The Missing Months

So, I was supposed to be cleaning the bathroom today. We'll pretend I did. Okay, that's settled. Now...

A quick warning about this post. If you are seriously arachnophobic, you do not want to scroll all the way down to the last picture. Seriously. I cannot be held responsible for any heart palpitations or soiled shorts that may result if you ignore this warning.

So, the last time I posted anything was in February. Shame on me. In my defense, I have been writing a lot of poems... which might not actually be much of a defense to you. Philistines.

We had more of a winter in 2012-13 than the prior one, and Winter's last hurrah was a pretty impressive. It waited until the third week of March, gave us a lovely sixty-something degree day, and then the next day... HA HA HA! Here are six inches of snow, SUCKERS! The daffodils were unfazed, however, and the boys and I tried to build an igloo. It didn't work. They got too wet and cold before we got more than two layers high. Well, there's always next March. I'm onto Winter's tricks now.

After that, mud and gloom kept us living roomed (which is like being closeted, only with a bit more space) for a couple more weeks until April showed itself with a sudden leap into the 80s. Degrees, not high tops, horrible neon clothing, big hair, and shoulder pads. I quickly planted all of my "cold weather" plants, hoping that that would result in a return of sixty degree weather. Got forty degrees instead, then eighty again. Apparently this Spring is delivering desired temperatures by median. Regardless of reasoning, it made quick work of the spring flowers, and the boys and I have already been to and in the river once this year, gleaning even more shells that will eventually be jewelry. I think I even found a flower I haven't catalogued yet. It looks like an anemone, but what exact kind, I can't be sure. My flower book doesn't have one just like it and now that I don't work at the library any more, I can't sneak off during work and identify plants.

The bonny weather brought a fit of high spirits amongst us Pearsons, so we decided to go hiking. Joe bid me find a place to go, and behold, a discovery! Quiet Trails Nature Preserve, nestled in a quiet corner of Harrison County, KY... three miles from our house. This spit of land was donated to the state in 1990, and made into a nature preserve with hiking trails and little nature-observation shacks... and an old tobacco barn. Kentucky--go figure. The things you never know are there if you don't enjoy getting lost on narrow, windy Kentucky back roads! Actually, I do enjoy getting lost on back roads, and have even gotten lost on this very road, but still somehow never realized Pugh's Ferry housed a hiking destination. Rawr!

Why, Rawr? No idea.

In the last couple of weeks, I have been very Amish. I turned the soil in my little garden by hand and made a pea trellis. I planted greens, carrots, peas, and flowers, and started tomatoes and peppers in a flat. I even planted trees! I'm so green! Now I spend a lot of time staring hard at dirt, which leads to the discovery unplanned of bugs. I think this is a dung beetle of some kind, which makes me worry about the efficacy of my septic tank right next to my garden. And who knew dung beetles were pretty?

Besides dung beetles and wood anemones, I have also seen the second ever Zebra Swallowtail to visit my yard, and seen and identified what I believe to be a fine specimen of a Western Meadowlark. Yes, Western.... They range this far, according to my book.

Charlie has been begging to mow for weeks now. On Saturday, while Daddy was fixing the mower (which prompted more poetry, but that's for another day) Charlie was literally climbing the trees in anticipation. Good thing, because he found this:

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She was not very pleased, but the kids and I thought it was cool.

While Charlie looks skyward, and I look dirtward, Abe looks at the swing set and finds... this is the part where arachnophobes will want to stop... Phidippus Mystaceus! This was the best picture I could get, but he/she was very pretty, with iridescent blue fangs and fluffy, white thingies that he seemed to use to clean his eyes. I studied this critter for quite a while, and decided that spiders in jars are charming. He really looked hard for a way out, the clever little fellow, testing the magnifying glass I had atop the jar. He would poke, poke, then clean his eyes with his fuzzy things as if to say, "What is this hard air!? I can't be seeing this... Maybe I shouldn't have eaten that really shiny bug... I seem to be hallucinating." Yes, spiders in jars, I can dig. When I let him out of the jar, he jumped at me and I screamed like a little girly and ran away, though; So spiders outside of jars, I can still do without...