Beautiful pests

My fawns have been back again. I can't resist taking photos of them. I hope you don't mind looking at them so often. 

There were two this time, and I've since seen three again (but didn't get photos). I don't remember for sure, but I think this may be the same one in all these photos. They're just a little bit hard to tell apart - ha. But if you look at that little bump behind its shoulder, it looks the same in every pic. Whatever... just enjoy the view! 

Sunday evening as I was out enjoying the last rays of sunshine (and taking sunset photos), I happened to notice this in the garden:

I'd forgotten how much deer love that sedum! All the spent flowers (seed pods?) were gone, plus most of the leaves. I sprayed it with Liquid Fence in the spring, and they hadn't bothered it all summer, so I kinda forgot about it. Oh well, they sorta did me a favor. Now I don't have so much to cut back. Apparently they don't care so much for California poppies or alyssum.

Not a monarch

A couple weeks ago I found this little butterfly on my sedum bush. It's a Red Admiral. I think sometimes people confuse them with monarchs because of their wing color on the top side, but the wings are distinctly different underneath.

See? Not at all like a monarch (see yesterday's post).

Okay, let's see the other side of those wings.

C'mon... you can do better than that...

Better... better....

There we go! Similar in color, but actually very different in design.

This little butterfly has a long way to go, too. They winter in southern Texas.

Incidentally, my sedum has progressed a lot since then. Here's what it looked like yesterday morning:

It was just full of little ground bees.

Busy as a bee

Yep, I've been busy lately... but probably not as busy as this little guy on my sedum:

Signs of spring!

My favorite sign of spring right now is open windows! It got just above 70° on Saturday, and 78° yesterday. It was a perfectly beautiful Easter Day! Annabelle and Josie are pretty thrilled with the open windows, too:

Lots of green things are making their appearance. Snow on the mountain:

Irises:

Sedum:

The rhubarb peeked out before it got so cold the last time, and it appears to have been nipped a little bit by frost. That doesn't hurt it at all, though, and it's growing quickly:

I had to look closely, but the tulip buds are coming:

And the lilac bushes are getting a tinge of green to them, thanks to the leaf buds that are popping out:

(Click to enlarge... it's prettier!)

Spring is here! Now let's just hope we don't get any more ugly surprises, like last year when we got 4" of snow on the first of May.

More pretties

As long as I had the camera out taking pics of the weeds, dirt, etc., for my last post, I thought I'd snap some pretty ones while I was at it. I always love the moss roses in their many colors. Here are a few of them. This first pic sorta got photo-bombed. Those white streaks you can see are whiskers. I had so much "help". :)

My sedum plant bush in the wildflower bed is becoming so pretty now:

Behind the sedum are a few black-eyed susans still blooming.

I've pulled out pretty much everything else, as it was done blooming and going to seed. I'd like to dig up the whole bed except for the perennial sedum and BES's and plant new seeds next year... or even yet this fall. We'll see if I get that done. Then I could have some new kinds of flowers to show you instead of just the same ol' same ol'.

Just pretty

Let's pretend, Part 2

Frost on the sedum:

(Be sure to click to enlarge, especially the last one.)

To be continued.....

Sedum

There's not much left in my wildflower bed. I've pulled out all the dead stuff so far. But I thought this sedum plant (bush?) in the middle of it was exceptionally pretty this fall.

Deer find sedum a really tasty treat. I spray "Liquid Fence" on the leaves to keep them from being eaten before they bloom. Fortunately, the deer don't seem to favor the flowers.

Sedum

This is a bloom on my sedum plant (which is actually more like a small bush) out in the wildflower bed. I took the pics a couple weeks ago... it's well beyond this point now... more of a deeper red, but not so pretty.

Here's a much closer view. Kinda neat, huh?