Mourning Hotlips

Our big white fish with red lips, Hotlips, is gone from the pond.  We came back from our vacation to find that sometime during the week something got to him and removed him from the pond.  I searched carefully when we got back and more thoroughly when I was working in the pond over the weekend, trimming the waterlilies.  So, we no longer have our gentle white fishie.   So sad.   And, of course, since we don’t know what got him, we don’t know how much in danger the rest of the fish are.  I’m keeping a careful watch and trying to make several appearances at pond side each day discouraging the local hawk if that’s what it was.  However, I cannot stay outside all night, so the fish are pretty much on their own then.   The photo below is the remaining four “big guys” and the little ones are in there too.   Hubby gave me a new camera for my birthday, so as soon as the battery was charged, I went straight out to the pond to capture some fish and frog photos.  Unfortunately, it’s about to rain so the light is kind of dim.  Frog photos to come soon — we’ve had a population explosion and can find at least 5 small/young frogs at the pond.

Fish in the lilies

New “kid” on the pond

It looks like at least one of the tadpoles escaped the hungry mouths of the fish while it was in the pond and we now have a new young frog on the pond.  She is small enough to actually sit on a lily pad — how froglike!  (The adults, Phinneas, a.k.a. Gurk, and Phyllis are too big and would sink the lily pads if they tried to sit on ithem).  She is quite “jumpy” and not nearly as tame as the two adult frogs.  If you go anywhere near her, she leaps up into the air and lands in the pond with a big splash.  But, I managed to git a little close to her today with the camera for this photo.   Welcome — no name yet  — “froggie”.

Welcome new froggie

It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood

It’s a beautiful day today here in Connecticut. These are the summer days the our area is famous for. Warm and sunny, not too hot, not too cold — as Goldilocks would say, “Just right!”. We parked the car in a lot in town and walked to and from church today and after lunch at a local cafe (out on their deck) we decided to spend some time beside our pond. The fish seemed to enjoy our being out there as they swam around near the surface of the pond biting at the bubbles that were floating around on top from the waterfall. There are several plants blooming right now so the camera came out and I photographed one of the floating water hyacinths and caught a few of the fish near the top. If you look carefully at the photo with the fish, you can see at least one small orange one — this year’s crop of baby fish. He seems to be a daredevil, spending most of his time right in front of the skimmer that contains the pump. The water is moving pretty good there and I am concerned he will be sucked in — but he is not afraid. How do I come up with these fish names?—- well this guy has just been named “Evel Knievel” but we’ll probably just call him “EK” for short.

Water hyacinthFish with this year\'s crop

Wrens

You know your deck needs repair when a Carolina wren pair build a nest and raise five babies in one of the support beams.   About a month ago, I was astounded to find a male Carolina wren trying to build a nest in a support beam of our upper deck.  He stuffed the cavity in the beam full of “nest” and then sat on a plant post or my flag pole and sang and sang his song trying to attract a mate.

Caroline Wren

The next thing I knew, I saw him bringing food to another wren that was sitting on the nest.  Then a few days later, both adult wrens were busily bringing worms, bugs, moths etc. to the cavity in the beam.   And from that cavity you could hear the high-pitched chirping of what turned out to be five baby Carolina wrens.   The adults’ songs were beautiful and became more and more loud as they brought food, but sat away from the nest and sang before they brought the food to the nest.  In the photos below you can see an adult with what looks like a spider and the babies being fed.  The older and bigger the babies became, the longer the adults sang before they brought the food.

Dinner\'s ready

Dinner is servedOn the day I took all these photos (July 17) the adults really seemed to be trying to coax the babies off the nest as they brought food but sat away and sang and chirped a very long time before actually taking the offering up to the nest.  I was up early and in my office and didn’t check on the nest until 10 am today — and all the baby birds have fledged.  And I missed it!    The nest was only a few feet outside my patio door and I’m not sure the adults would have fledged the babies if I had been there so close, so perhaps it was a good thing I was down in my office below.  But now the deck is so quiet — no activity and no wren-song right outside my door.

Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!

Gardening, particularly working in flower gardens is one of my favorite things.  For some reason I am a bit behind in getting everything planted and am now putting annual flowering plants here and there where the property needs a bit of color.  Last Sunday, Hubby and I took the garden tractor and wagon down to the bottom of the drive and worked on the very steep flower bed there.  I planted some impatiens and hubby did some bush trimming around the mail1313box.  All-in-all a much improved driveway entrance.  We don’t really own the property down there, just have an easement for the drive, but no one else does anything, so we try to keep it looking nice.   We came back up to the top of the drive and started each working on his/her own projects.  I decided that the old wheel barrow at the bend in the driveway needed to have some plants put in it and started digging up the soil.  Apparently a yellow jacket had made his home there and was none too happy to have me rooting around in it.  He buzzed around and I swatted at him and this battle went on for a bit and he eventually flew away.  But, apparently, not too far, as suddenly he swooped in from somewhere, landed on my right hand, and stung me through a very tough gardening glove.   Ouch! — or some such utterance!  I took some benadryl immediately and went back to work with hubby instructed to watch for any weird symptoms showing on me and to listen for further calls of help.  Well, it’s Wednesday and my hand is still swollen and when I use it, gets even more so.   It’s a constant battle with Mother Nature around here.

4th of July

Yes, it looks like the 4th of July!

Oooooh --- aahhhhh

Ooohhhhhh !      Aahhhhhhhhh!

Pretty!

A palm tree . . . . . . . . .

Palm tree

A chrysanthemum . . . . .

Flower

Happy 4th of July to you all!

Yikes!

Oh, the “joys” of being an outdoors person in Connecticut. When hubby got up yesterday morning, he found four (yes 4) deer ticks on his legs. All had been there a while as he noticed them due to the red itchy spots. If the biting ticks had not been surrounded by areas of red-inflamed skin they would not have been visible — they are so tiny. People often use the size like a poppy seed analogy but, I tell you, these are way smaller than any poppy seeds I have ever seen. Hard to believe that they were a live insect, let alone big enough to carry a disease like Lyme. So, the watch continues for reactions to the bites that will send hubby to the doctor for antibiotics.

Lime season, er…… Lyme season

So — it’s finally summertime in Connecticut. I bought fresh limes at the grocery store so hubby could make us some of his excellent margaritas. Well, he hasn’t had a chance to take us into lime season yet but, as of Monday, we are officially in Lyme season. Hubby has had Lyme disease (illness carried by deer tics and transferred with their bite) twice since we moved to Connecticut 8 years ago and now he has found a deer tic embedded in the fold of skin next to his pinkie finger. So, we are on the watch for the telltale red ring-shaped rash and other symptoms. Supposedly they appear in about 2 weeks. “Why might he have found a deer tic on his body?”, you ask. For the answer to that see my post from June 23 titled “Gardening challenge # 1”.

So — it’s finally summer here in Connecticut with all the good, and bad, things it brings.

Gardening challenge # 1

Hubby and I worked hard in our pond, yard and garden on Saturday and were enjoying a relaxing Sunday afternoon being “trapped” inside by thunder and lightning storms in the area.  I was sitting in my favorite chair by the east windows in our living room, reading and watching TV, when something moving outside those windows caught my attention.   One of this year’s fawns was approaching a flower bed by my patio where I grow the plants and flowers that “deer don’t eat”.   What I have discovered is that the fawns don’t know what deer don’t eat and must taste and try everything at least once.  This spring I have found tops eaten off of plants that deer have never touched before.  I had found the outside edges of this plant munched on earlier this week and asked hubby to spray the area with Bobex (a horrible smelling liquid that deters deer from eating the plants you spray it on).  It was amusing to watch this fawn start to nibble on this plant and then sort of spit and stick out his tongue.  You could almost read his thoughts —- “this plant tasted much better on Thursday!”.

Fawn munching on Penstemon, Husker Red

I ran and got my camera — and this photo’s poor quality is due to the fact that I was photographing the fawn through a not-so-clean window.   And no, I did not zoom this photo — that’s how close he was to the house.  His nose has just been pulled back from the funny smelling plant and he seems to be staring at it accusingly.  So, perhaps now he knows this is one of the plants that deer don’t eat.

And on the other side of the house the fish in our pond were in what I called before “crazy fish” mode.  Swimming in circles, darting around the plants and through the falls, and swimming about as fast as I think they probably can swim.   We do have a hatch of very tiny, almost invisible, fish in the pond from an earlier spawning and if hubby is correct in that this circular swimming and chasing of one fish in particular is spawning behavior — well, there are more to come.

Crazy fish II

Reflections

It’s a beautiful day here in Connecticut and the call of the wren by his nest and the rush of the water over the falls into our pond drew me outside.  I found that the fish were having a good time playing tag, so I brought the camera out and tried to capture them.   They were swimming so fast that it was not an easy task, but I eventually caught all five of them in one shot and mostly in focus.  Thank goodness for digital photography where you can just delete the bad and out-of-focus pictures.  I’m not positive about the identification, but I think from left to right they are — Hoover, Half and Half, Lady, Hot Lips (white one in front), and Junior.

fish June 19, 2008

And as I was trying to catch the fish near the surface I accidentally took a beautiful picture of the blooming water hyacinths.  The reflection of the lavender flowers in the dark water is almost prettier than the flowers themselves.  One of the fish just disappears into the ripples from the waterfall on the left.

Reflections

Yes — it’s a beautiful day to be out here with all this.