We enjoy the garden this time of year, but also like to venture out in the many natural areas near where we live.
Dan got a picture of a male indigo bunting singing in a tree at Lake Katherine last Saturday morning.
The dragonflies are active this time of year. This might be a blue darner. I am seeing fireflies at night in the garden now, too.
This monarch was at Lake Katherine on the thistle plants last week. I may have seen one Monarch in our yard this year, but that is about all. My zinnias are just about to start blooming, so that will attract them.
I am going to sneak in this very blurry picture of an eastern bluebird that we saw in the Palos forest preserve yesterday. The mosquitoes were after us when I was trying to take this picture, so that is my excuse for the poor picture!
On our walk yesterday we passed this stump with interesting fungi. I don’t know if you can see the hole in the log just below the top fungi, which looks like a nice home for some critter.
Back in our yard, the monarda, bee balm, that I planted two or three years ago finally bloomed for the first time. We have it growing in our tall grass area.
One day this week I was working at my desk and looked out of the window to see something black and white that caught my eye. We had left the back gate open and the skunk must have come in, snooped around for a minute, but then went back out the gate, which we then closed.
Here is a closer look at one of the marigolds that was behind the skunk in the picture.
A peek into my garden where things are getting going. The cucumber is just starting to take off on the right. Behind that I just planted two little tomato plants that my Arab neighbor lady gave me. I don’t really need more tomatoes, but I am curious to see how they will do and I seem to have room right now for them.
I took this picture of the zucchini plant about a week ago. Since then it rained a little and there were a few flowers and the first small zucchini is coming along. Get ready for zucchini!
We have been picking and eating a lot of raspberries in the garden this week. Dan and I have each had a couple of good handfuls a day. I throw in some mulberries and service berries into my morning oatmeal, too.
There were quite a few blueberries on the Duke blueberry bush, but it seems to take forever for them to turn blue. I think this bush is dying. Our soil is not acidic and this bush does not really get enough sun. But it has made a great effort to produce this year.
Pink hydrangea.
This morning we went to the McGinnis slough in the forest preserve in Palos Park. As we were looking at the great blue herons and egrets we noticed a deer walking in the slough. It seemed to be eating lily pads.
Its ears were perked up and it looked our way a long time as we looked at it.
Rain: As I was writing this post we just had a nice rain shower. It was just over a tenth of an inch, so not a lot, but even that should help everything in the garden, as it has been a bit dry recently. It cooled the temperature down, too.
Little Backyard World 