wildlife
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The Scent of Maywood: This Week It’s Wild Roses
A fragrance cannot be posted in a blog. Picture and video can provide sight and sound, but to really experience Maywood in spring, you have to smell it. On a walk down to the field to inspect the blueberries, the sweet smell of grass perfumes the air. Not the smell of a fresh mowed lawn, Continue reading
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The house is a-buzz
Friday afternoon, I came home to hear that Harper has a job. PopPop hired him to kill carpenter bees at the rate of twenty-five cents a bee. I have no doubt that Harper’s eyes registered “ka–ching!” when he looked at all the carpenter bees buzzing around the house. With enough sunny days and the right Continue reading
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Bugs–visible and invisible
Some would say I deserved the wasp sting. That’s what I get for being home on a balmy day in February, relaxing in the backyard without even a coat on. Well, I was minding my own business, when this nasty wasp just came upon me and stabbed me through my sweater. The nerve! I quickly Continue reading
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Busy Beavers
We have recently discovered beavers on the property. Consequently, instead of researching Black Friday and Cyber Monday online sales, I’ve been browsing the Internet for information on beavers. I could be trotting over the stream and through the woods to visit the beavers myself, but I choose to feign a nap and let John lead the woodland tour. (It’s Continue reading
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Pets or Pests?
Why is it that a mouse in Shelley’s bedroom results in a cell-phone video of a screaming woman leaping onto the bed while begging her daddy to save her, but a hamster gone missing brings that very same woman to her hands and knees in her son’s room in a desperate search that, please God, will not end with dead Continue reading
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Monster caterpillar attacks Maywood
Last week we had enormous mutant mushrooms growing in the yard. Last night I came home to the biggest caterpillar I have ever seen in my life. I’m used to seeing bugs and critters, but this thing is creeping me out. Harper and John discovered it on a volunteer tomato plant in the yard, where it was voraciously Continue reading
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Future Bambi-burgers
Two fawns have been hanging around Maywood recently. They still have spots. They are cute. They are young and innocent. They make you say, “Awww…..” The GGPs (Great-grandparents) have seen them napping under an arborvitae in their yard next door. The fawns hang out in front of our house and traipse across the driveway. They are so Continue reading
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Sycamore Tussock Moth Caterpillar
I was sitting at Café Maywood Tuesday morning, enjoying the quiet with my coffee and my journal. I noticed a caterpillar on a marigold leaf. So much for my quiet time… “Hey, Harper, come out here and see this caterpillar!” “Wow…it’s so cool…” We’ve never seen one of these before. Furry white and very soft. And it Continue reading
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Seagulls
While most of the country sweltered in the heat, we spent the past week in Cape May keeping an eye out for flying beach umbrellas. The flap-flapping of a beach full of umbrellas is relaxing until one decides to take off à la Mary Poppins. A suddenly launching umbrella can be like a jousting pole when it is headed Continue reading
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Bug of the day
Sometimes the best bug is a dead bug. And today Harper and I found a really cool dead bug. It was about the size of a house fly, but irredescent blue and green, and it had a really long stinger. I have never seen one of these flying around. Just as well. The stinger is Continue reading
Slightly Off the Grid 