Fun in the garden

Since we had nothing on the calendar today and since it wasn't going to be blisteringly hot, I decided that doing some weeding in the garden would be a good use of time. Weeding the small vegetable garden went quickly and uneventfully. Then came the long garden which runs along the drive. I had already done some cleaning out the first week we were here, but as time passed, I became more and more aware of exactly how overgrown it was. There was ornamental grass which had run amok everywhere. Other exciting discoveries included some poison ivy in a place where I wasn't expecting it. (I'm now waiting to see if I am reactive to it... so far so good, and it is now out of that garden bed.) I also think I found some small beginnings of an invasive vine, which my best guess is called a mile a minute vine. I think I have pulled all of it out as well. 

It wasn't all flora discoveries today, there was also some fauna. At one point, I was cutting back grass, pull away a huge handle to drop in my growing refuse pile, look down, and discover a chipmunk, just lying there. Now, you know as well as I do, that chipmunks do not just lie there when you discover them, they run. This one was not running. This one was not even breathing. It was dead, though it couldn't have been dead for very long because it looked perfect. Now, I don't know what you do when you discover an intact dead animal, but I message M. M. likes taxidermy and is actually quite good at it. I now have a dead chipmunk inside a plastic bag in my utility room freezer, waiting for M. to pick it up at some point. Because I am the cool mom.

We ran across live fauna as well. Later in the afternoon, as I'm continuing with my weeding, I go to grab some more weeds, and am startled by this not-so-little guy.

I will admit to letting out a little shriek, because he so startled me. Well, that and I very nearly grabbed him instead of the weed. Not five minutes later, K. comes running over with a small cooler that he shoves in my face saying, "Look what I caught!" Here, look what K. caught.

I very briefly considered catching the frog and throwing him in the cooler with the toad so we could have our own version of Frog and Toad are Friends. I'm kind of sad I didn't.

The last thing I want to show you are these white flowers, which my crowd-sourcing tells me are balloon flowers. Aren't they lovely?

You'll have to wait for tomorrow for some pictures of the much tidier garden. I was too intent of finishing up and getting into the shower at the end of the day.