Back Yard Visitor

We did a lot of work in the yard today. Correction - Hubby did a lot of work. I walked around spraying Roundup on everything.

Hub did some serious tree work today. I'm sorry I didn't take a before picture to show how overgrown and dense the yard was. We still had a lot of downed limbs that he cleared out, then cleared the tall grass in those areas with the brush mower.

After the heavy rains we had a few weeks ago, several of the leggy limbs in the trees were badly sagging. Seems they've lost some elasticity after the weight of last December's ice storm. Hubby removed several low limbs and I had him take out a bushy redbud tree that was growing in front of the kitchen window, leaving a smaller, single-trunk redbud to take over.

The back yard has a lot more sky in it now!

We still have several brush piles that need the attention of a chipper, just as soon as we can get somewhere to rent one for a weekend.

Hubby spotted an odd creature in the grass after cutting down some dead limbs from one of the elm trees. It looked like a big, fat, tan spider with an oddly crinkled cowl. On close inspection, it appeared to be a large moth with damaged wings.

I nudged it onto a stick and moved it to the tree. I checked on it some minutes later to find the crinkled wings were unfurling nicely in the wind. It didn't have damaged wings at all. It was a brand new moth fresh from its incubator.



The eyes on his wings are clear. Click on him for the big picture - you can see the blades of grass through the "eyes." He was quite interesting to watch.

I have to be at work at 7 am tomorrow. Blah.