What is it about the first really hot patch of summer weather.\u00a0 Today was the first day where the inside of the house was warm enough not to require three layers of clothing.\u00a0 The attic has absorbed enough heat so that it has finally heated up the leftover winter air.\u00a0 It\u2019s actually uncomfortably warm inside and I\u2019m luxuriating in it.<\/p>\n
And outside it\u2019s ninety.\u00a0 Butterflies and dragonflies are flitting around and the birds are tearing around looking for food for their hatchlings.\u00a0 The moist hot grass is breathing water right into the air and you can smell the photosynthesis cranking away.\u00a0 I love this kind of weather.\u00a0 It rejuvenates me.\u00a0 It makes me wax rhapsodically.\u00a0 It makes me babble idiotically.\u00a0 It recharges body and soul.<\/p>\n
For the last couple of weeks, on and off, a hatchling milk snake has been sheltering under an old sheet of copper that I put out for snakes.\u00a0 I have been hoping for years for a mouse eating snake to take up residence in the lower driveway wall.\u00a0 We have plenty of mice and moles and voles around here and a milk snake (or even better, a black rat snake) would put a real dent in their numbers.\u00a0 So, I\u2019m cautiously hopeful that this little reptile is gonna stick around.\u00a0 But currently he\u2019s so tiny that nothing but the youngest pink mice could serve him as food.\u00a0 I wonder if he\u2019s presently surviving on insects, worms and maybe very small salamanders.\u00a0 Well, it\u2019s something to think about.<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s not all fun and games.\u00a0 I\u2019m still so behind in the repair and maintain chores.\u00a0 I haven\u2019t even gotten to clean the really high gutters.\u00a0 I\u2019ve got a twenty-four-foot ladder and my guilt is slowly driving me to get busy on it.\u00a0 Camera Girl thinks I should hire a handyman to do it but I scoff at this kind of defeatist talk.\u00a0 And likewise, all the other chores.\u00a0 They build character and spare the bank account.\u00a0 So, I\u2019m putting together my schedule and thinking through the order of operations and locating rope and other supplies to set up the ladder.<\/p>\n
Today I saw the biggest spider I\u2019ve ever seen around here.\u00a0 Whether people call them fishing spiders or wolf spiders I haven\u2019t done a close identification.\u00a0 But it was a huge bugger.\u00a0 He\u2019s living close to where the exhaust from my heating system reaches the open air.\u00a0 I\u2019m guessing the heat is an attractant for insects in the colder months.\u00a0 I\u2019ll attach a photo here.<\/p>\n
Camera Girl says she bought a red coneflower plant for me at Wally Mart.\u00a0 I\u2019m making a row of various perennials but especially coneflowers.\u00a0 They attract butterflies and other insects for my photography.\u00a0 And finally, the other three preying mantis egg sacs that I can still find have all now hatched out.\u00a0 And they\u2019re pretty evenly spaced around the property.\u00a0 Nice how that worked out.\u00a0 Of course, there were another six or eight of the things that seem to have disappeared.\u00a0 Well, that\u2019s on me.\u00a0 Anyway, it\u2019s an excellent day to be out and about.\u00a0 Nothing exciting just the good old summertime.\u00a0 June, moon, spoon, tune.\u00a0 All that stuff.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
What is it about the first really hot patch of summer weather.\u00a0 Today was the first day where the inside of the house was warm<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,3366,1263],"tags":[3341,253],"class_list":["post-33481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","category-life-in-dunwich","category-stuff-that-personally-interests-me-miscellaneous","tag-dunwich","tag-summer"],"yoast_head":"\n