06/22/2022 Pebblebrook Park

Monarda fistulosa
American germander
Sumac berries
Probably bluehearts
White prairie clover
Greenthread flower with a geometrid moth caterpillar
Sensitive briar
Annual coreopsis
Big red eared slider lady digging a hole for her eggs above the pond.

06/10/2022 exciting friends

I wasn’t sure at first if this was a bit of debris on a bird seed sunflower stem.
But I saw it walk!! It’s a plant hopper!
I think it’s Entylia sp, possibly carinata if I understand bugguide saying there’s only one species and it’s quite variable. That’s the species shown in the new Abbott and Abbott Texas insects book.
Spittlebug adult!
The most special flower.
A beautiful white lined sphinx visiting the non native verbena.
I love the different wing angles the camera catches.
Side view.
Slime mold very happy after 3.46″ rain in the past seven days.
Blurry but you can see two seedlings: the winecup above with three leaves and the lyre leaf sage with two seed leaves. Working on my ground covers out front around the raised beds.

05/27/2022 home

Stripey plant hoppers are still abundant. Often on ironweed.
Briar observes Shackleton from an enforced respectful distance.
Shackleton does not want to be observed from any distance by a Dog. Gross!!
The Chef has designed and had printed reusable vinyl labels for his brewing endeavors. Art deco cat, maybe?
I think this is a common oak moth, Phoebaria atomaris. It’s on coreopsis flowers. I don’t think I’d seen one in town before, only at home in the woods, so this was pleasing. Correction from Mom: this is Isogona tenuis, the thin-lined owlet. Thanks for the catch, Mom!! Matches the striping much better. Internet says a hackberry tree specialist, and happily I have a little hackberry tree in the backyard I keep trimmed so it won’t get into power lines, but it can still feed our neighbors like this friend.

05/20/2022

Beautiful plant.
Rocky mountain bee plant
Geometrid moth among the dayflower leaves.
The striped planthopper on the elderberry.
Very tiny bees on the widow sedum. One sitting, one blurring through in flight.
One Missouri fluttermill primrose among the strawberries!
During weedeater repair we found a DAMN EARWIG.

A very fancy welcome home

Saw a weird leaf when Briar and I got back from bike ride.

Oh wait it’s a pair of MATING LUNA MOTHS.

The sweetgum tree is one of their host plants, so as annoying as those spiky seed balls are, we do get these magnificent beauties. These are the first ones I have seen at this house. Our neighbors have a big sweetgum.

More vacation gardening and wild prairie

Lyre leaf sage blooming. Hopefully mine will be blooming soon in Oklahoma.
A Swiss Chard is coming up.
Mystery seedling… Too early for oregano??
Dogs!!
Clouds like mountains.
Native tiny bee on Callirhoe involucrata (winecup).
Chickadee wasn’t on her nest yesterday, but she was today.
More fun!!
A solider beetle yesterday. Mom has the ID.
Two of these moths in one day (yesterday).
If you look just above the moth, you can see a tiny planthopper.

Kale and bird poop

Lacinato kale is sprouting for Mom and Dad!
Scotch blue curled kale is up too!
Two dogs, having fun.
Look at the bird poop on the coralberry leaves! How unappetizing!
It’s actually a bird dropping moth. It’s even a bit lumpy! It’s probably Antaeotricha leucilliana but there are a few similar species that can’t be distinguished for sure without looking at the genitalia. Luckily for the moth, that sounds like a lot of work.

Afternoon walkies

Here at Camp Arthritis we’re taking lots of slow short walks. Perfect to admire the resident plants! This is a blackberry in the old, less productive patch. These plants keep their leaves over the winter. They turn a dark purple.
The new blackberry patch is expanding rapidly. These plants lose all their leaves in the winter. This patch is where our yard ones were dug.
A trailing winecup leaf (Callirhoe involucrata). I have seeds for this in cold stratification in the fridge right now.
A true armyworm moth is having a very bad day. Its mate appears to have died and is stuck to it. I guess really both of them are having a bad day.
Tiny tiny tiny ants. Diane says probably Monomorium sp. Thanks Diane!!
Cute little new leaves on a post oak!

Dixon Water Foundation morning

Bladderpod with small native bee
For someone who is probably growing this fellow’s relative, I sure have a hard time identifying cacti. I believe it’s Coryphantha sulcata based on having one central spine per areole. Here’s my baby.
Mom looks at photos she is taking.
Mom takes more photos.
It’s a magnificent creek!
Bubbles on moss.
Neat rocks the creek goes through.
A mournful thyris moth. We saw more in redbud flowers. I think it may have been getting water here, because if you zoom in you can see its proboscis out.
A cricket frog!
Another big view. You can see a redbud in the woods.
Englemann daisies growing above the creek! They’re much smaller than the ones in my garden. Presumably less water.
A white bush honeysuckle (a native one, Lonicera albiflora) branches over the creek.
This is probably a hawthorn shrub. Thanks to Abby for the suggestion that helped me look it up! There seem to be a lot of very similar species.
Here’s the probably-hawthorn trunk.
This seems familiar.
Ah ha!  A Missouri fluttermill primrose!  Note the red speckled and sort of square long flower bud.
An old seed pod at the base of the primrose plant. The leaves are much less red than the ones in my garden.
Ceanothus herbaceus, redroot or New Jersey tea.
Here are the leaves. I am growing its relative C. americanus (also called New Jersey tea) in my garden, from seeds bought from prairiemoon.com.
Blue flax!  It’s probably Linum pratense, which is an annual.  Apparently it does intergrade with the perennial Linum lewisii which is what I planted in my yard.
This flax hasn’t bloomed but you can see the leaves are very like the L. lewsii ones in my yard.
Another Englemann daisy demonstrates how adaptable this species is, growing up on the barrens away from the creek.
Just to the left, just below the middle of this picture is another fluttermill.
Cymopterus, a very early blooming wildflower, starts to go to seed.
I think this must be a much younger fluttermill Missouri primrose that has already bloomed.
This is prairie burnet.  I’d never noticed it before.  Thanks to Abby for the identification!
Yellow star grass (not actually a grass).
Another fluttermill primrose, this time in a big beautiful mound.
The face of abandonment.
Another dog who didn’t get to go.