I took only a couple of photos, but I saw lots; it was a good day for flutter-guy watching.

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail

Spicebush Swallowtail, battle-scarred but still beautiful.

I also saw a couple of Monarchs, Red-Spotted Purple, Cloudless Sulphur, Orange Sulfur, Common Buckeye, Northern Crescent (or Pearl…can’t keep those two straight), Silver-spotted Skipper, and a cute little Eastern Tailed-blue.

I harvested cosmos seeds, and kept finding spiders in the seed container. I almost grabbed this lovely (nearly patternless) nursery web spider before I realized there was a very good reason I had spiders in the seed container…that’s great camouflage!

Well, I don’t know how “smooth”, but..

Yesterday, on my way back from the bank at lunch, I noticed a stand of tall yellow flowers growing in an unused lot on the corner. I turned around, stopped and walked over to look because I thought they might be cup plant. Anyway, I mentioned them to B when I got back to the office, and he didn’t know who owned the lot, but suggested MyGIS. It was on there, indeed, owned by some kind of holding company or something. I was going to try to find someone to ask about taking some of the plants, but B said that if they’re just weeds anyway (and they are), no one would care or probably even notice if I went early on a Saturday morning…so that’s exactly what I did! I left a little before 8:00AM, and B was mostly right; almost no one noticed. One guy who lives across the street did come over to see what I was doing because he was thinking maybe someone had pot plants there or something, but I told him it was a “roadside weed project”, and that the plants I was collecting were Symphyotrichum, Solidago, and Silphium (the Silphium was a lie because they weren’t cup plant after all and I didn’t know what they actually were), and we chatted for a few minutes, and he left. I packed up the yellow flowers, some goldenrod, and some frost aster in HK, and headed for home. My life of crime; purloined roadside weeds. 🙂

Pre-wilted. Since I wasn’t sure what they were, I took some photos and sent them off to the experts at FlowerChecker. In a matter of hours, I had an ID…Jerusalem artichoke. They look like sunflowers because they are, but they’re not Helianthis annuus, they’re Helianthus tuberosus, and a perennial. The tubers are apparently edible, but I have no intention of eating them; I want them because butterflies and bees like them, and finches and other little songbirds like to eat the seeds.

A bit wilted, but that’s to be expected, and hopefully, I won’t have to cut them back. I will if I must, but I’m going to try to make sure that they get lots of water (and it even rained today), and maybe I can get them rooted enough that they’ll manage. I read that they can be rather aggressive, and I didn’t want them taking over any of my flowerbeds, so I put them over by the other “thug”; trumpet creeper. They can fight it out.

I didn’t see these on Friday–just the Helianthus and the goldenrod–but I wanted some when I saw them. They’re the weediest of the native asters, but they’re also one of the latest…frost asters. I like them anyway; I don’t care if they’re a bit weedy. I put some over by the boneset along the creek, and a few more in the teardrop bed. I’ll try keeping the ones in the bed trimmed and see whether that makes them a bit more “tailored”.

Just a few little flowers, and hopefully, they’ll get rooted quickly enough that I’ll have a few blooms. Maybe not, but the beautiful thing about native weeds is that they’re tough to kill.

I just put the goldenrod in a couple of spots along with the boneset. IME, goldenrod is pretty tough and spreads quickly, so I didn’t put it too near a flowerbed.

I also got the Allegheny spurge planted. Doesn’t look like much, but hopefully, the soil isn’t too dense, and the plants will do well. I didn’t get the alumroot moved, though; maybe tomorrow.

That’s all the newly planted stuff, but there’s still new stuff. Sneezeweed is busy making some flowers for me.

Zinnia kind of took over the fence, but wherever there was room, the scarlet pumpernickel did well.

Miscellaneous morning glory. God, these things are beautiful, which makes them worth fighting Charlotte and tortoise beetles for them.

EDIT: I dug around in the container of dead leaves tonight, and I found my little dude! His cocoon is barely visible, but I know he’s in there, and I can’t wait to meet him in his new form!

I didn’t plant it yesterday because I was too damned tired after work, so I just stuck it in a bucket with some dirt. It doesn’t look like much because it’s just roots, but hopefully, it will by spring.

Cup plants aren’t very tall, but they have flowers! I found some in an unused lot near work yesterday; I don’t know whether to get them or not. It’s not as if the holding company that owns the land will care about a few roadside weeds, but…I dunno. There’s a goldenrod plant right beside the cup plants that I wouldn’t mind having as well. Anyway, for now, I have these.

I bought lots of asters, but these are still the prettiest because I grew them from seeds.

I was moving stuff off the back patio in preparation for power washing the siding, windows and the concrete because I’d got some power washer detergent at lunchtime  (yellow for concrete, red for siding, and blue for automotive). In behind the concrete “Welcome” thing that I intend to repaint with our name someday, I found a friend. I’d found his poop last weekend, but couldn’t find him. He’s quite pink, so I’d say he came down, looking for a nice place to pupate, but all he found was a concrete patio. I made him a little bed of dry leaves in a plastic container. I hope he makes it; I can’t remember the last time I saw a Luna that wasn’t battered and faded, but this one will be brand new!

I gave my pressure washer a test run after work yesterday, which made me very late in changing the MLB feeders, but whatever–they got done. Anyway, that little machine is awesome! I washed the bird feeders, the bistro table, the bird water dishes, the siding in the corner, and several patio blocks.

The rain made the Babbling Brook nicer by rinsing dust off the rocks, into the pond, which made a fine layer of silty stuff on the bottom. Much more natural than a black EPDM liner!

Random pond picture because…because.

I went to Buchheit at lunch to get more asters. Good thing I did; there were only two Believer purple left (got those), and maybe ten Hazy dark pink (I got five of those). I wanted to buy everything they had left, but I don’t have anywhere prepared to put them, and can’t really afford the ones I got, let alone five more. Anyway, here’s Hazy Dark Pink. A little taller than Believer’s 12″ because these grow 18-20, but I love the colour! I hope they survive the winter; they’re supposed to be good to Zone 4, but need good drainage. For now, they’re sitting in pots in the Bistro.

So technically not Bistro-related, but there are flowers involved, and it’s my birthday, so I’ll do whatever I want! 🙂

First present was flowers from Fireball and Cranberry Crush.

Second present was more flowers, from Buchheit. Asters! These are Believer Purple, and I may go back tomorrow because they have pink asters, too. Might even need more purple.

After work, I got another present–RAIN! Not enough yet, but it rained quite steadily, and the temperature is going to drop to mid-80s. I’ll take it!

P had given me a card with five dollars in it (inside joke) this morning, and the SF left me presents, but he came home with landscape foam, silicone, and…a pressure washer! I wanted to buy one of these for myself (C has one and really likes it), but my money kept going elsewhere, so I never did. I have one now, though, and I’m going to wash all the things! I’m actually looking forward to it.

Also…cake! Cake with the fluffy frosting that isn’t nauseatingly sweet. Yep, I’m 29…again!

For a day with such a name, I actually did very little labour! I did do the laundry, though; that’s something. My Monarch in the potted morning glory did a lot more work…he got borned! Another beautiful boy.

I brought the Spicebush Doot-doots inside, though I need to get the picture of the chrysalis off my camera. The last guy is a J.

Random morning glories. Pretty.

A Mammoth Russian, but planted very late in poor soil and so-so light, and not mammoth at all. Still pretty.

I’ll be surprised if this guy (or girl) doesn’t have the same birthday as I do.

The water flow is pretty much where I want it–more babbling brook than waterfall–but the stubborn leak on the north side is still there. Not as bad, but still there. Sigh. Anyway, I watered my houseplants today, and some of the vines needed trimming, so I put them in the pool. They may or may not be happy there, and I’ll probably rearrange them when it’s not a million fucking degrees, but they’d just have been thrown out anyway.

In birthday news, it’s a boy! Scraw Flutter-guy eclosed today. I didn’t expect him until tomorrow, but he didn’t care what I expected.

Once he started to get fluttery, I took him out and put him in a flutter-guy bush.

This is the guy on the cable up on the house. I’m expecting him tomorrow, maybe Tuesday.

One of my remaining two Spicebush Doot-doots made a chrysalis that looks exactly like a dead leaf, but I didn’t take a picture because I was going to bring him inside, and then the Monarch eclosed, so I forgot. I’m a bad flutter-guy mama. I’ll get him tomorrow.

This is proof that I can work all day in extreme heat and end up with sore calves from balancing on waterfall rocks…and have it look like I did nothing at all.

I had to pull up a bunch of rocks in the waterfall to chase leaks. I dried the crevices with a hair dryer and a small fan, then cleaned out trapp and debris with a spoon (yes) and P’s little shop vac. I used a can of landscape foam and two tubes of silicone caulking, and it still looks the same. I’m sure there will be more leaks to chase, but I’m going to give it another test today. Argh.

For the record, they’re not kidding when they call this “expanding foam”. I put this rock on after the foam had expanded, but it was obviously not finished.

The pond was all I did yesterday, but one of my Spicebush Doot-doots was busy, being an upside-down J.

“The path of my life is strewn with cow pats from the devil’s own satanic herd!”  -Lord Edmund Blackadder

I started early yesterday morning and had the rock sorted by about 0930h. Not many big pieces in this lot, but I really didn’t need big ones to finish.

It was a hot, sweaty, late afternoon by the time I got all of the rock in place, and four cans of landscape foam (had already used one). I didn’t get any on the clothes I didn’t care about, but I did get some on my leg, and even a little in my hair! Probably from wiping sweat off my forehead with gloves on. Speaking of gloves, I wore holes in the fingers of a pair of bright pink gardening gloves. I don’t think they were meant for rock work.

At 1630h, the foam was set, and I could do a test. I hooked up the garden hose, and turned it on. Fuck. Leaks. One significant, and one I otherwise could have ignored. Bollocks. I decided to fill the pond anyway because I have to stand in the waterfall to fix the leaks anyway. The waterfall pool did fill, so it wasn’t as bad as last time.

After the pond filled and I discovered that the end needs to be built up a couple of inches (fuck), I decided to test the pump. Good thing I did, because it’s a lot more powerful than our water pressure, and I found another small leak. I still let it run for a while, just because it was pretty to watch.

I’m not at all looking forward to pulling stuff apart and fixing the leaks today, but I don’t have much of a choice. The low spot may or may not get built up this year; it doesn’t affect the function, only the appearance, and I’m going to need another skid of rock next spring to fill in the weird edges around the waterfall sides anyway. Sigh. Well, at least it has water in it.

Here are some fall crocus. They made me feel slightly better.