It may be very hot here, but nothing like the whole west burning down.  One way or another, humans will find a way to take out our planet, and themselves with it.

As mentioned, it’s hot out, but Misu and I are chilling inside, watching hummers work the flowers, and waiting for rain.  There are worse ways to spend the quarantine, such as spreading the virus.

9/11.  If we could have known then, what we know now…we thought that was about as catastrophic as it gets.  Who knew.

Appropriately, it was grocery restock day, once an ordinary, mundane activity, now fraught with apprehension and death.  Most people were masked and distancing; predictably, the one person who wasn’t was the one acting rude and defensive, like, how dare everyone show her up for what she was.

We have our routine strategy down, with all precautions in place; yet it still causes me the same anxiety each time, knowing just a random encounter could kill.  Death by shopping, what a pathetic epitaph!  So far we’re still around.

Between that mentally exhausting exercise and the travesty that is trump, I could only take a few photos, but quantity isn’t everything!

The good weather and work continue.  No chance of flowers going away any time soon.  The rainbow-colored morning glories especially are in their prime, intertwined with the wild grapes along the back fence.  Hummers are still humming away among the zinnias, though no luck yet sneaking up on them.

To look out there, you’d never guess there’s a world full of dying people all around us, and the next routine shopping trip could be our last.  That’s true any time, but with a much higher probability now.  I try not to think about it too much, just armor up and limit our exposure.  And get ready to vote the demented criminal out.

I guess it’s the dry season after all…for now.  One never knows.  When you have Colorado going from 100°  to snowing in one day, who can tell anymore?  I’ll take these warm, sunny days any day.

We seem to be in a gold and orange flower scheme right now.  Witness all these warm colors (with touches of cool)!  The bees blend right in.

I have a reluctant confession to make: the ravens may be–cravens!  That is, they may be crows posing as ravens.  (Haha, I bet you thought I was referring to imposters posing as leaders!)

Today I learned that, just as we humans have northern or southern accents, some crows have a regional “accent” that can make them sound just like ravens, with the deep-throated croaks, and so on.  Weird, huh?  The two species don’t tend to interbreed, though it’s possible in isolated cases, not groups.  They do have many characteristics in common, just on a smaller scale in the crows’ case, though some of these guys are pretty large and imposing.  I’m not ready to concede defeat yet, so I shall call them cravens for now.  I want to believe!

Syke–this is not a post about ravens, I just needed to get that out.  And now back to more earthbound pursuits.  The landscape maintenance goes on during these warm, dry days.  No danger of running out of tasks, though.  Or cool bugs, flowers, and fungi/lichens to photograph.  Check out the bee I caught in mid-flight!

Warm, dry, sunny days continue…as does the garden work.  Little by little, the blank slate is becoming more parklike and nature-friendly.

Ultimately, I’d like to surround the perimeter with evergreens and shade trees, so in every direction you’d eventually just see a green screen, with grass paths through flowery natural environment areas.  I won’t live to see it mature, but that’s the general idea, anyway.

Here are some flatbreads E made to go with my Indian meal.  Misu says, y’all go right ahead and slave away, while I supervise.

This dry, sunny weather seems to be holding, so we were able to get the weed fields (lawn) mowed, and I’m proceeding with my various projects.

The beauty of garden therapy is, I’ll never run out of things to do or money to do it with.  Nature does most of the work, and I just assist.  Bonus points for all the natural exercise and breathing that comes with it.

Here are some more pretty flowers doing fine without my help.

Just to be different, the weather was pleasant today–80s, sunny, dry, and breezy.  I’m so used to everything being abnormal, from climate change to a deadly pandemic to a terrorist for president, that I hardly know what to think.  So here are more random pretty pictures, including a raven in E’s tree.

The new TN dry season seems to be intermittent strong t-storms featuring inches of rain, and molten sun with dripping humidity.  At this rate our zone will soon become tropical.  Not quite my preference for gardening (or climate sustainability, for that matter), but hey, I’ll take it, or more accurately, the plants will.  I rarely have to water them.

Now, if I could only grow citrus, bougainvillea, and tropicals year-round, that would be cool.  If I live long enough, the entire southern coast will be submerged, and we’ll no longer be landlocked.  It could happen.

Lots of pollinators are busy at work out in the sauna, including a black type of swallowtail.  I’m still learning the differences between species.  So much to learn, so little time.

Today (in between rains) I got some more trees marked off in the “prairie”.  New saplings keep appearing each time I go exploring.  It’s a regular nursery out there.  Maybe an arboretum eventually.

This is what the veg garden has become–a volunteer flower garden!  All these marigolds and others came up on their own and took over.  Here and there some actual veggies can be found.

Here’s another view of the “California rock garden”, one of hundreds of morning glories on the fence, and Misu in her accustomed position next to me, keeping a lookout for critters.  (See what I did there?)  😉