  Next,  a Snow Crocus; and last, a dirrerent kind of purple Crocus.

Some tiny daffodils, just about to finish blooming in early April,  Siberian Squills, and the Purple Hellebores, the first large plant to bloom in my front yard.

These Winter Aconites were given to me and half of Albion by Betty Beese.   Next are Grape Hyacinths and May Apples.

Jerusalem Sage, a kind of Pulmonaria, given to me by my friend Eleanor  Rosenthal as I was setting off for Albion in 1985.   The Virginia Bluebells, and some Snowdrops, which snuck under the fence from the Seelys' yard.

One of my favorite parts of the Backyard is the Pond, where a few dozen colorful Goldfish live and swim.  But a couple of years ago, a number of Green Frogs decided to make it their home.  They spend their winters in the Pond, but have recently come up and can often be seen suning themselves on the rocks beside the Pond.  American Toads will soon be visiting.  They don't live in the Pond, but when the males begin to trill, gradually a few females appear and nature takes over.  They will mate and lay eggs.  The resulting tadpoles eventually climb out of the Pond to grow up in the yard somewhere.   Here are some of the fishes.

Here are some of the Frogs that have come out of the water so far this Spring.  Picture 2 shows three huddling together.   And picture 3 shows one of the elder males named Tonguey, since somehow a year or two ago he had an accident that wounded his tongue.

Here are a pair of Toads from an earlier year.   The first pair are mating.   In picture 2, there are three PAIRS of toads mating!!  Last is a batch of Toad tadpoles.

I usually go somewhat alphabetically:  So after the Ants, I go to the Beetles (if I have any pictures of them).  First you see a Drugstore Beetle.   Then a member of Tribe Dorcatomini , and third an unidentified Beetle.  

More Beetles.  First is a member of the genus Contastyphon Number 2 is an Asian Lady Beetle.  Number 3 is an Alfalfa Weevil.

Let's take a look at some of the Spring's Bugs.  First up, a Leafhopper in genus Erythridula.   Second and third, one of the Zelus Assassin Bugs - probably Z. tetracanthus.  There was some discussion about this - I tend to think it's not Z. luridus.  And there seem to be only two species of  Zelus in Michigan.  So I would have called both of these Zelus tetracanthus - but better Zelus fans than me say the opposite.

I  didn't recognize this first  bug because it had been raining and the colors of this Western Conifer Seed Bug were more vivid than usual.  Second, a Stink Bug.  And third, what is probably a Typical Leafhopper.    Fourth is another view of the Bug in number 3.

Here are a few more Flies from various times from January to the present.  Here we see a Crane Fly,  a Bluebottle, and another Winter Crane Fly of genus Trichocera.

Some more Flies!   First,  A Midge or Mosquito!   Next, an interesting Fly of some sort.    Last, if this is a Fly that may be an ovipositor hanging down.  Or it might be a Wasp and that might still be an ovipositor!  In other words,  I dunno!

Today  (April 10, 2024) and yesterday, the Pond's water was nearly at 60 F, so on both days I fed the fishes their favorite flakes.   They responded both to the "Here fishy fishy fishy" song AND to the flakes floating on top of the water.

   Well, folks, that was the warm-up to the reconstructed Martha's Backyard Blog.   One more thing!    I joined the tiny throng at the Quad Monday to try to see the Eclipse!

At its summit, the weather turned from pleasantly warm to pleasantly cool.   It was mysteriously darkish all around.  And I could just make out the warped corona.   Since the next one of these won't be for another 20-30 years, it was my last chance.  I'm glad I stayed here with my friends at the quad.   A friend drove to Texas to see the real total.   I don't know who took this picture.    I've asked permission to publish it here in the blog.   I hope you were able to see it.   Love to all nature lovers!