Milkweed, Culver's root, spiderwort

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

This evening : I weed whacked, I moved around the spiderwort to the front yard, I put down some mulch, I planted tomatoes in the straw bales, I we did a bunch of English Ivy from the backyard, and I dug up some crocus bulbs from the backyard and put them in the mole Hills in the front yard.

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

Paperclips

Do you wonder where all the paperclips go? I will tell you. They work to be thrown away and lost.  They migrate downward to their mother, the molten iron core, in a cycle much like the water cycle.  They fall into the Earth like rain. Your desk drawer is a cloud.

Rose-breasted grosbeak

I just saw both a male and a female rose-breasted grosbeak at my suet feeder. I've identified males in the past; I've seen them a few times in my life, but not often, so this was fun. The male was hopping around the tree overhead, and then landed on the feeder, took a bit, and ascended again up into the tree. The female was spending quite a bit of time just sitting there eating, and I thought she was a sparrow. But the more I looked the more something in my head told me something about her was a little off...was she a different kind of sparrow? Or, wait, maybe a female house finch? --yes, I thought she was a house finch, because her beak was so heavy.

I flipped through my Peterson Field Guide to Eastern Birds, looking at the sparrows, trying to figure out which one she might be, when I accidentally flipped to the rose breasted grosbeak. And I realized the female grosbeak is what I'd been looking at. Duh!

Yet another reason I'm going to feel bad about losing that red maple, from which the feeder hangs. It's mostly dead. I just got an estimate on cutting it down. Deciding what to replace it with is difficult, and won't pay off for years and years.

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

Plants

Today I added more fertilizer and water to my straw bales, weeded, cut wintercreeper and honeysuckle off the fences, repotted a lot of house plants, put the rosemary Jennifer gave me into a nice pot, and did a little trimming along the porch. I was delighted to notice that three marsh milkweed plants are coming back strong in back. The yarrow by the porch is going to engulf the hostas and beebalm, I fear. 

Wits and Wagers

Playing with friends via text during an era of social isolation.

Hasty map

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

Azul

Played today with my daughters. I came in last. It was fun.

Squirrel

Highlight from yesterday: I spent ten minutes watching a squirrel in my back yard. It was carrying around an ear of corn. It would stop, take a kernel off, hop around to select a good spot, bury the kernel. Then it would get another kernel, and bury it. The squirrel seemed to bury three kernels per ear-drop: It would drop the ear, then bury kernels at the points of a roughly equilateral triangle, roughly 3 feet from the ear. Then it would carry the ear to another spot to bury more kernels.

First asparagus of the year

Picked yesterday. 

RPG meet up in the time of pandemic

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

Rabbit nest

Today I caught a bunny lining a freshly dug hole with grass. Unfortunately, this is right next to my neighbors big garden, where they are planting all sorts of greens. I felt obliged to shoo the rabbit away. If it decides on another spot in my yard, farther away, fine. But, jeez, not *right next to* my neighbors' lettuce.

It's a very cute little dugout. But I moved bricks around on top of it. Find a better spot, rabbit.

Shopping in the time of pandemic

Yesterday's walk

Here's a photo from yesterday's walk. I really like the sunshine and the way the light played across surfaces, the shapes of the shadows.

Teleworked today for the first time ever. They're trying to do it organization -wide. It went OK for me.

The entire world feels like a crazy TV show that's on in the next room. 

More Pi Day

Pie making with Jen. Peach pie! It was fantastic.

Sunday afternoon with the girls

Cockroach Poker

I was able to get both of my daughters to play this one, and they both enjoyed it. Will try again.

Ides of March Scrabble

Togas & foes

Pi Day Scrabble

Saturday with Jen

Sunlight and geometry

Early yesterday, TX--KY