June 21, 2026

Welcome to June 21, 2026! I was about to say, Summer is fast approaching, but then suddenly realized it is HERE! Isn't that unbelievable? Isn't WHAT unbelievable - that an old lady (coming up on 86 in August) can be surprised at how very fast the days can slip by! It is still not hot, but just so you know, that is going to be a part of Summer until we have done a bit more damage to the environment, and then WHAT can we expect? For now, it is a beautiful late Spring/early Summer day! The sun is shining and there are no big rain clouds on any horizon. Of course, I'm sitting upstairs with the curtains drawn and have no idea that that was true about no big rain clouds... In some of the damage done to Burr Oak Street, Albion in the Spring of 2026 (during work, we had collateral damage to the Deptford and any other Pinks in the front Flower Bed. Fortunately the City failed to send the work crew out to the Whitehouse Nature Center on the outskirts of town, and so they missed the Pinks out there. Now the burning question: is this one of those four-petaled or one of those five-petaled Pinks? In Picture 2, you are staring at the prickly tops of some kind of thing growing by the handrail up the steps from back yard to back porch!

This picture of a little buttercup and its mysterious tiny purple visitor was taken at the Whitehouse Nature Center last weekend.

Here are a couple of probable May Flies, now that it's June...

This little green thing seems to be a different angle of the ubiquitous Thistle Tortoise Beetle. Five points and your name in next week's blog if you can guess the red flower next to it!

Here's a largish Crane Fly, and its friend, apparently a May Fly exoskeleton?

Here is that interesting creature - what IS it called?

An underwater scene - is that a frog on the plate? More likely it is the early stages of a water lily growing out of the pot we planted a few weeks ago. I haven't seen a frog lately. A toad? Maybe but I don't think so! Haven't seen one of those in several weeks now....