Fleurs, Fins, & Furries

At this time of the ‘frenzied chaos of summer’ as we call it, there is nearly no distinguishing between the subjects and objects of beauty presented by the Earth Mother. We were recently graced with a visit from long-standing painters MarySue and Bill Schwab

Everything green seems to be calling to us all at once with a rich, lush, and overflowing fullness.

The gods were surely smiling on us when Joshua captured these images of the finned folks literally getting into the swim of May.

What better way to ring in the Celtic season of Beltane than with the arrival of new finned folks? Former guests Shelley and Dave down in Cottonwood found themselves needing to rehome their two koi and one Plecostomus and were gracious enough to think of us – yay! Dave had the perfect net and set about wrestling the three of our charges into our transporting cooler.

In all of my well over 60 years of actively being a dirt-digging girl, I have never succeeded in having a violet root from a leaf in water . . . very frustrating. Until NOW when just on a lark I placed 6 broken leaves in a small glass of water and hoped for the best.

Everyone is getting into the spring swing!

Our fervent expectations notwithstanding, the Youngster over the upper pond again wasn’t in the mood to bloom prolifically this year although against the backdrop of the resplendent Lady Banks and her arbor, the cherry tree, the colors painted a complimentary juxtaposition of colors against a cornflower blue sky.

With no regard for our recent cold snap, the raised veggie beds, critters, divas, sprites, 4-leggeds, and little green youngsters are everywhere to be found right now.

Even the Buddha says the gifts of spring are ‘making him float with happiness!’ and Jasper is chowing down in prep for another March surprise.

In the last 4-5 days spring has simply exploded on our Coconut Island in The Sky and it seems to have begun with Joshua replanting the raised beds that, as you know, are devoted to veggies.

While it seems impossible that we are celebrating the month of March 2025 already, clearly the Earth Mother is awakening all the green folks who have been hibernating all winter. Joshua happened to capture a few of our offerings that were dotted with rain.

Mr. Peeking Cardinal. Our first Hellies. And a Getting-to-Know-You standoff between Fiona and a pitiful little pumpkin-headed Jasper wondering about coming inside . . .

With precipitation as shy as we are experiencing, we relish every morsel, drop and flake. Well, perhaps some of us relish that outside moisture more than others, ergo Miss Fiona and Braveheart Primo prefer the fainting couch snooze arena.

Some familiar faces and some long-time-no-see faces visited recently. Our daily visitors include the raccoons in the neighborhood and our subletter, Jasper, who has taken up housekeeping in the honey shack.

December always proves to be full of surprises inside and out. The 4 raccoon siblings are all grown up now and resplendent in their winter coats plus they appear plump and healthy.

Animal, Vegetable, Mineral – blessings one and all. With a glut this week of the ALL-TIME SWEETEST yellow peppers on the planet, we jumped at the chance to use them in as many ways as we could imagine.

In a not-so prolific flowering season, these guys are making up for lost time.

Would that we humans could get along and accept each other’s differences, right? In all our years we have never seen anyone but pigs socialize with pigs and here these youngsters seem just fine. Is there a lesson somewhere there? P.S. and a side order of skunk.

After a relatively UNremarkable blooming season earlier this year, this afore taste of autumn in collusion with the supermoon offered up a plethora of wonderment in dahlias, lilies, our spider person, virginiannas, critters big and small, and finned fantastics to name a few.

Our treasured anemone virginianas have finally given us something to gawk at when we are done absolutely marveling at the intricacy and weaving ability of this spider that google tells us is a common house spider!

Our little faithful raccoon family was quite busy recently scavenging and making friends with the skunk.

The latest monsoon rains have absolutely electrified the gardens and sent us heirloom tomatoes, okra, basil, peaches, and pears. Mind you, we are NOT putting Del Monte out-of-biz, but these darlings good-looks are exceeded only by their full-bodied flavour.

Summer continues to wend its way through August and we still feel monsoon-cheated. We are pleased that this little family is finding food and most importantly water. Indulge us by enjoying them yet again.

Well finally, and what seems to be months too late, we were visited by our first raccoon family this year. Mama brought her four kindergarteners for their premier visit and training session in foraging and tree-climbing.

This summer’s blooms have not been as spectacular and prolific as years past so when we are given a show-stopper like this dahlia it truly gets our attention.