What is with this tomato?

Um, these horny projections are just too funny. It's taking forever for this tomato to ripen and of course the little nub is the first to show any color.

more of YNP

A chipmunk eating grass seed heads. This pic was taken along one of the geyser boardwalks.

small critter in Yellowstone

We were able to hike the Mary Mountain Trail this week in YNP. It's closed most of the spring and early summer for the grizzly bears, but it's open in late summer. The trail follows the Nez Perce Creek and is just gorgeous. We only encountered one other couple on the trail and it was quite busy everywhere else in the Park.

This is a Blotched Tiger Salamander. It's a new sighting for us, but supposedly common in the Park. It was very hot and the salamander was crossing a large field headed for water or shade or both. He tucked himself in the shade from my boot.

You can just see it's little head poking out from under my boot.

I knew it wasn't chipmunk poop

Some critter kept leaving little droppings by the upstairs door. I would clean them up every morning and the next day there would be more. Hubby said it was from a chipmunk which I doubted until one morning I saw one up on the deck while I was reading the morning paper. It still didn't make sense to me because there's nothing on the deck for a chipmunk to eat. Yesterday I saw little droppings on the patio right by the spa. Aha! I looked up under the deck and saw these darlings. This is a terrible pic, but I didn't want to have the flash go off and scare them away. They could fly on my head and then I would really flip my lid! After careful searching I found four little brown bats. So small, only about 2-3 inches. They are really wedged in between these boards. We read in one of our animal guides that bats have a night roost and a day roost. Obviously, the night roost is by the upstairs door and this is their day roost.

Garden chores

This pic illustrates the importance of thinning.

Study in purple

'Islander' bell peppers and kohlrabi. The peppers, stuffed with risotto leftover from "Meatless Monday", were last night's dinner. The kohlrabi's destiny is unknown at this point.

(Hey J- Do you remember the purple shoes I wore when we were in college together? I think this is the same shade. What crazy fashion sense I had.)

Double rainbow

Right over Sienna's final resting place.

What a difference a week makes

I went searching for the 2 babies and ended up flushing the whole family from their nest. One chick flew with mom into the weeds and one flew up into the trees. The mom nighthawk has been teaching her chicks how to hunt and I suspect this is the last photo I will get. I'm thinking they will be gone in a week now that they can fly. I will be sorry to see them go. However, I won't miss the pre-dawn screeching from the mom as she hunts over the garden.

Such a shame

The bluebirds attempted a second brood, but unfortunately the eggs weren't fertilized. After 3 weeks of futile incubation and another 2 weeks after the parents left the box, I cleaned it out and found these gorgeous eggs. It's so sad that they missed this opportunity. We can always use bluebirds to eat all the grasshoppers and leaf-footed conifer bugs that have and will inundate us.

So pretty nestled in their little grassy bed.

Another one for Casey

We saw this huge beetle laying eggs in one of the posts that hold up the deck. If you look closely you can see her ovipositor in the crack. I sprayed Raid in there.

Here she is doing her "I've fallen and I can't get up" dance after Hubby flicked her off the post.

Cali has to check out this huge beetle. I ended up flicking the beetle onto the lawn. I couldn't bring myself to step on it. It was too big. It would be like stepping on a mouse.

Two weeks old

I think this may be the last shot of the chicks before fledging. They are two weeks old and no longer sitting together. I saw the mother nighthawk flush when I walked to the "nest" and could easily spot one chick, but not the other. I got a sick feeling in my stomach that something had happened to the other chick, but it was about 3 feet away and under a fir tree.

Hormones

What's in that composted steer manure? Viagra?

I'm watching you...

A mysterious beetle was on the patio. It had very large eyespots. I don't know what it is, but I'm sure our grandson, Casey, would be interested in seeing it.

Thank you, firefighters

I went out to the garden yesterday afternoon and saw a helicopter flying in the not too far distance with a bucket attached. I watched him dump the bucket and then immediately fly back down to the gravel pit at the base of the road for a refill. This fire he was fighting was dangerously close to our neighborhood.

We got in the car and drove down the main road to see if we could spot exactly where the fire was burning. We could see it very easily from our deck, but couldn't judge the distance. Once we got down the road, we could see it was on Forest Service land.

We later found out the woman in the fire lookout tower spotted the smoke and reported the fire. Fortunately, the firefighters were able to get on it right away and this morning they were mopping it up and there wasn't any smoke.

1 week old

The babies have made it 1 week so far. Only about 2 more weeks to go before fledging. If you can't tell the head from the tail I'll give you a hint, they are facing left.

green bean overload

I planted 5 bean varieties in the garden this year and they've all done well. Too well.

Yesterday we made "dilly" beans with garlic harvested earlier this summer. Bloody Marys anyone?