June 1, 2025

Another start to a new month.  Saturday morning started off in the 40's F.  To think that in just a few weeks we will officially be into Summer!  Don't believe it, but see for yourself.  (I could be wrong....)  One of my favorite things is when the Dianthus (pinks) seem to bloom all at once after a long year of rest.

One of the first things to blossom all over the yard is the Dame's Rocket, an early Phlox.

Last week you saw how pretty the Lunaria (Honesty) was.  But then I spent a lot of time out at Abby Mortensen's place where her Lunaria had grown to fill half a flowerbed.  What a pleasant welcome to a flower yard.

There seem to be several kinds of "Wild Geraniums".  Here are the "real" ones, as listed in plant magazines, followed by a picture of a big Poppy, a blue Iris (from Abby M's yard) and the other little pinkish ones that a lot of people seem to call "wild geraniums".  They are also called, probably more correctly,  Bloody Crane's-Bill (Geranium sanguineum).

To help clear up this topic, here is a pair of Bloody Crane's-Bill (Geranium sanguineum) flowers. 

Here is a beautiful red and black Beetle, followed by a quintuplet of Ants of a few different species. 

Here are a few Spiders we saw in the past few weeks.  Look how diverse they are!  The very last one looks like an Ant at first, but if you count the legs you can see there are eight!  This is one of the Ant-mimic Spiders, the Slender Ant-mimic Jumping Spider (Synemosyna formica).

A note on Spiders:  You may have heard of Daddy-Long-Legs, which look like Spiders with very long legs.  They have another professional name, which is Harvestmen, and in some sources they are not called Spiders at all.    I haven't seen one of them this year, but here is a picture from another year.

Here is a little Bug which iNat says is Agallia quadripunctata, referring to the four forward-facing eyes.  I'm glad to see it identified, since I've seen a lot of look-alikes in the past few years and this one is for real, according to iNat!  The second is some kind of Mirid.  I've no clue what the third one is but I'll be looking for an ID!

Here are some of the Flies that are gracing our posies in the last few weeks.

That's a lot of kinds of flies and that is just a start!  Let's start winding down this Blog by looking at the tadpoles, the children of the American Toads that mated a couple of weeks ago.  They are doing fine and growing apace, still tiny but you can tell they are here to stay!  Picture 2 shows how small they really are compared to the local fish population!  But picture 3 shows how very thick the population of toadlets really is!  So you can see the NUMBERS of creatures in the Pond, like elsewhere in the yard, are doing fine.

As we part, please enjoy your surroundings.  And at the same time, think about what you can do for your environment.  We and it are living on borrowed time and we all can and must help!  See you next week!  Love, Martha