05/19/2023 pretty flowers, mystery solved, and babies

The first of our Ohio Spiderworts from prairie moon to bloom! (That’s a dayflower leaf under it in case that’s confusing.)

12/08/2022 surprises

One single aster flower is still blooming. It’s somewhat sheltered by the garage wall and kitchen wall.
In the cactus planter, I was pleased to find a rabbit’s tobacco seedling in near the juniper leaf.
Here I am pointing at it if you didn’t spot it in the previous picture.

08/19/2022

I tried cantaloupe in my oatmeal this morning, hoping it would be magical like peaches, but I think they’re best eaten cold and alone. The melon, not the person doing the eating.
Gram is too tall to stretch under this chair.
He came out from under the chair to stretch, then went back under the chair to continue observing his Doggie.
Two new blooms on the two leaf senna!!
I think one of the juniperleaf cuttings had some nearly ripe seeds on it and they sprouted!!! I kept them in standing water in the shade for the first few days as a cutting, then moved them to a dry spot but still in the shade, where they are now. Still watering every day. This is additionally interesting because the seeds I collected from the original juniperleaf in the winter have not sprouted anywhere I put them. I was reading today in Nokes’ germination book that sometimes fresher seeds don’t have such an impermeable seed coat.
A few little grasses in the backyard where I sprinkled the native grass mix from Plants of the Southwest! The mix was blue grama and buffalograss.

06/26/2022 sleepy yard day

Partridge pea blooming.
A big skipper caught my attention this morning.
I think it may be a Confused Cloudywing or an Outis Skipper. The pale ish area below the antennal club is why I think maybe Outis Skipper, but I also get the impression that one is rarer, so I wonder if I’m missing something obvious that makes it a cloudywing. Both have been recorded in Cleveland county, Oklahoma though.
Saw a two spotted bumblebee on mealy blue sage again!
The juniperleaf cuttings have started to perk up and poke at the plastic wrap, so I am unsealing them a bit to see if they can handle less humidity yet.
Silly sleep

06/20/2022 juniper leaf

We had a single juniperleaf plant growing in a driveway crack. I didn’t want to try to move it since we only have one and I’d never seen it before. Recently, I saw it had two babies farther down the crack. I very carefully pulled up one, coated its taproot in rooting hormone, trimmed off the long branches so it has less to support on the damaged root, and put rooting hormone on the little branches too. I put it in succulent potting mix and stretched cling wrap tightly over the pot to keep it humid while it tries to root. Fingers crossed!!
Tuqu visiting says “whatever”.
Bonus shot of rainbow garden. You can barely see the coreopsis has started blooming again.

06/21/2022

Gram guards the rooting juniperleaf.
There’s a new pollinator garden on campus!!
Very pleased at least one of the partridge pea seeds I sprinkled last year made it up.
Paper wasps made a nest on the debris of the invasive clematis.
A small lynx spider eats a fly
Just noticed that the long true bugs have little flat pom poms on their antennae.
A second individual. I think you have to see them from the right angle to get a good view of the antennae spots.
Dog
A helpful cat saw this wasp (maybe a spider wasp?) In the aloe and knocked the pot over.
I took it outside and shooed the friend off. No dinner in the house for it. Only cat.
I spotted a plume moth hiding on rain barrel stand.
Potatoes in straw bale getting big. Hope roots are too.