May Day!

I'm not exactly sure what is going on! But so far it is good news for us. The rest of the world is not in such a place but I count my tiny blessings one at a time these days.

In the morning my neighbor's daughter had a project to do and needed to do some 'Community Volunteer' work for someone. Lauren had asked if I had anything her daughter could do for me. I thought about it and texted back that I did.
Two weeks ago Allie asked if she could have make a tiny video for a school project. The theme was Western. So she dressed up and came down. I handed Lil' Richard to her ... he is our tiny pony that stands at 32 inches. Mom took her video of Allie saying hello to her on line school mates and loved every second of it!

So I told her mom that since I tied Lil' Richard out in different areas would she mind spreading some of his piles of manure? I normally do it every day to break down the manure but had been a bit remiss lately.

Allie chattered the whole time we worked together while keeping our distance. She made short work of the manure.

We ended up pulling some old burdock by Rich's junk pile. I let her toss the burdock with out the big balls of seeds into a pile. When she ended up with burdock on her hat and jacket she decided she'd like to get rid of the ones coming up!

I showed her how to use a long bladed shovel to dig the burdock up by the roots. She went about that with great gusto.

When that became tedious we hunted around for some wild parsnip do dig up. Allie said she had two hours of work she wanted to do.

So we went on the hunt for Parsnip. A few things happened during our two hours. Allie learned to recognize parsnip leaves and burdock leaves. She asked if she could come down again to rake up Lil' Richard poop... She chatted on as we talked about burdock being the inspiration for Velcro. She told me a story of how band-aids were invented.

And when she found out that I actually would eat the wild parsnips, she gathered up the ones we found to take home. I gave her the directions on how to wash and prepare them for cooking. She repeated the directions almost verbatim back to me.
True, wild parsnip can be eaten and it is tasty! It is also a pain to clean and prepare, but so worth the extra effort.

Allie went home with an armful of wild veggies that she was so enthusiastic to try.

What a great morning I had!


After lunch I worked on my fencing project and got it all set up finally. The mules will have some fresh grass. Though we seriously need some rainfall as everything is dry as a bone around here.

My next huge surprise was when Rich came out of the house and fired up the skid steer.

There are two huge piles of dirt next to the driveway. One pile was manure and is now composted into some fantastic dirt. It has been there SO long that it felt like part of the scenery.

The second pile of dirt is road gravel and ditch dirt. About 5 years ago the township cleaned the ditches and Rich told them to drop the 'fill' next to the compost pile.
In truth, I never imagined after all of Rich's health issues that he'd ever...EVER get anything done outside again.

Since his stroke and then the PE, he has been a Hermit who did not go out for any reason other than a doctor's appointment.

Justin came down to get some of the 'fill' and apparently the talk the two men had motivated Rich.
I think so at least!

I spent the afternoon with Rich while he operated the skid steer and we began cleaning up ruts and holes in the yard. These projects had been on permanent hold and I'd given up hope for ever getting things tidied up.

I did the hand shoveling work, he brought the dirt to fill in holes and ruts all over the yard.

He is talking about tackling the side yard which has been an utter mess since we remodeled in 2016.

Last night he cooked steaks on the grill.

Okay.
I need a nice soft place to faint.

Afternoon break

After a morning of phone calls from Gundersen, emails to Rich's PCP doctor at the VA, and a visit to the nursing home along with PT for Rich, a heart monitor reading and lunch out....

We finally got home around 3pm.
Rich needed a nap.
I needed something, but wasn't sure what that something was. I think I needed a distraction of sorts from all the busy-ness, or busy mess, as I call it.

My neighbor came down with her daughter and we talked about scheduling our septic pumping/inspection for the same time and how each of our schedules were crazy busy. I suggested we shoot for a time that the guy could do both places at once and between the two of us, we'd manage to have at least one supervising 'adult' around.

As we walked back along the driveway, I asked Allie if she'd like to go looking for bugs.
After all the crazyness of the day, I felt like a break of sorts.

Off we went.

Armed with her pink net and bug box assortment, we headed off.

We found an alarming amount of Japanese Beetles everywhere. They were decimating the wild grapes along with some other plants that I'm not that fond of, like a burdock.
Allie captured several and put them in a vial. We noted that they 'pooped' a lot.

Allie thought there might be some interesting insects in between a row of field corn.

Actually we did find something interesting. Some Bug Drama. One insect eating another one.

I had my Olympus camera with me and the macro lens on it. I put it to good use. I can say that these insects were very very tiny!

We came through the short row of corn and found a fairly large area of milkweeds that were full of action.

The monarchs were too swift for me to catch a shot of. I'll have to go back in a field and sit still with a long lens for that.

We hiked the large hay field and Allie ran trying to scoop up insects with her net. She did get a couple of white moth like insects and it was a dual effort to get them into her 'bug' box.

Allie chatted the whole time about bugs. She loves insects.

I don't know how long we were out there walking around, but I do know that it was such a welcome break from all the other 'stuff' going on.

And I know we both enjoyed it. I got some wonderful macro photos and Allie got some neat insects for her collection.

Insect hunting

Miss Allie, I call her.
The Insect Girl.

It isn't a bad thing or even an insult. How many young girls do you know that adore insects? Enough love for the insect to have 'pet' Madagascar Hissing Beetles in her room?
She has an insect display board in her room also.

Kudos to the parents for letting her pursue an unusual interest.

Here she is!
Allie and I made a date to go looking for 'Bugs' last night towards evening. We thought the stands of Milkweeds in the meadow would be a good place to start.

I have a LOT to learn about finding insects. I thought they'd be easier to find towards evening. Not.

Anyway off we went in the late evening heat to find bugs.

Allie the fearless, led the way. I loved her spiderweb dress, just perfect for insect hunting.  I know she really had her heart set on some Orb Spiders. But those insects will be in the meadow in a few weeks.
Last night we were looking for butterflies or anything I guess.

No bug too small!
Here Allie turns this tiny insect over to show me its legs and explain that she thinks it will grow up to be some sort of 'Leaf Insect'. Leaf hopper? I don't know!

I found a link that helps ID insects called Bug Finder. It is actually very helpful.

We found this red beetle on a milkweed. I was able to look it up and discover that it is a Red Milkweed Beetle with a long difficult scientific name. It is just fine to call it the Red Milkweed Beetle.

The milkweed had many bees on the flowers, but alas no Monarch eggs that we could find.

However, we did find some insect drama:

A Daddy Longlegs eating a bee?
We watched, fascinated.

The ants were very busy on some of the milkweed and not others.

I kept looking for 'good' shots of bees. I liked this one with the bees wings in motion!

Allie thought it would be good to go into my woods and hunt around.

Bonus!
She found a pile of deer bones...

Some went into her pink bag to go home with her.

Here Allie poses with some of the insects she caught. We headed home towards dusk.

My favorite shot of the whole outing? Aside from all the cool things we observed...

Here is Allie explaining to me what we might find on Milkweed plants and what we should be looking for.

I can only say this. I do know I was surprised by how much fun I really had. I was intrigued by the drama in the miniature world of insects.

My guide may have been young, but her enthusiasm rubs off on you.

We are going to try and do this again soon.
Thank you Miss Allie!