A strange pointy fruit in the compost bin

I'll post a picture soon of the strange plant that came up in the compost bin.

Walking to school

Our new routine involves driving to a carpool pickup point for one kid, then walking to
school with the other. What a great way to start the year!

Back from the lake!

We're back from the lake, with none of the disasters I expected actually
happening.

Toads and a blue tailed skink

I movedthe "Toad House" my sister gave me, more specifically, I moved it to
where the little girl who lives next door told me to put it. It's kind of like an upside down pot, with the words "Toad House" on it.

I just assumed that there were no actual toads around. Then the next day, I was cleaning the leaves from around the house, and surprised two toads. They were
only about 6 feet from where she told me to put the toad house. Five year olds
can intuitively sense these things.

The other day I saw something blue on the porch and reached for it, and it ran
away. It was a blue tail skink.

Almost out of our drought

We're almost out of our drought.

On a school field trip last week, we visited a family with chickens. They grew grapevines over the chicken enclosure so that they could shake the Japanese beetles down for the hens to eat for breakfast.

Lavender and Moss

This sounds like the title of a play. But my sister suggests growing lavender in the dry, eroded spots in our yard. I also like the moss
that's growing in our back yard and would like to cultivate it. Our neighbor is trying to kill all the moss in his yard, because it takes over from his lawn.

December

Dry, windy weather is here. It still doesn't feel as though we've had a real fall; the leaves are still on the trees.

This seems to be a season full of musical concerts.

Working at Dad's

I came back last night from DC, where I worked, and worked, and worked, on
Dad's house. I still didn't finish everything I wanted to do, but I feel good about
getting *some* things accomplished.

For some reason it is easier to do work on other people's houses. I need to trade houses with someone...

More Rain! and turtles!

We have loads of rain right now. I don't know whether it will help out on the drought monitor or not. But it is very welcome.

Our backyard had a visit from two turtles.

Rain at Last!

We finally have rain! A friend pointed out to me that it was so dry that we don't even have many insects. I'm glad we've got the rain, and I guess I'm glad the insects will be ok, but still...

Wild Turkey

We saw a wild turkey crossing a park road, at Falls Lake.

Picnic!

We went to a picnic at Falls Lake here, and though we are in a drought, and the lake level was down 5 feet, it didn't make much visible difference. I hope we get water soon, though. The gray water connection in our yard has a weird plug, though. I'll have to call the city about that tomorrow.

Skinks

Skinks are little lizards with stripes running down their bodies. We seem to have a few of them living under our front porch. They may be getting the water from the air conditioner.

We have been putting out water for the birds in the backyard.

The rabbits seem to have all disappeared. They may have decided to move on down the hill to the pond area, where there is a better water supply.

Still dry weather here

I look at the weather report for the week, and grasp at straws: scattered thunderstorms. I hope some of the rain gets scattered on us...

Cactus!

This is a sign of global warming, or the extreme drought we're having, but Youngest Kid and I found a cactus growing in the local park, along the margins of the soccer field. It looks like a prickly pear to me, though it doesn't have any fruit on it at the moment.

Drought seems to be becoming a regular event here in North Carolina. My prayers go out to the people in Greece who are having awful wildfires, because of the drought there. My wife's relatives in Australia are also facing drought.

My in-laws, traveling back to South Carolina, had to a detour around a wild fire there.

Invasive species, and losing our hemlocks

We are losing all of our hemlock trees in the Appalachians to an invasive insect. It was accidentally introduced in 1920, but the cold winters apparently kept it out of the high elevations until now.

The poster in my freshman dorm room was a wonderful Sierra Club poster of an Eliot Porter photo of hemlock trees.

I think we need to take the kids to the mountains to see them before they are gone. This is horrible and sad.

There is No "I" in "Ant"

We have been facing an invasion of our kitchen by little black ants (some people here call them "sugar ants") because of the dry weather, I think. It is interesting to see how determined they are. For some reason, we dont' seem to get the really creepy insects that our next door neighbor gets: leopard crickets (I think that's what they are called), black widow spiders, etc. Although I am certain there must be brown recluse spiders up in our attic, in all our stuff up there, I haven't actually seen one. I guess they are too reclusive. Or maybe it's just my anxiety telling me stuff.

We have had flying squirrels in the attic before, which are not as big as my childhood exposure to "Rocky and Bullwinkle" led me to expect.

Finally, a little rain

We are finally getting some rain here, though only a bit. We are in a "severe drought" according to the US Drought Monitor site.

West Virginia

We need to make a trip this summer to West Virginia, to see everybody there!

Carowinds

Band trip to Carowinds. Lots of Roller Coasters. Lots and lots of them.