Enjoy It While Ye May!

I'm milking this dying bouquet because soon enough, the only flowers available will be the ones in my fertile imagination. Fall is here and it's blustery and we lost all our tender annuals- with the freaky exception of a particularly intrepid corner of zinnias! Actually, I've got quite an assortment of potted plants temporarily residing in my studio so we won't be entirely without greenery this winter. Now, where to put all those plants in the living room...
I'm also posting a picture here of an interesting visitor that Bob and I had late last week:

Look at that thing! He was BIG- way bigger than the photo suggests. This large insect was scaling one of Bob's sculptures and we couldn't help but notice him. He was carefully feeling his way up the steel... Here's his other side:

(I'm saying "he" but maybe it's a girl. I'm not sure how we tell.) Anyway, he/she was was oblivious to my efforts to document him/her.  We're guessing it's a type of cricket. Impressive and eerie.
But speaking of insects/bugs/pests/varmints/vermin and official lice...
Holy cow! Impeachment! Talk about draining swamps and all things pestilence! I can't look the news away and maybe the changing seasons becomes an advanced metaphor for changing directions in a seriously misguided administration. I could go on for days (and believe me, I'd rather discuss insects!) but did anyone really think that Rudy Giuliani (who DOES look like Nosferatu...) was a good guy? Please: the best thing that could have happened in this amazingly action packed week was that "two associates" of Giuliani's were arrested. More arrests to come. I'm on the edge of my seat and looking forward to designer handcuffs!

Not for the Faint of Heart- (Vermin Alert)

That delightful trio of grubs is a tiny reminder of the legion of Biblical plagues besetting the hapless gardener. (Maybe it was my recent allusion to the non-rapture, but Job does spring to mind.) We have a lot of grubs- millions of them. They all seem to live in the area designated "The Agricultural Triangle"... doesn't that just figure? So every time we turn over a shovelful of soil, there's got to be a dozen grubs. Squishing them is tedious and disgusting but terminal!
And that leads to a less noxious pest- the simple small rock.

Okay, so rocks aren't gross outs like grubs, but there's more of them. For every grub, we have six rocks. And they're not pretty or glittery; these are the "garden variety" (hahahaha) lumpy little brown things.
And as far as dangerous plant life goes, check out the poison ivy. It's everywhere! Both Bob and I have succumbed to itchy, oozey skin eruptions.

The vines ascending the pine trees are like thick hairy legs. They have these amazing trunks and are actually intimidating. We've been carefully lopping them off so that the vines die, but they seem to sprout more. We are not inclined to resort to poisons...