Hibiscus bloom!

Hibiscus bloom, about 8” in diameter

Our hibiscus is happy and blooming! Great big gorgeous flowers! And so many more buds. Hurray!

Hibiscus about to bloom

Lake weaving

Spent another couple hours out at the lake. I spotted a different variety of grass by the edge and selected a few long strands near the mowed part to see how they behaved when woven. My weaving skills are still very rudimentary, however I’m learning so much about construction in experimentation. The basket started off as I’ve seen in pictures for twined baskets, but then when I started up the sides my spacing narrowed into more of a rough vase than a basket. (I will say that it was laid down many times for the baiting of the youngest’s hook.) I made fair progress and decided to continue the study at home.

Experimental weaving with lake grass

Since the weaving wanted to narrow, I went with it, changing the uprights to weavers, thus narrowing the number of uprights. When I was down to five uprights, I braided them to end the sculpture. (We are going to call it a sculpture since I tucked all the ends inside and it is non-functional as a vessel.) I also don’t speak basket, so my terminology leans to descriptive. (Even when I know the proper terms, though, they don’t always surface appropriately, so there we go.)

Woven lake grass sculpture study

Pill bug split

It seems that it is the year of the pill bug. Rollie pollies are everywhere. Well, OK, everywhere that is outside and slightly moist and dark. So many more, though, than we’ve witnesses here before. We even found one that had a different colored front and back. I couldn’t find any studies or speculation on why it is two colors, but did find other photos of the same phenomena. Interestingly, the head is not always the lighter color. Sorry the photo is slightly blurry, by the time I zoomed in to check the photo, the land crustacean had scurried off to hide. There were other creatures in the decaying branch to catalog as well; a wolf spider with an eggs sac, several grubs, and a millipede.

Two-toned common pill woodlouse

Cucumber

Cucumber growing

There are actual cucumbers actually growing on my cucumber plant! The pollinators have been back to work! This is a bush variety that is supposed to produce small pickling cucumbers, so we’ll see how that goes. The rogue plant growing outside the container is still alive, but doesn’t have fruit (or the dog eats it, hm). The carrots and peas have all been nibbled by something, however the melon is vining and has a flower, so maybe some pollinators will be attracted there too.