The backstory is when the tenants who rented the house next door to us moved, they left this giant, rather elaborately fabricated and constructed heart behind. After the new owners bought the house a couple years ago at some point I mentioned how much Susan and I liked the thing. So he asked me if …
Read more “Hey! You Got Your Giant Heart In My Hammock Stand!”
I always make a point during a morning break in the action to go out into the backyard and check on the tortoise — just to make sure she’s her usual tortoise self. On this morning, passing the birdbath on my way to Buster’s hutch, I sighted a spider flailing a bit in the water, …
Read more “Today’s Episode Of Lunch Hour Amateur Biologist Brought To You By…”
Off the cap of my cranium I can’t remember how long ago exactly  it was that I amended a patch of soil in the backyard and we planted several pumpkin plants… I think it was near the middle/end of August. We knew we’d gotten a late start if we were thinking about harvesting a would-be …
The seeming incessant drizzle slime that coated Los Angeles throughout most of last week was certainly welcome by the dormant grasses in the backyard. The blades have all popped up dew-tipped and basking in the return of the sunshine, thinking “Spring? So soon?”
Today’s snapshot update on our thriving backyard pumpkin patch comes with a bonus: it is pumpkinless no more: It’s been flowering very well, but so far the all-important pollination thing hadn’t happened. Until now! Hiding under the umbrella of leaves up against the fence, will you look at that!? Sure, it’s not even the size …
After a regular bombardment upon my few dear readers with all manner of sunflower posts these last couple months, things stopped rather abruptly more than a week ago in part because the prize of the patch finally fell victim to some ratzafratzin’ arboreal rodent. I closed the book a few days later on this year’s …
Arachnophobes beware! I finally timed it right and captured the largest of the many orb weavers in our backyard this morning building its new web. This timelapse at a frame a second, captures about an hour’s worth of webspinning.