I wanted to write a little about our Cape Cod summer and document yet another season gone by. I did not know in May how cool this summer would be; in many ways I did not mind being spared from oppressively hot days. It was so cool that we barely used fans, forget air conditioning (which we don’t have anyway.)
In my last post back in May I talked about the groundhog that “seemed to move elsewhere†in fact that groundhog, and two of his friends came back. We were able to move them down the street to a less populated area, and we spared our native plants. The wasps who seasonally live in our kitchen window mysteriously disappeared after starting a small nest. I can only guess why they did this – perhaps because in my curiousity I touched the small nest before they moved in? My summer guests were happy not to dodge the wasps entering and leaving our back porch, but I missed them. We had no dearth of wasps this season, quite a few buzzed around our front lawn in August. I have slowly become accustomed to them; my heart still races when one of them lands on me – but I am able to calmly let them fly away instead of freaking out. I still don’t recommend them as pets though.
I bought a new smartphone with which I have been having a blast taking detailed up close photos of the flora and fauna in our yard. My biggest impression of summer 2014 has been the mass of life that lives in our yard, really giving an excellent example of the saying “nature abhors a vacuumâ€. With the abundance of native plants the soil has become enriched, the yard is noticeably moister. You can’t put anything down, like this empty can of coconut water pictured, without it attracting several bugs in a matter of moments. Here you see a slug, and moments later a paper wasp dived right into the can, which I bravely liberated by shaking him out. He (or she) emerged, dazed, wet and with an interesting story to tell his companions.
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