wildlife
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Tadpoles
What do you do when you and your favorite five year old find yourselves stuck at home on a gorgeous sunny morning? Check out the tadpoles, of course. We had gone down to the field to see how the blueberry plants were doing and, while I was yapping on the cellphone, I tried to distract him by making Continue reading
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Wild Violets
We don’t have a lawn. We have non-wooded areas that get mowed. Occasionally those areas are supplemented with grass seed, and the grass learns to live in cooperation with all the other ground covers already occupying the yard. Right now the yard is sprinkled with delicate little violets, as are my flower beds and the vegetable garden, Continue reading
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A-Hunting They Will Come
Some people think it’s lonely living in the woods. Not so. Especially during hunting season. There is often someone out there in the woods and frequently they stop in for coffee (in the a.m.) or beer (after an evening hunt). Around the kitchen table, they shoot the breeze with John and debrief from their hours Continue reading
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Mouse
I don’t have a picture to share for this blog, but you wouldn’t really want one. Shelley and I are in the kitchen talking over a glass of wine when she suddenly starts shrieking. “What? What?” “Mouse! Mouse! Behind you! Under the stove! It was a big fat thing! It kind of looked like Fluffball!” (For those Continue reading
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Sleepy bumblebees
Where do bumblebees sleep? This is one of those questions that is very important when you are about age four, but then you put aside for other more important questions like, “Will I ever be able to retire?” or “Will I still have my job next year?” Currently, in our back yard, there are several bumblebees sleeping on the Continue reading
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‘Astyanax’ Red-spotted Purple Butterfly
aka Limenitis arthemis astyanax There are a few types of phone calls that will really get me flying out of school to get home. One is my mother calling to tell me she’s taking my visiting aunt over to my house to show it to her. “Do you think we could get in?” All the way Continue reading
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Turtles
In a last gasp of summer, we enjoyed a weekend with Harper and the rest of the gang for crabs on Saturday. John found a baby box turtle while mowing the back 40, and it almost went home with Harper as another new pet. He was a cute little guy (we guess it was a guy), probably Continue reading
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Bee watching
People who don’t keep bees think this is weird, but one of the relaxing things we do around here at Maywood is to go down by the bees and just watch them. It’s a nice spot for sitting, down the hill from the house, tucked back in the woods. It’s very secluded ( in spite of Continue reading
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Caterpillars on the fennel
What’s scarier than Buggy or the One Red-Eyed Wolf? Green caterpillars with black and white stripes and orange horns! Ok, maybe they aren’t so scary. (Well, they are a little scary if you click on the picture and see the eNORmous image of them.) They are rather amazing. We found 10 of them on Continue reading
Slightly Off the Grid 