Category Archives: garden

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Bonfire metabolism

We are having our first real cold snap, with snow and lots of accidents two evenings ago. We have Anna’s hummingbirds, who can over winter. By yesterday morning, the temperature had dropped to 17 degrees F. Both of my hummingbird feeders were frozen.

I went out to wrap a hot towel around one. The front-of-the-house Anna’s buzzed me, inches from my face, to let me know she is HUNGRY and the food IS NOT AVAILABLE. The hot towel didn’t work, so I took the feeder in for a bit. She didn’t like that at all.

This looks pretty silly, but success!

The tiny feeder is one to hold in my hand. I have three, so I rotated them during the day to keep thawed food. Anna Front still spent energy chasing other hummingbirds away. She doesn’t look too upset, does she?

Anna’s hummingbird guarding her feeder and grooming in a rhododendron

The photos and video were taken through my window from my desk.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: bonfire.

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Curmudgeon?

I took this in December, at the US Botanic Gardens in Washington, DC. So who is this? Here: https://www.aoc.gov/explore-capitol-campus/buildings-grounds/us-botanic-garden/conservatory

“The USBG’s presentΒ conservatoryΒ is a two-part building. The front is a one-story limestone structure with 11 lofty arches inspired by the seventeen-century orangery at Versailles near Paris. The facade features four alternating keystones carved in the images of Pan, Pomona, Triton and Flora. At the rear is a glass and aluminum greenhouse conceived in the glass house tradition first seen in the 1850s Crystal Palace in London.”

This is either Pan or Triton. I only took photographs of three of the four: two female and one male. He looks pretty wicked, so I would guess Pan. Triton had a reputation for being grumpy too, disappointed in love.

This is the model of the US Botanic Garden Building. You can see the faces over each arch.

Here is the other side of the building.

And here is the view of the Capitol from the desert room.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: curmudgeon.

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Teamwork

The plaque for this pollinator, the yucca moth, says that it and the yucca plant have evolved to be dependent on each other. Dependent sounds a bit worrisome. If I reframe it as teamwork, all of a sudden it sounds much better! And this is intentional pollination, which the author says is rare.

This is from the Holiday Exhibit, complete with train, at the US Botanic Gardens.

Does dependent sound more worrisome than teamwork? If so, why?

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: pollinator.