July 14, 2024

Another week, another story or two.  It's been a strange summer.  Here we are into the first week of July, 2024.  Although we've had a couple of rather hot days, on the whole, it has been pleasant to sit outside watching the fish cavort in their pond.  The mosquitoes are the biggest drawback so far.  My slapping arm is getting weak.  Meanwhile, the Water Lilbright gries that I planted last year and the year before are doing about what one might expect.  At least this year we are getting SOME pictures.  This first shot shows a near-to-blooming bud of a yellowish lily, and a growing bright green bud of what will be one of those gorgeous bright pink lilies.  The rich brown growth at the end of the stem is what a new leaf looks like as it unfolds.  

Here are some of the fishes that swim among the plants.  Some of them are Koi, like the bright yellow one here.  Others are more usual Carp.  I tend to prefer the brilliantly colored Carp, but I'm getting used to the Koi that friends left to overwinter here and then didn't collect in the Spring.    

Here are some fish portraits.   This red fantail is one of my favorite fishes.  The second is a blue Carp with the most malevolent-seeming face!  Only a mother could love it!

Fishes at feeding time, surrounded by flake food from a can.  It doesn't take long for all those flakes to disappear!

The one Frog that seems to be left in the Pond is this Green Frog.  I wish I could tell you if this is a male or a female.  The eye and the tympanic membrane seem to be about the same size.  (Usually in a male the tympanic membrane will look larger than the eye.)  These two pictures show the same Frog, by the way, just in different lights.

Very tiny creatures seem to be emerging in the plants - This one is the nymph of a Scudderian Katydid, a tiny puppy of a thing.  

This week has been horrendous for Mosquitoes.  If I sit by the Pond, one mosquito after another lights on me and I try to slap it, not very successfully.  

Here is a tiny Hover Fly, Toxomerus geminatus.  Next is, amazingly enough, not a Moth, but a Fly called the Bathroom Moth Fly.  Third is still unidentified (by me).

Here is a Slender Robberfly.  I probably wouldn't have recognized it without the help of expertsa at iNat.  Next is an outlier (not one of the commoner critters, but probably a European Earwig.

Here is a Wasp called the Yellow-legged Mud-dauber Wasp  (Sceliphron caementarium).   What a pretty fellow!  I like to walk bare-footed amidst the creatures around the Pond and these fellows never attack me.  (Yet.  So far).

I've especially been enjoying the Water Lilies as they come and go out of bloom.  Here's an older picture of a yellowish and a bright pinkish flavor.  The second picture is from today (July 7). The largish bud will open into its own Bright Pink Flower.

On Sunday, July 7, the Pond was especially full of action.  The Yellowish Water Lily (shot on July 6) was just about to open yet again with its shapely flower.  Picture 2 shows it in bloom with the swollen bud of the Pink Water Lily.   

We had other creatures (besides frogs, fishes and flowers) this week too.  Here is a minuscule Eastern Chipmunk.  Number two here is a lovely red and green Beetle that I don't seem to recall having seen before.  Third is something else new to me, at least recently.  

Fourth seems to be a new kind of Leafhopper or one of its relatives.  

Here is probably Naphrys pulex, the Flea Jumping Spider.  Does that mean it jumps on Fleas or that it jumps like a Flea?  This was the only Spider that I recall seeing this week, but I do see it most weeks. 

Let's now just glut our eyes with some of the beauty out there this week.  Remember how good those Black Raspberries were?  Picture 2 is a bunch of Red Day Lilies that Don Omahan and Nancy Kadunc gave me when they left Albion so long ago.  And picture 3 shows the Geranium I bought at the local store.  

The Spring Phlox (Dame's Rocket), accompanied by the Trumpetvine seems to ooze into the early Fall Phlox,.  But the Spiderwort is still blooming lightly along the path.