Yard work!

 

 First, a non-critter tale. Poor JB had the dropsies last week. He broke two dishes. One was a spoon rest. He ordered a new one from Amazon. It arrived. The box was empty! How weird is that?!

Amazon was no help. He phoned Mikasa. They wanted details of his order, date, order #, etc., which I screen captured for him and sent it in reply. 

Mikasa got back to us the next day and we got our replacement in a week!

LDD moths

I spent some time with my spruce tree. Beginning with the heavy sheers, that was a failure, back to the garage. I tried the long heavy lopers, but they were too heavy and useless, even after sharpening them. 

I tried my dad's old hedge clippers, stopping to sharpen THEM, not strong enough. Finally, I used the long-handled grass clippers. 

Before and after:

The moths are mating, and while I can't scrape eggs off of all the trees on our 16 acres, I could do some. 

After the caterpillar stage, they pupate and change into male and female moths. The females are whiter, and don't fly. The males are a dirty beige colour. 

The females are laying eggs in the crook under the tree branch. Also, on the underside of my spruce. It was awful, really. I fetched some soapy water and scrape it all into the can.

I spotted a monarch chrysalis under a branch of the spruce. Then, I lost it. I kept clipping, and found it again. By now my legs were pretty sore, up and down the ladder. 

Out and about

I saw a cicada on the lower deck. Once, I snapped a photo of a pair mating!

Also, the wood frogs are out of the pond and in the woods.

The goldfish pond now has two green frogs. There are three water lilies, as well. I am so pleased. I even counted all 5 fishies.