Anybody Seen Spring?

Yesterday as I was driving down Gallows Road the car thermometer indicated 102 degrees. That's not far off what the actual temperature was- it hit 98 yesterday. Today is a bit more moderate- humidity is down and we actually have the windows open. Spring seems to have vanished. We had a new deck put in during some rainy weather, and some areas of the yard turned into a mudhole. A little first aid to some of the spots has been necessary. Of course, right after the deck was put in we've transitioned to near-drought conditions. A lot of the rainstorms have gone right around us, so I've been doing some watering, especially for the tomatoes.

The Hairy Woodpeckers that were visiting the suet feeder regularly didn't appear to like the construction, and haven't been back since. Visits to the feeder have slowed down- I'm assuming that there's more food available elsewhere. On the other hand, there's a Mourning Dove nest next to the house in an evergreen next to the heat pump with a dove sitting on it. Catbirds are still regular visitors to the yard- even if you can't see them their odd calls still resonate in the bushes. I suspect they like the Forsythia for the dense cover it provides.

The pond got cleaned out last week- you couldn't see the bottom due to algae growth and the leaves and other debris (oak flowers among other things). As the Cattails are now well over six feet tall they're competing with the algae for nutrients and the algae is losing, so the water is going to stay clearer. While I had the pond drained I took inventory of the fish in it- we still have the big white Koi, two Goldfish (one big, one small- something got the other bigger Goldfish) and four or five Green Sunfish, which have picked up a good bit of size. They were put in the pond to control the Goldfish population. It's amusing to throw worms into the pond- sometimes the Goldfish get them, but most of the time there's a flash of a sunfish darting out from cover and inhaling the worm. We put three Water Hyacinth plants in the pond recently and one (seen above) has bloomed. When it gets warmer in July and August the Water Hyacinth will grow so fast it will cover the entire pond if we don't keep hauling bunches of it out and throwing it in the compost pile. Damselflies of at least two species have reappeared in and around the pond, and one female Blue Dasher Dragonfly has put in an appearance. Last week as we came home there was an Ebony Jewelwing (see above) flitting through the front yard- they're occasional visitors.

On the land side, the Joe Pye Weed is now up to about six feet. Two years ago when I planted this it only reached about four feet, so I thought it was a dwarf version. I came back from Iowa last year in July and it was at least eight feet tall, covered with pink flower heads, and had at least twenty Tiger Swallowtails feeding on it. I've also succeeded in raising two additional milkweeds from seed- Indian and Eastern Purple, so if the seedlings survive there will be additional attractions for the Monarchs.

By the way, if you click on the photos above you get a bigger version.