Katydid Twice

Bear Necessities

Due to our prolonged hot weather our grapes are doing well this year and are well advanced for this time of year. This means they will ripen early and the bears are already coming by every two or three days to see how the garden is doing. Last year I put netting up on our grape arbour to discourage the birds, racoons and bears. It was quite successful except I missed one bunch of grapes and a bear cub climbed in and got it. This year I have beefed the defenses and have installed chain link fences that hinges down when we need to pick.

Hopefully it will be enough to dissuade the bears. Not pretty but…

Rain!

Rain at last even if it was a little short lived

Updates (3 photos)

A bit of ‘house keeping’

The buck is looking better every time I see him
As seen April 2015

The forest fire is 100% contained with a 50 foot cut swath around the entire 400 hectare (1000 acre) fire site.
Small spot fires continue to burn but aren’t considered a problem
The fire started on July 2nd

The Alien Fungus is slowly turning into a Red Belt Fungus (Fomitopsis pinicola)
The young Alien Fungus

Going for the Nectar

Arkenaten over at A Tale Unfolds has some wonderful photographs – especially yesterday’s of one my favourite arachnids, crab spiders. He has challenged me to top his fennel and paper wasp photo but I have run out of fennel photos and can only offer a Bald-faced Hornet approaching cotoneaster instead.