Not garden related. So sue me.

What, you've never seen kids being carried to safety over mulch by a ridiculously large duck? Mike informs me it's a loon.

The zoo!

We took note of the peonies and poppies at the zoo. They seem to be genuine, permanent plants growing right where they're planted, which brings me to one of the most irksome situations facing modern human beings: the sneaky replanting of public planters so that the flowers are always pretty and always in season. Peter and I noticed a few bits of evidence at the UofC today: ripped up faded tulips sitting on the ground next to a bed of gorgeous, blooming peonies, salvia, columbine, and lots of other things we're pretty sure weren't grown there. It's like that story about the Buddah, who as a child was sheltered from old age and death to the degree that he was shocked and horrified when he first encountered an aged, sick person. Granted, he then grew up to be the Buddah. But that hardly seems like justification for the practice of secretly replacing spring flowers with summer ones as though nothing ever fades, or has a season. Not even to make the flower beds pretty for graduation!

Roses

They're blooming really nicely despite my continued neglect of whatever powdery mildew-like condition they have.

Peonies

Technically only the red one is ours, but the huge bunch of white peonies are on the border between our yard and our neighbor's, so we enjoy watching them, too. (I'm trying to figure out a way to generously offer to split off some from their plants for myself! Still working on that.) Peter was really worried about the ants, until I talked to my dad to ask him whether I should relocate my few peonies to somewhere else in the yard. I asked, "What do peonies like?" meaning, sun, shade, soil type... and he said confidently, "Ants!" So now Peter and I talk a lot about how Papa said peonies love ants, and the ants won't hurt the peonies, and there's no need to worry. We have this conversation every day or two, and I think Peter's getting a new appreciation for ants.

Fun with cicadas!

Grace and Peter both have the fantastic quality of being unafraid of insects. They do not get this from their mother. I'm not afraid of cicadas, exactly, I just don't want to touch them, and I lie awake at night envisioning millions of them crawling around our town, screeching, and it makes me a little uncomfortable. Plus the gulls have been gathering in huge flocks to eat them, and they like to perch on the roofline of the community house of the church where Peter goes to preschool. So every drop-off is a little Hitchcockian, and I resent that a bit.

Anyway. The kids. The bugs. The top pictures are of a mature adult; the bottom pictures are of, as Grace puts it, "one of the baaaaaaabies. Aren't they cute?" Ummm..... it's a face only a mama cicada could love. And I am no mama cicada.

Robin's eggs

Every year since Grace has been old enough to notice, we've found a robin's egg or two. Usually they're broken, whether by hatchlings or thieves is never clear. Once in a while we find an intact one. This year Peter insisted he was old enough to hold it (his argument was something like, "I am gentle wif all da little animals!" Sure. Tell it to the cat.) But he held the egg quite carefully, and then the kids returned it to the base of the tree where we found it. Earlier I saw a fledgling of some kind taking a bath in water collected in their sandbox - maybe a robin from the same nest.

Grace: spotter of peonies.

Grace excitedly hustled us out to the little wooded area on the south end of our yard a few weeks ago, reporting that she had found something cool. Indeed! We have three very nice peonies which we haven't ever noticed before, two of which are about to bloom. The blossoms are gorgeous, and waiting for them to burst is fun. Our neighbors have some beautiful white peonies that they've had for more than twenty years, but ours are reddish. We'll take more pictures as they bloom fully!