Hot Cha Cha

Don't it make you want to dance?*

Some dogs (with their people watching over them) were having some fun in this fountain. It's one of those where the water streams out of the floor. Dogs and kids have a blast with those. Yesterday, when I took this pic, it got up to 100°... AND it's humid. Since around the 18th of May we've been between 95° and 100°, It's 98° as I write this, so hello summer.

The backyard is as wild as ever, sunflowers are up, and bugs are in full force. We seem to have made our own hybrid flowers by favoring the tall ones, so most of the sunflowers are 8-10 feet tall and covered in little flowers.

Here's a shady path and one of the squash plants. Those haven't produced very much, MrB thinks partly because of heat and partly lack of bees, and partly who-knows. The importance of bees in growing vegetables is not widely known, and people really need to cut back on the pesticides.

Here's a guy (the green lynx spider) who functions as a pesticide (he eats insects) but unfortunately, like pesticides, he also kills insects we want to preserve like butterflies and bees. We leave him alone though, because he's part of the balance.

Also part of the balance is that colony of Great Golden Digger Wasps that lives right outside the only outdoor exit of the screened porch. Out of all the dirt patches in the whole area... that had to pick right there to move in. MrB has spotted them flying with grasshoppers in their clutches and taking them down the holes for feasting. If you want to see a Youtube of this digger wasp feat, click here (someone else's video). They probably take down a few of the lynx spiders and other 8-leggers too. These suckers are big. I'm told the males can't sting me and the females aren't that interested in doing it, so I just watch my step.

I'll leave you with this wild backyard pic to enjoy sans mosquitoes and in air conditioned comfort, or if you are in another climate, with your late spring cool breezes.

*Song title - Rusty Weir