Outside temperature: 79
Pool temperature: 70-ish
First swim of the year! At first we were just going to go in the pool just to see if we could entice Bella back in. I am still kicking myself for not pushing the right button to record when Bella jumped in and swam to Rick on Saturday. Darn it anyway! We were not successful in getting her back in with us. We bobbed around a while on our new cushy lounges while the sun went in and out of clouds. It couldn’t seem to make up its mind. I got out and Rick decided he was going to try to really get wet and swim. He was standing at what I call the “brink of no return” (where the shallow end of our pool starts dropping off gradually from 3 feet to 9 feet). He was stuck there. Trust me, it’s hard to make that decision to dunk yourself in that cold water! So, I asked him if it would help if I got in too. I walked in to meet him and my right foot went a little too far—right off the brink of no return. kerplunk. I was in the icy water. Oh well, might as well swim since I’m in! Rick was annoyed with me because he wanted to be the one who got wet first this year. Trust me, I didn’t plan it. He said the expression on my face was priceless. We swam five laps or so and that was enough. Actually it felt kind of refreshing once you got used to it.

The water so far this year is crystal clear. Last year we struggled so with algae. I hope we don’t have that problem this year. It was a real pain. We have these little bugs this time of year that we are always finding floating in the pool. They look just like a fly Rick used in Colorado for fly fishing: a wooly bugger. I was never sure about the spelling. Maybe it’s a wooly booger. They are always dry, never wet. Anyway, this is what they look like:

I have tons of foxglove that is on the verge of blooming. They must reseed themselves pretty readily because I used to only have two or three and now I have at least ten different plants coming up everywhere. I like them though so I let them go. The bees like them too.

I don’t know what this is. Something in the pea family, but exactly what I don’t know. It’s a pretty tall plant; about 3.5 feet.

The day lilies are getting ready to make their debut poolside soon. I love it when they’re blooming. So cheery and bright.

It wasn’t all sitting idle by the pool this weekend. We also trimmed the forsythia hedge into some semblance of order and the burning bushes in front of our windows have now been taken down a notch. If we let it go we would not be able to see out the windows. After living in Colorado for so long and coaxing things to grow, New Jersey sometimes feels like a jungle. I am always pulling baby trees up and the ferns are taking over the day lilies!

We had a nighttime visitor on Saturday. We had just gone to bed when Hailey and Alex started barking like crazy from the office downstairs. Rick went to investigate (Bella and I stayed in bed) and turned on the front outside light. He saw a big black shape over in the area where we feed the birds. Ho-hum, just a bear. Back to bed. He did think, however, to check to make sure we had closed the sliding doors in the sun room—we had not. Good thing he checked. But the next day while we were eating our breakfast of strawberries and fresh melon down by the pool I glanced up to see the door to the basement standing wide open. Uh oh. (It’s our habit to leave the door open when we are outside with the dogs in summer. They get hot and go in to the basement to keep cool and out of the sun.) Bravely I went in to check it out. No bear. whew. But how stupid to leave the door open all night! I’m sure the bear would enjoy cozying up in there without our knowledge! I think we need to do a full door check before going to bed from now on.

Bella says:
hey mom, you and dad can go in that big water bowl as much as you want but I think i’ll stay on the sides and look cute. don’t the new flowers make a lovely backdrop for my head?

uhm, not me. The plastered one I mean. Although I do like my wine ... No, I was speaking of the weather we had on Saturday. Really windy and nearly two inches of rain. The leaves at times rained down like wet confetti and stuck to the windows, deck—you name it—driven there by the wind and the rain. It toppled my mums. The tree tops swayed alarmingly to and fro and I had visions of a power outage. But none occurred.

Here is my shadow (in baggy robe) trying to get some of the leaves decoupaged onto the deck from this morning.

I didn’t really mean to get myself in the shot, it just happened that way.

Today was the last farmer’s market in Warwick for the season. boohoo. We hadn’t been in several weeks and were surprised (and extremely pleased) to see a few new vendors. Mainly the mushroom vendor (hurray!) whose farm is not far away and hopefully will continue to sell their wares straight from their farm. We left our email just in case they follow through on this. She had Hen-of-the-Woods, oyster, lobster, creminis, white portabellos, and king oysters. Tomorrow we will be making a mushroom risotto from the Hen-of-the-Woods that we bought and the kings.

The other vendor had this ...

... and this that made its way home with me. Hey, I couldn’t resist local alpaca (spun with bamboo) now could I? Soft and squishy, this will make a nice scarf.

I also bought a bunch of veggies that I plan to cook a stew with in a few days when the weather is supposed to be really cold. We’ll miss the Sunday market in Warwick until it returns next Spring.

Today we also dismantled the poolside cabana. We flicked off all the little spideys hoping to make it their forever home from the screens and curtains, hung the curtains on the line to completely dry, and folded them up to store away until next year. The cabana frame still stands as it’s bolted down.

In doing so, we discovered this cool caterpillar. It was about 4 to 5 inches long and to me looks like a piece of tinsel off a Christmas Tree. It’s body sparkled so! I have no clue what Mother Nature has in store for someone who hasn’t blossomed into a butterfly at this late stage of the season. I ran my fingers down its porcupine back. This one has some natural defense going on for sure. I’m not sure the photo really captured its glitz.

That was my day today. And by the way, what you see in my blog is my real life. Not some made-up existence (which is blog fodder for another day). I’ve been working on a blog entry for days now about our wonderful hike that we took a week ago, but it’s slow going. I have so many photos that I am wondering if anyone is going to want to wade through it. But, this blog is really about me. For me. About my life. It’s my way to keep a diary (but a public one) of my life. If you choose to read and enjoy, welcome. But this is really for me. Me me me! (Thanks to all who read!)

I’ll close now with the view out my kitchen window. Who could want for anything more?

UPDATE: Thanks to Gretel who suggested the caterpillar was a moth! It is! A quick Google search came up with a Giant Leopard Moth! Follow this link to see. Here’s another photo I took blown up a bit. You can see the tiny red bands peeping through and bristles much better.

While taking photos last week at Skylands (the New Jersey Botanical Gardens) I came across these bees clustered all over these flowers. They must have known colder weather was coming and were all trying to gather that last bit of food. Even though they look like they are being industrious, they were actually quite sleepy. You know me—can’t resist a sleepy bee!

This one I call Cross(ed)-Pollination.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ ... zzzzzzzzzzzzz

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ….......
zzzzzzzzzz…......
zzzz….......

Take Sominex tonight and sleep ... safe and restful ... sleep, sleep, sleep ...

ah, a zinnia pillow, just what I’ve always wanted...

The bees (or at least the bumblebees) have been acting strangely. They are not your typical busy bees. Au contraire my friend, they seem to be doing the exact opposite. They are sleepy, drugged, or? I have noticed this before right around this time of year. So bizarre. Is it an overdose of pollen? They are in a trance-like state for fifteen minutes or more. I can move the flower they are on, get my camera lens almost on their bodies and yet they snooze peacefully away. Their legs are in a relaxed position, their heads down as if in a deep snooze. After a while they awaken from their drug/pollen induced stupor and fly drunkenly off. Does anyone know why they do this?

let it all hang out

two naps are better than one

Then there is always the dangling sleep mode.

Don’t worry, it’s not dead, just very relaxed. After taking this photo I think the flash woke it up and it assumed this position.