Tiny volunteer

This little black-eyed Susan grew on it own, at the base of our steps.

Giant volunteer

We did not plant this sunflower--probably some bird or rodent did. Whatever they did, it seems to have worked, this plant is about 9 feet root to crown. (just took the tape measure outside, it's just about 8 feet)

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Maggie's tender side

Maggie mostly teaches the foster puppies how to respect the authority of a crazy reactive old lady dog. But she mostly tolerates Turkey. She sometimes deals with her anxiety by licking things (usually human feet or legs) and here she's licking a very confused Turkey.


This I didn't expect. They slept like this for a good length of time, and Maggie didn't wake up to correct him.

3:00 snapshot #1723: Sunday

On Sunday I did something that would have horrified my past self: I bicycled for the exercise. Here's my 3:00 snapshot break, at the Tahiti.

Zoo animal

I was passing through the Butterfly Pavilion and this spicebush swallowtail posed for me. Who am I to pass up a photo?

Pest control trick I mean 'hack'

If you find your mousetraps in the morning stripped of the bait with no mouse caught, try hot gluing solid bait. Normally I use peanut butter, but invertebrates such as insects and slugs can clean off the bait pedal without setting the trap off. I read a paper suggesting that you hot glue an almond to the bait pedal--this has had some success, but ants and some other creatures can eat the almond. In this case there were mice eating duck pellets, so I hot glued a parrot pellet (basically the same ingredients, just bigger) to the traps. So far we've caught 3 mice this way.