Re-reading the last few posts from May took me back to the dark times of our long winter. Since then, the garden has burst into life and it soon caught up with the usual schedule of blooming. It’s the end of July now and we’ve been having a glorious hot sunny summer. The best of the blooms are over but the garden still looks fabulous. The purple/blue clematis is out now with the the orange day lilies, and the pumpkins we planted are blooming.
The ticks, black flies, and mosquitoes clearly had an awesome winter as they are out in force this year. It’s been the worst tick year ever for us. We’ve had more on us this year than in the last four years combined. And then some. On one day in mid-July we found 3 ticks on Evie, one on Ruby and one stuck in my knee. Five in one day is our highest score ever. They’ve all been the teeny tiny black deer ticks. The ones that carry Lyme disease. So every headache or twinge is now attributed to the onslaught of Lyme… we jest but without laughing. It seems inevitable.
We bagged a teeny tick we found on Evie in early June and walked it over to Rod and Colleen’s to show them. Despite the fact they live right next door and spend time in their grassy field, they had never seen a deer tick! Rod taped it to a plate and had a good look at it. He figured he’d never ever spot one on him. It’s definitely easier to find them on peachy pale kid skin.
(And we didn’t manage to escape the biters on holiday either! Prince Edward Island was infested with mosquitoes.)
The up-side of the buggy bonanza is that we’ve seen fireflies several times! We took Lily out one night into the field and one flew right up to us. She was amazed at their blinking brightness. We haven’t seen a lot — usually just three or four at a time out by the long grass at the back of Rod and Colleen’s field. What a treat it would be to see a forest full! (Apparently the fireflies are doing well this year because the bats have been decimated by the white nose fungus.)
We acquired a pregnant guinea pig in June and she had three babies on June 23, so the kids have been in guinea pig heaven all summer. The female — Ginny — is an expert mum so they are healthy, happy, noisy little piggies. Of course, the kids don’t want to part with any of them. We thought we might have acquired an extra pet the other day when a baby rabbit or hare stopped by. It was quite tame and we found it in the office one afternoon after the door had been left open. We left some carrots out for it but haven’t seen it again.
Curious rabbit in the office
witches whiskers 