I have spent most of the afternoon reorganizing my photobucket album as due to the sheer volume of photographs it was simply becoming unwieldy both for myself and viewers. There are now several sub albums (ie Butterflies, Lizards and Frogs etc) so that anyone looking for a specific type of shot can find it easily. Unfortunately that means all of my links are currently broken until I edit my blog to repair the link (unless it is a shot of a bird, in which case the link will be okay.) I sincerely apologize for any inconvenience and I am going to be working on restoring the links in the next couple of days. Please be patient with me. Anyhoo, to keep you happy here are a couple of shots from today, the dragonflies are being very cooperative.

This afternoon I had to drive to Columbus County and back. As I was leaving the house I looked at my camera sat on the camera dock and thought about taking it with me. I thought better of it, boy am I mad now. On the way down I saw a huge hawk (coopers I think) sat on a bare tree limb by the side of the road, a flock of canada geese and chicks swimming on a mirror-like pond and three vultures feasting on the body of a bear by the side of the road (gruesome I know but not all nature photos are pretty). On the way back I saw a Blue Heron hunting in the drainage ditch, a field of tobacco plants in full bloom (an increasingly rare sight around here these days), and twin foals nuzzling their mum in the sunset. I am fizzing at my stupidity for not taking my camera along. Sure the trip would have taken alot longer but I can just envisage those shots in my head now and I am angry at myself that they are only in my head and not in my camera. Oh well, as a consolation I took some nice shots of my daylilies today, hope you like them.






PS) There may be more rants than usual in the next couple of weeks, I am giving up smoking so I am going to be a grumpy bear for a while. Apologies in advance.

I had not realized, until just recently, how my emotional wellbeing is linked to the wellbeing of my garden. This week particularly, with the thunderstorms in the evening I have not been able to get outside and check out the state of my garden in the evening as is my usual routine. I was getting quite down (that and dealing with the side effects of menopause as stated earlier). This evening there was no rain so I poured myself half a glass of wine and wandered out there to check things out. My gardens are looking lovely, but it was the critter activity that brought most joy to my heart. I knelt down by the pond to see if any more dragonflies had hatched today (it is a daily event now) and noticed that the toad/frog spawn that had been laid in the pond (there were two types at the time, obviously different sizes) in any event whichever they are something had hatched and now my pond is alive with tiny tadpoles, busily eating the algae in there (which is precisely why I had not removed it). As part of my wanderings I passed by the bed at the end of my patio and after seven nights watchings (apologies to Shakespere) at LAST in a "if you build it they will come" moment the black swallowtails have meticulously laid eggs on my bronze fennel in that bed. The fascinating thing is that they have not laid the eggs higgedly piggedly, but have carefully placed them on various parts of the fennel so that their caterpillars do not have to compete for food with their kin. I am overjoyed, and this evening my heart is lighter than it has been for many weeks. I cannot wait for the eggs to hatch and soon I will have fat and happy black and yellow caterpillars eating the fennel to nubs.... is it not a sorry gardener that just PRAYS for bugs to eat their plants? Here is a shot of the caterpillars from last year, perhaps with this you can understand why I am so excited to see the eggs.

I have to tell you (and it is probably more information than you want to know) but these hot flashes (or flushes as we call them in the UK) are just getting old. I mean really old. I wake up in the middle of the night sweating and impossibly hot so I throw off the covers and try to cool down, then I am cold, so I pull the covers back over me, then I get hot and throw off the covers, ad infinitum for the rest of the night. I am figuring that I am getting about two hours sleep a night when you throw the waking up cause I am hot and then waking up cause I am cold scenarios into the mix. This is not good when I have to go into an insane law office in the morning and pull a nine-hour, speaking to clients who are pissed off about something, dealing with the assistant DAs, dealing with opposing counsel, filing lawsuits, meeting deadlines and generally running the office days. Not to mention dealing with DHs medical problems at the moment. I would just ask that it be done with, okay if I am going to go through menopause then let it be quick, like over tomorrow, as it is I am sitting here at the computer in an air conditioned house with the ceiling fan going full blast and I am STILL sweating. Sheesh, enough already.

Flap flap flap, its hot in here....

Went to Myrtle Beach last night to the House of Blues to see Big Bad Voodoo Daddy. It was a good show but I resent the doors opening at 8pm and the main act (BBVD) not appearing until 10pm. Nevertheless it was a great show and of course my husband adored it, as it was his main treat. Played two rounds of silly golf this morning (it would not be a trip to Myrtle Beach without at least ONE round of silly golf but it was 90 odd degrees by 11:30 am so we decided it would be unwise to play more.) When we finally got home I spent some time out in the garden looking at what had bloomed over the past couple of days (it has been raining in the evenings when I have got home from work so no nightly turn around the garden). My zinnia in the "accidental bed" have begun to bloom, much to my delight, and I am now going to be taking pictures of them daily. I am not sure if you are aware but a Zinnia bloom evolves in the most amazing way. First it opens its main set of petals and sits for a day or two, next a layer of "flowerettes" (usually yellow) appear on the very base of the main large petals, then another layer of "flowerettes" appear ad in finitum. I took a series of shots last year documenting this wonderful journey and I shall look them out and post them here at one point. As it is, this one bloomed while I was gone, and in a strike out for independence decided to let its first "flowerette" bloom too. I saw it today and realized how pretty it looked, like a pretty girl with a flower tucked behind her ear.



while I was wandering around the garden I noticed that a dragonfly had found himself some lunch and was on the grape leaves and busily eating it. It is amazing, if you look, how much life is going on around you. I have had tons of dragonflies emerge from the pond this year and the air is thick with them. They are such a joy to watch, and are such voracious predators, mosquitoes stand no chance in my garden, thank goodness.