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halfshellvenusI saw a turtle at the edge of the bike path on my ride today. I'm not sure what it was doing there, though turtles have been spotted in that area before. But it's a crawl of maybe half a block to the river, where the water supply is. This was a decent-sized specimen, about 7" in diameter, though they can get bigger.
I dodged a fair number of fuzzy black caterpillars out there, but it was nothing like 20-30 years ago, when they were everywhere! We also don't get clouds of orange ladybugs anymore. I spotted one in flight last week, and I've picked up hitchhikers before, but there are so few of them now. The enormous increase in turkeys, egrets, and Canadian geese in the intervening years seems a likely cause.
I occasionally get actual red ladybugs at the house, probably because we have so many roses (50-60 plants). People buy them for aphid control and release them in their yards, and they migrate to our house. ;) The ones that occur naturally in our yard are more of a yellow-brown color, and sometimes they pinch. Rude. :D
Speaking of plants, I got ZERO daffodils this year. The shoots came up, the same as always, but no flowers. I have a clump near the front door (where we can see them from inside), and another across the walkway. That second group has never flowered. I planted them maybe 8-10 years ago, and I even dug them up once and replanted them at a more shallow depth, but Nada. I'd like more daffodils, not less. Maybe it's too shady where I have them? Or maybe it was that endless fog earlier this winter?
I hope to get out this coming weekend and do something about the weeds and all the roses that need dead-heading. I would have liked to do that last weekend, but it rained again. I didn't get much of anything done, TBH. A lot of my TODOs involve dealing with the extra framed family pictures that we don't have places for now. It's as much an emotional task as a physical one, which is why I can't seem to do it. Give me strength!
I dodged a fair number of fuzzy black caterpillars out there, but it was nothing like 20-30 years ago, when they were everywhere! We also don't get clouds of orange ladybugs anymore. I spotted one in flight last week, and I've picked up hitchhikers before, but there are so few of them now. The enormous increase in turkeys, egrets, and Canadian geese in the intervening years seems a likely cause.
I occasionally get actual red ladybugs at the house, probably because we have so many roses (50-60 plants). People buy them for aphid control and release them in their yards, and they migrate to our house. ;) The ones that occur naturally in our yard are more of a yellow-brown color, and sometimes they pinch. Rude. :D
Speaking of plants, I got ZERO daffodils this year. The shoots came up, the same as always, but no flowers. I have a clump near the front door (where we can see them from inside), and another across the walkway. That second group has never flowered. I planted them maybe 8-10 years ago, and I even dug them up once and replanted them at a more shallow depth, but Nada. I'd like more daffodils, not less. Maybe it's too shady where I have them? Or maybe it was that endless fog earlier this winter?
I hope to get out this coming weekend and do something about the weeds and all the roses that need dead-heading. I would have liked to do that last weekend, but it rained again. I didn't get much of anything done, TBH. A lot of my TODOs involve dealing with the extra framed family pictures that we don't have places for now. It's as much an emotional task as a physical one, which is why I can't seem to do it. Give me strength!
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Date: 2026-04-29 09:28 pm (UTC)Very interesting. On my way to work I drove into a cloud of insects, but I didn't see what type. It's been a while since I did that. I doubt they were ladybugs, most likely grasshoppers.