Introducing Penelope Passport.  Happiest I've seen Mrs. Boss in quite a while. 

 

 

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14 minutes ago, forty_caliber said:

Introducing Penelope Passport.  Happiest I've seen Mrs. Boss in quite a while. 

 

 

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NIce!

My wife has been driving Hondas forever. Saved her life more than once.

31 minutes ago, lew said:

NIce! My wife has been driving Hondas forever. Saved her life more than once.

This is our 3rd Honda in a row.  Love my Ridgeline, traded in her Pilot to buy this one.  She wanted something a little smaller but not tiny. 

 

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20 hours ago, DuckSoup said:

 So, we went to the blue box store looking for a storm door but the one we liked they did not have. On the way out we checked the clearance rack in the garden center & I convinced her that these 5 plants needed saving, I'll put them out by the garage after painting.

 

They are safer in your hands than mine.  Until I started some Texas Mountain Laurel seeds this year, I would have confidently said that I can't even grow fungus!

 

Those Mountain Laurels seem pretty bullet proof once they sprout.  Happy in 95 degree full sun, happy with the hard water we have here, and even happy enough to be kept inside while young (put a couple outside in an fenced area next to the garage, and the mice started digging around in them).  I'm hoping to have 5 to put in the ground next year.  Not bad for a dunce with 22 seeds  

1 hour ago, JWD said:

Texas Mountain Laurel

 

Won't grow "Two Weeks From Anywhere" but I can grow a good crop of wildflower/weeds! 

Yeah, they will barely grow here, but the neighbor has one and that reminded me.  There were some in big pots outside the downtown library when I lived in Tucson, worth a trip just to smell them in April.  My wife at the time worked in the county building next door, so that was the month I really liked meeting her for lunch.

 

I don't take any credit for my weeds   Figure they are volunteers and I will mostly leave them be!  I used to pull up loco weed when I had a couple milk cows but that's about the only one.

1 hour ago, JWD said:

I don't take any credit for my weeds   Figure they are volunteers and I will mostly leave them be!

 

I did the "No Mow May" thing and moved several species of "volunteers" to our "Wildflower Weed Sanctuary" as I identified what they were.

I even found a few "Protected" species as I did so, some of which helped get us qualified as a 

I'll leave it up to the city to fight it out with the DNR and the above organization about the differences in plant classifications when they do their forced annexation in a few years. Also working on getting State Wildlife Sanctuary status. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  Good for you @Larry Buskirk we need more spaces like that.

We've been leaving the milkweeds wherever they decide to settle, even in the gardens. The last few years we had lots of Monarchs, this year only a handful. There is a weed called Dog Strangling Vine, which has moved into this area over the last 10 to 15 years, and now covers most ditches and roadsides, as well as waste spaces and is moving into gardens. It belongs to the milkweed family, and Monarchs will lay their eggs on it, but the caterpillars get no nourishment from it, and die.

2 hours ago, HARO50 said:

Dog Strangling Vine,

 

Known as Pale Swallowort around here. Not actually a member of the Milkweed family. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincetoxicum_rossicum

 

A few years back one of our roughly 50' Norway Spruce trees was literally covered with Monarch Butterflys. 

Edited September 23, 20241 yr by Larry Buskirk

2 hours ago, Larry Buskirk said:

A few years back one of our roughly 50' Norway Spruce trees was literally covered with Monarch Butterflys. 

We had friends who lived on a rise  right at the edge of Lake Ontario. There were several very large Black Willow along one side of their property, and every year around this time there would be literally hundreds of thousands of Monarchs gathering in those trees, waiting for a north wind to help them cross the lake!

 Sad day today, they tore down the over 100-year-old barn next door this morning. Hit the owner with a Raise or Repair order then wouldn't allow repairs.

58 minutes ago, Larry Buskirk said:

 Sad day today, they tore down the over 100-year-old barn next door this morning. Hit the owner with a Raise or Repair order then wouldn't allow repairs.

Golly Gee. I'm sure glad I live in an area where a man's property is pretty much his to do with as he likes. There are HOA areas around but not close to me. The state and county authorities leave us rural desert rats to do our own thing.

 

 

10 minutes ago, Gene Howe said:

Golly Gee. I'm sure glad I live in an area where a man's property is pretty much his to do with as he likes. There are HOA areas around but not close to me. The state and county authorities leave us rural desert rats to do our own thing.

 

 

 

 

Amen to that, I'm sure we're not quite as free as Gene, but we don't have many things to worry about!

We're not in their  HOA.

Neighbors pretty sure he knows who did the complaining. 

He's been doing up a good part of their yard as a pollinator garden also. 

Said he's sure they won't like the three Bee Hives that a friend of his will be relocating to his yard. 

 

 His friend has got fourteen hives and wants to relocate four of them. I told the neighbor to tell him he can put the last one here.