Safari

It was like an African safari at my house over the weekend... tigers and zebras!

Georgia's state butterfly.... the tiger swallowtail.

 Zebra swallowtail...

 Also had buckeye and Gulf fritillary butterflies out enjoying the nice February weather.

Of interest... is what flowers they are nectaring at. I have creeping phlox, daffodils, and hellebore in full bloom.... and redbuds, sassafras trees in bloom... and the butterflies are visiting the henbit and chickweed!

 Had these cute birds acting like love was in the air...

The goldfish were acting like they were sunning themselves... like a cat or a butterfly... never really thought about fish enjoying the weather...

For a nice day... started out a bit chilly... a bit of frost on  the rutabaga...

View of the house.... from behind the cut down smilax.

Wisteria and jessamine... Doesn't it seem a bit early for wisteria to be blooming?

Finally caught one!

These things are simply destroying the vegetable garden, and set the trap... catch cats... bait the trap with cat food, you know...

Early Spring

The weatherman on television has been complaining about a lack of winter.... That 9 days out of the first two weeks of Feb have been reaching above 70, with more seventies called for for the next seven days too.... doesn't bother me, none.... of course... means that all the winter wood I cut last summer is still sitting there.... I've been burning the left-overs from the previous winter...

Doesn't hurt anything for the firewood to sit in a pile in the yard... when I eventually get it cleaned up, I'll have another place to put in a flower bed. Something about a pile of wood... leaves the soil more productive...

The Carolina Jessamine is going full on.

Seems like the pear trees have been going for a month....

Plum... Can't say what kind... but has the tiniest flowers...

Person I got it from... called it a chickasaw plum,  it does seem to be the same as the Kansas sandhill plum... If different from what I've been calling a Sandhill plum...

The hellebore got kind of a late start this winter....

10 pound rat, anyone?

Possums and raccoons are simply destroying the vegetable garden this winter... I get tiny seedlings emerging, and these pests show up and turn everything under.

And... what they did to my pear trees last autumn...

Sparse turnips... Ok, Ima start cooking these up... directly.

Using the chainsaw to cut back the smilax thicket.... a slow job, and.... I might be robbing the birds of habitat... But did you ever attempt to walk through a smilax patch?