UGH…………which one of my garden’s demons will survive?
I’m wondering if my will plants survive?
My poor daisies, that just finally started to bloom, are being attacked by the worst demon ever.
The Japanese Beetle.
I’ve posted about them before. Here with really great photos of them, by the way! And here. And here where I described them again along with other nasty bugs and slugs. I despise these demons a lot I guess!
It’s July 5th – outta the blue, all of these nasty, no good, leg-biting, effing beetles are back with a vengeance to attack and conquer every blooming thing in their path. They are horrible. I can’t stand them.
The grackle birds show up about a month before these demons hatch. While they try their best to eat all of the larvae in the ground, the damn beetles still survive, crawl outta the ground to destroy and multiply.
And eat my flower buds and blossoms. And attack humans and dogs, too. Just when we were getting all used to enjoy being outside, we’re afraid to go out there!
Sigh…bastards.
And then there are the rabbits. At this time of the year, they’ve had a few litters and they move about the yard where their predators typically are able to find them and thin the herd.
The rabbits mostly come out at dawn or dusk. They have mating parties then.
In the Spring, before the good food arrives in the form of dandelions, they nibble on the new plants coming up in my garden. They do like tiger lilies.
This year, there were plenty of dandelions, and fresh grass, so they’ve been leaving my flowers mostly alone. Or maybe it’s all the bird seed that the birds and the deer knock down to the ground that has kept them satiated?
The deer have been good too – they’ll eat hostas. Thankfully, they have plenty of soybeans to eat so have left my gardens alone.
A young buck finally strolled in to see what the gals have been talking about for delicate treats to eat.
And then there is this adorable little demon. The little tike has gotten used to Mr. walking by it, so when the downspout house got a little too hot for it yesterday, it crawled out to lay in the chilly grass.
Before I got there with my camera, Mr. said it was crashed on its side with legs all outstretched. Just chilling in the cool long grass, (aka, another unfinished project for a cooler day – edge trimming.)
He/she is too young to know how to destroy my plants yet.
He/She must’ve lost his/her family? It’s the only one we’ve seen on the north side of our yard, far from the bird feeder party zone. It’s living all alone in our old downspouts (aka, another Unfinished Project).
But it’s so cute!
And too little to eat my tiny plants, in my tiny buckets. The demon beetles haven’t discovered them yet. Will they survive?
Stay tuned.
Post Inspiration – #JulySquares and #Blue (Check out Becky’s rules here) and my gardening woes and #IFUP
PS – Do you have the Japanese Beetles in your garden too?! Isn’t that rabbit so cute!?! Did you have a great 4th of July?! Do you have to be back to work today too?!
Rabbits, deer, beetles. I am sure Mr could make some nice venison burgers or a potted rabbit stew. as for the beetles I suggest moving lol
LOL – yeah, rabbit stew is an option. My dad used to make it for us when I was growing up. The venison, YES – we love venison. The beetles need to move…or maybe we will, some day! Do you have those beetles in Australia?!
Yes they are in Australia but not around here. We have another voracious beetle which is at my besties. They have eaten so many plants. Can’t remember the name Lepto something or other.
You’re lucky these beetles aren’t in your yard. Yikes – I guess no place is safe from beetles or bugs of sorts!?!
No where is safe from insects I fear
So very true!
Shelley, we have them all except I have not really seen Japanese beetles. They were all over when I grew up. My grandmother would partially fill a can with kerosene, pick the Japanese beetles (one-by-one) off her peonies and drop them in the kerosene.
Too bad about the fox and the bunnies. That survival of the fittest is no joke.
No work today or any day. The joy of retirement.
Oh, my, kerosene – yeah, that’d work! And it wouldn’t draw more into the yard either.
Survival in the animal kingdom here seems to go on without any of our interventions.
Lucky you – no work, no worries – joy of retirement! 🙂
They’re are cute, except the beetles. They have to go. You need a possum
I think you’re right. I don’t know that I’ve seen one of those around our yard, but have seen them on the road nearby. That’d be great if one showed up and ate all the bugs!
They like rotting fruit, but they eat everything.
Hmm…that’s why they don’t frequent our yard. We don’t have much for fruit laying around.
Hi, Shelley – That rabbit is adorable. We also had a young rabbit move into our (fenced) back yard while we were away. Since we do not have an extensive garden to worry about, I kinda hope she stays!
Aw, I hope the rabbit works out for you. They can be fun to watch!
Wow Shelley, I’m sorry these damn beetles are ravaging your plants. And the rabbit parties too. Wish I could help kill them off…
They’ll rotate through their life cycle and plants will survive, for a bit, until they attack again. Dang things…I wish you could help too!
Well, at least the bunny is cuter than those beetles. What great photographs. The beetles are tough to get rid of and so frustrating to deal with (and…gross). Good luck!
Thank you – the bunny just posed so nicely, I couldn’t resist taking photos. Thank you for the well wishes against the bugs!
Ewww. Summer garden pests are such a pain. We have no rabbits anymore – I think the coyotes ate them. But we have chipmunks. So. Many. Chipmunks. And it’s so wet/hot right now that our Juneberry trees have a nasty fungus and have dropped half their leaves. They’ll be bald by August 1, I’m sure. It’s too hot to go outside and deal with it today, but maybe tomorrow. 🙂
Yep, it is a pain. We’re having some fungus issues, too. And the ants are invading the house. Something has been taking care of the chipmunks this year. We had two pine snakes, so maybe they’ve been working the yard. Sorry to hear about your Juneberry tree. This summer has been a strange one. It’s too hot here today too. Sigh…hopefully tomorrow after it rains (again) it’ll be nice for a few days!
I would gladly import a few snakes if I thought they’d finish off the chipmunks. LOL.
The snakes would enjoy being welcomed – when we saw them, they had found their way into our garage and were climbing the shelving. YIKES!
Its like invasion of June bugs here as well. And I yell every time I shake one off my flowers – “Go away, its July”. Stupid bugs.
LOL – I can see you yelling at them. My girlfriend does that too, but grabs them and squishes them and then stomps on them. She really doesn’t like them.
ah Grackles . . once watched them strip a tree of berries in about 5 minutes. Extraordinary to watch . . . . . and love how you kept me reading with your blue square right at the end!
They can be ferocious when they’re hungry! I’m so happy to hear you made it to the end to find the blue square! :-)!!
Yes, the rabbit is too cute! 🐰 Perfect shot. I hate it when pests eat our flowers.
Thank you, Winnie – he/she is so cute, I couldn’t resist taking photos. Yeah, pests are a pain.
The bunny is cute as a bug’s ear, but the bug is not cute in the least. I don’t think I have the Japanese Beetles out in the backyard, but I told you before that I battled slugs for a long time, going through container after container of “Sluggo” and even buying the mushroom-shaped soapstone holders to pour beer into and supposedly the slugs smell the yeast and come to drink and end up drowning – don’t waste your money on the latter. I got some cute bunny pics at the Park as they are feasting on all the clover there.
I had a hunch you’d like the bunny. He/she is so darn cute, and getting quite used to us stopping by to watch him. I mostly just let nature take its course out in the yard. With 80 acres next to us, it’s hard to prevent any kind of bug invasion. I can’t wait to see your pictures!
My bunny pics were cute – not as close-up as you as I was taking them from the pathway and too close and they’ll bolt. There were actually three, the last one was near the pavilion. I just looked quickly as I blitzed through the pics to do a post this morning while waiting on the weather … tapping my foot still. The bunnies are very cute and they are in their glory munching on clover. Despite being ONLY at Council Point Park the last two weeks, I have amassed quite a few non-geese pics for upcoming posts – now to write them. Next weekend won’t be getting out to any parks, as Saturday I have a highlights appointment at 9:00 a.m. and will get home at 11:00ish, then have a five-hour window for the A/C check-up, so that pretty well kills Saturday. HVAC place is not setting appointments at a specific time like they used to – now a five-hour window (hate that) and Sunday I have a butterfly garden event to raise money for local animal shelters. So trekking off to a bigger park won’t happen until the weekend of the 20th – where is the Summer going so quickly?
I’ll check out the bunny photos. Our little guy must’ve grown too much for his home, he’s moved to the other side of the yard. We think. Way to plan a day to be stuck at home. Maybe you could work while you wait, and take the afternoon off the day before?!
I still have to sort thru my bunny photos Shelley – I took a ton of them and, in fact, I have a ton of photos to share now and because I was trying to stay away from the computer this weekend and “move, move and move” and my photos are at this old computer, I did not get much written … I threw all my photos on Shutterfly from the 4th of July (200 of what I call “mish mash” like the pics in the neighborhood which I used yesterday) and I need a day just to sort thru. I don’t have my laptops linked because if I get a virus, I would not want it to go to the others, despite my Malwarebytes protection, and MS Security Essentials on the two Win 7 computers. I need to load Malwarebytes on the new one – I have to do that too. The bunnies are sweet and sorry he moved on – he thought too much clover or grass and he’d get stuck in there. 🙂 Now I’m off to get dressed to walk on a cooler (they say) morning.
I hear ya on having to sort photos! I take so many, too! I hope you have a wonderful, cool, walk this morning!
It was a wonderful walk, and I really enjoyed it and the squirrels were all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and came running over, not like the other few days where they looked lethargic and listless on the path. Made me feel badly for them. I sorted out pics for three posts, then the finger debacle and I’ve got more pictures to sort down and get ready for posts. This is the first year since I began blogging in 2013 that I did not take pics that day and use them that night in a post …. I always went out on a weekend walk, wrote about it and used pics that same night so this is a real novelty for me saving up pictures, but … the finger, the storms and shutting down the computer and now trying not to spend 12 hours a day at the computer will change and this is the new norm. Funny thing, I know what I have in pics, just as you do, and can sort them in my head for future posts, even if I’ve not divvied them up in the picture folders. I’ve even titled the posts in my head.
Yay, glad your walk was enjoyable. I used to do the posts in my head the night before, too, but lately, I just wing it. Unlike you, I’m terrible at picking titles for my posts. That’s something I wish I was better at. Yours are always so creative. All of it coming together into a post is what makes it fun.
I was hoping to do one tonight but I wasn’t busy during the day so seized that opportunity to catch up in Reader as I went to bed early last night, as I’m forcing myself offline early and elevating my legs which are 100% back to normal now. (Yay!) So got 3/4s caught up in Reader, but then had to work later so maybe no post after all. I may have to do a few on the weekend to launch during the week – I liked them more same day, but we’ll see. Was going to do the bunny post today – we have raucous storms tomorrow afternoon with another heat spike.
Thank you – I’m glad you like the titles. When I began my blog, I used a format that I liked of one long paragraph and a one-word title. When I started blogging at “Patch.com” the community editor said “how about a hint – make longer and more creative titles and more white space!” I was miffed, but took her advice. My early posts have no pics either – I started that in August of 2013 and they are very small pics. 🙂
Yay, glad your legs are back to normal. Changing positions is key! I appreciate hearing your tips on writing and what you’ve learned along the way. The blogging learning curve is a big one!
I’m excited – today my ankle bones were showing – it’s been a while, so I should have gotten a handle on this before I had to take the bull by the horns after the red blotchiness. Too late smart sometimes. I’ll share my “G” issues so you’ll find it smoother hopefully. I really liked “Classic Editor” much better though. The justified right margin and larger sub-headings are about the nicest feature in my opinion.
Yay – keep on top of the ankle swelling. Glad it’s better. Yes, please share what you’ve learned about G!
I was going to write a post tonight, but am pretty far behind in Reader, so will try to catch up a little if possible. I stayed later tonight as I got back later. I decided to walk at the grocery store in the A/C and did some shopping – I was late looking for the black wasp that came in the house – I usually don’t empty all my pantry items when I shop in the morning, but I thought it zoomed in one of the bags so had to empty everything then and there – grrrr. So called Robb and told him why and said I’ll just stay later tonight. Honestly, I’m yawning from the heat – I may just cave and go to bed early and catch up tomorrow night.
I hope you got some much needed rest. The heat is exhausting!!
I’m going to bed early again tonight – I walked five miles and worked til almost 6:45 p.m. so will still be behind in Reader. We are swamped at work all of a sudden.
Way to get 5 miles in despite the extra workload you’re dealing with!
I must push this weekend, whether at the Park or at the grocery store walking the perimeter due to the heat – plus my tomorrow starts with 7 leftover items from Friday that I never got to.
Ah, adorable, that bunny. As for the Japanese beetles, we aren’t bothered by them much here in MD, but they were always terrible in OH–a mixture of dish soap and something on the leaves, I think, but my mom would spend ages in her veggie garden plucking them off one by one, by hand. Ugh!
The bunny is appreciative of the kudos! ;-). We have so many acres surrounding us, it’d be impossible to kill these pests. I’m not as brave to grab them and squish. Maybe if I put on gloves I could. Ugh is right!
Japanese Beetles: How to Get Rid of Japanese Beetle Pests https://www.almanac.com/pest/japanese-beetles
Thank you, that is a very helpful article. I found it interesting that the picking them and tossing them into a soapy water bucket was one of the most effective removal methods! 😉