Drought

We took a long walk this morning on the trails above Chatauqua Park. Early in the morning (7:30 AM) it was already hot outside. It was a pretty depressing walk, because everything was pretty crispy crunchy from the drought and heat. Oregon grapes were thin on the plants. Sulfur flower blooms were crisp to the touch. The grass was sere. The prickly pear plants were shriveled with tiny or skinny fruit. Very sad.

As we were walking back down Mesa Trail, we crossed one of the small creeks, which today was pretty much just puddles. There was a loud buzzing in the air, and I thought: "Oh, there are bees!) But as we walked past, I saw that there were thousands of wasps, hovering over the small pools of water in the rocks, and flying all about. Needless to say, we hastened on down the trail.

Tomorrow we walk up Boulder Creek. Hopefully it won't be so sad.

Blooming Asteraceae

While you are wandering around in the fields of flowers, take a look at how composites bloom. Some have blooms that open up, as you expect, and others have their blooms just sort of grow out from the stem. Echinacea, Mexican Hat, Indian Blanket do the growing on the end of the stem bit, Scotch thistle does the bud to bloom thing...Interesting

Vegetable garden and those earwigs

We started a vegetable garden and had severe earwig issues. I will take a photo of what these lovely critters do to corn, so you can understand our frustration. I think this year we will have corn about 3 feet high at best...but it is setting ears, finally.

You don't really expect to have to battle so strenuously when you do home gardening. It is even more difficult when you are trying to do it all without petroleum based pesticides, and organically.

It is really hard sometimes to be PC

Fireblight--Boulder CO

The last three years I have seen a lot of fireblight on the wild plums and chokecherries, although it doesn't seem to affect my (very wormy) ancient apple trees. It did kill a pear tree we had in the back yard about 5 years ago.

Intrusion of the blue jays in Boulder, CO

Much to my surprise this past week, there have been several blue jays (Cyanocitta cristata) hanging around our home. I haven't seen them in Colorado before, although I understand that they sometimes stray this far. I think they have set up nests in our nearby trees, and will be watching to see what happens.