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Summer 2015

bee and flowers

Due to my pottery making addiction taking up so much of my time these past couple years, I don't spend as much time with a camera in hand. Though I have managed to get out with my camera a few times. While mostly birds, bees, and plants, these are some scenes from this summer.

bee and flowers bee and flowers bee and flowers hummingbird hummingbird

I spent some time chasing hummingbirds around this gorgeous bottle bush, watching them enjoy it before it was cut down the next day. The trunk was angled and growing into the area that is planned for a "shed" (future home of Rick's music studio). I allowed the suckers at it's base to remain and have since selected one to cultivate into a new tree, with support to keep it going in an vertical dimension and not lean over into construction zone.

hummingbird swallowtail butterfly and butterfly bush swallowtail butterfly and butterfly bush swallowtail butterfly and butterfly bush agave flower agave flower

While agave plants flower only once after many years, even decades, and put so much energy into the flower stalk that it shrinks and shrivels the leaves, and kills the plant...
there are always lizards sunning at my folks house in Potter Valley.

lizard lizard radish flowers artichoke flower

We had some new "pests" in the garden this year, though I did not expect to see any as large as the two deer that repeatedly visited us until we managed to barricade their access from the creek. They had done some grazing of our fruit trees, mostly apples (which we could easily spare) but also plums from our young multi-graft tree, and most worrisome, they had stripped the leaves and tops of my baby bi-graft apple trees.

It was exciting to discover the deer in my garden several times and felt like a bit of magic or a symbol of the abundance I've been blessed with. It's contrary to growing food in such a small space to have them around, but it's also a little sad to me to have to keep them out.

deer

The photo above is of a buck with a few points on his rack, though unfortunately hidden in the photo. Below is the younger buck who was even shyer and never came as close to the house, he's hiding behind the chicken coop, probably having just eaten my one nectarine fruit off a graft from last year.

deer tomato horn worm

Although I haven't seen these incredible creatures since my childhood garden, when I saw some tomato plants stripped of leaves along with poops that looked like berry clusters, I knew immediately what I needed to look for. I also knew it would be difficult to find camouflaged in the tomato foliage. After some long staring at all the green leaves and stems, my pattern recognition system finally spotted one, and then another.

tomato horn worm

We also had an egret visit for a bit.

egret egret

Our one little trip this year was a weekend in Nevada City and Yuba River. This is the covered bridge, known to be the longest single-span covered bridge in the world.

yuba river covered bridge

agave (3), bee (5), birds (32), bridge (8), butterfly (5), creatures (54), deer (1), egret (2), flower (3), garden (30), hummingbirds (2), lizards (5), potter-valley (66), river (1), summer (2), worms (2)

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