The Full Nest

I shared some sweet discoveries in my last post. Really it's been all I can do to post once a week, because so much is going on in my real life. There is also this:

Hibiscus Girls Gone Wild!

Note that The Path, cut back drastically in January, is roaring back full-size. And her understudy in the foreground is breathing down her neck. Creole Lady (left) is beside herself to be outdoors at last. I'm praying the periodical cicadas don't attack them. Ugh. It would be bad to have to bring them in the house when they just got outside. It's too hot in the greenhouse for them now.

Corey came in with a Waved Sphinx and a Virginia Creeper Sphinx one evening. We put them in the fridge to calm them down, and kinda forgot they were there until the next morning. Happily, they were fine, just sluggish at first.

 I love that my girl likes to handle insects, even big ones with grippy feets.

 The subtle beauty of a Virginia creeper sphinx.

And the great big Waved Sphinx.

Corey, who brought Phoebe home from back East after college finally let out, playing "Say Old Man Can I Have Your Daughter" with Bill (off camera).

The Bacon says YES. He loves, loves, loves being in the middle of the music. I believe he could hear a bit of the fiddle, because his smile wouldn't quit. He was also positioning himself so the near end of Corey's bow might touch him, which is a very Boston thing to do. When I used to do floor exercises with weights, Chet would position himself so my hand would touch him, usually on the inside of his thigh, his favorite place. He was like the highschool date with the popcorn box.

This team of expert dog groomers gave that funny, smelly little doggeh a baff. 

Then the Chief Groomer brushed his teef. She used two kinds of toofpaste: Liver and Vanilla. I much prefer Vanilla bref.

She kinda likes that dog.

 The Bacon and I are getting out running again, and oh my does it feel good. So missed and so badly needed. We did 4.2 miles this morning. Ahhh. Here, he's opening his peemail.

The field daisies are going wild. All that stuff that looks like snow? Field daisies. I could die happy on this spot. Yeah, I know. Alien import from Europe, emphatically here to stay. Welcome, cheery white and gold flowers. I've never known life without you. 

Double standard? Sure, sort of. I pull every garlic mustard plant I see because it invades native wildflower habitat and smothers diversity. Hayfield takeovers I'm not so worried about, because they constitute alien flowers duking it out with alien grasses. Couldn't pull them even if I wanted to. And I want just to enjoy them. So I do.

A mysterious glow in the dark green moth, just eclosed and still pumping fluid into its tissue-limp wings. Morning is the time to see such a thing.

 If only I could show you the prairie warbler, preening in the emergent persimmon to the left, pausing to sing his ascending alphabet, filling his little bottle with spring wine.

If only you could hear the two yellow-breasted chats, grunting, chakking, ringing and cussing on either side of the rutty path.

If only you could sniff the grapey bouquet of the feral iris, escaped from Scotts Ridge Cemetery and growing like they mean to stay on a wicked steep slope below. Don't miss the ones farther on down. The ditch is full of them.

I wish you could see the three kids, the boys in food-themed American Eagle boxers, which women like Phoebs and me love to give to them at Christmastime. Liam's wearing eggy fried rice, and Corey's got pepperoni pizza on his.

There is something rare and special about being able to run in your food-themed boxers on your road, knowing nobody will see you for the hour or so you're out there. May it ever be so!

And at bedtime, the dog gets an audience with his two chirren, who love him so very much.

We always say that Boston terriers are happiest when they look the  most miserable. 

Liam has something he wants to say before I close the door. Sticks his head in, like somebody's thumb. That kid makes me laugh, every hour of every day.

These are the sweetest days. I hold my babies close before they fly away.

This post is for Ida, who would have turned 96 on May 28. 

Now she's 2, 96, 18, 24, 41; whatever age she wishes to be. But I know she's with us.