Alien invader or bird dropping?

I have a small decorative garden at Mom and Dads..a few flowers and one tomato plant given to me by my Sicksta Adele..

One day a week or so ago I looked at my tomato plant ..

There were a few dark blobs on the plant.

From a distance it  looked like berry bird poop. 

I might have ignored it but for some reason something made me look closer..

Humm..this doesn’t look quite like a bird poop.

I touched it..

Nope..

not bird poo

clavate tortoise beetle

What an odd looking creature.

It was snacking on my tomato plant.

I removed the little alien creatures from my plant whenever I saw them.

I hope they find something other than my tomato to chew on.

Jeff and I are now in Massachusetts, visiting with family and friends and awaiting our first Grandchild.

Here we are...waiting

Here we are settled in for a bit in Jeff's sisters driveway.

This is what we see out of the front window of Homey.
Mega-home...old homes are being torn down and these monsters spring up.

The houses on either side of us are still the original homes.

Large treed lots... Very desirable.
We feel small here.

Yesterday we went into Boston for the Gay Pride Parade.
It was a ton of fun!

We all left the parade bedazzled with beads, ribbons and stickers.

Now we hang out with family and friends and play the waiting game.
Last night we placed bets on date and weight of the baby.
Next stop
Grandma and Grandpa!

Passion for Peonies

The Peonies have started to bloom at Mom and Dads..

Lovely shades of pinks and white..

Some of the peonies in their gardens are transplants from both of my grandmothers gardens.

Symbolic of prosperity, peonies were also said to conceal mischievous nymphs within their petals, earning the meaning of Shame or Bashfulness in the Language of Flowers

 

I had fun with this Peony photo shoot and  took many photos, especially of my favorite one..I think you might notice which one that is.

I found this lovely poem by Mary Oliver about peonies… I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Peonies
Mary Oliver

This morning the green fists of the peonies are getting ready
   to break my heart
      as the sun rises,
         as the sun strokes them with his old, buttery fingers

 

and they open —
   pools of lace,
      white and pink —
         and all day the black ants climb over them,

 

boring their deep and mysterious holes
   into the curls,
      craving the sweet sap,
         taking it away

 

to their dark, underground cities —
   and all day
      under the shifty wind,
         as in a dance to the great wedding,

 

the flowers bend their bright bodies,
   and tip their fragrance to the air,
      and rise,
         their red stems holding

 

all that dampness and recklessness
   gladly and lightly,
      and there it is again —
         beauty the brave, the exemplary,

 

blazing open.
   Do you love this world?
      Do you cherish your humble and silky life?
         Do you adore the green grass, with its terror beneath?

 

Do you also hurry, half-dressed and barefoot, into the garden,
   and softly,
      and exclaiming of their dearness,
         fill your arms with the white and pink flowers,

 

with their honeyed heaviness, their lush trembling,
   their eagerness
      to be wild and perfect for a moment, before they are
         nothing, forever?

 

Sunset~Bluff Point State Park

Its been very hot the past few days here in Connecticut.

Jeff and I wait until early evening to walk.

Its always a bit cooler at Bluff Point than inland..

We finished our walk with a nice sunset..

Just a few low clouds..

The sun sets..

lighting up the low clouds..

The mountain cloud..

Jeff and I are in CT just a few more days…

We head to Massachusetts where we will await the birth of our

first Grandchild :)

We are very excited…

We plan to be nearby our daughter and her hubby, so that we can be of help when the baby comes.

This is new for all of us..

We cant wait to meet her!

Weeds no more..

While parked at Mom and Dads we get into a few gardening projects.

I have been trimming shrubs. I planted the front bed with annuals and mulched it.

Our next project was to tackle the garden behind the house..

it was full of grass…

… impossible to weed..

The grass was growing in between the Primrose and Iris..

So…

Jeff dug out all the Iris and Primrose.

 

I then took the grass out from around the plants..

and put them into piles..

After separating the grass from all of the plants..I spread pine bark mulch over the entire area and then replanted everything except one small section that needed no weeding.

I hope the plants recover from the transplanting.

All done!

The garden looks better without the black fencing, but my parents Doberman would be walking through the garden without it.

Things should fill in and hopefully the mulch will prevent the grass from taking over.

Arlington Great Meadows

We went to Arlington, Ma this weekend to visit our daughter and her hubby, while there they took us to this little jewel in the middle of an urban area.

Arlington Great Meadows

Arlington's Great Meadows is a 183-acre parcel of land located in east Lexington.   It is the largest piece of undeveloped land in the Arlington/Lexington area.  It is part of the Mystic River watershed.  Once a glacial lake, it is now a wet meadow surrounded by uplands created by glacial outwash.  Great Meadows was purchased by Arlington in 1871 to serve as a supplementary water storage area, but was only briefly used for that purpose.   However, it remains a valuable buffer against flooding in the area.

Here is a link to a nice walking tour of the meadows..I just read there is a Woodcock Peenting area!

Its so nice that these areas stay undeveloped.

………………………………………………………………..

We had a Jeep led tour of the park…

Jeep meets Pink Lady's Slipper

I did not expect to see Pink Lady's Slipper.

 

There were many clumps of them..

I have not seen them in clumps like this in many years..

We also saw lots of..

Wild Sarsaparilla

Wild sarsaparilla is a 1-2 foot tall shrub common to the forest understories of southern New England. It produces tiny white flowers in spherical clusters beneath the compound leaves, which ripen into blue-black berries in mid-summer. The rhizome of wild sarsaparilla has a sweet, aromatic taste, and sometimes has substituted for sassafras in the making of home-made root beer.

 

Have any of you tried making root beer with the roots of this plant?

Grasshopper..

Anyone good on grasshopper ID?

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail

We had a lovely walk in this green oasis..

Our daughter, who is pregnant, and due in just a few weeks had to take breaks now and then.

A very small turtle..

ID?False Solomon’s seal

This Poor tattered Mourning Cloak butterfly landed in the path.

I shot of few photos to ID it..

It had no blue left..I assume from the markings it still had that it is a Mourning Cloak.

A Great place to grab a bit of nature in the city!

Thanks for the Jeep tour Jeff C.!