Last year I surpassed my own expectations by attracting countless bumblebees. I do love a fat little bumblebee. But this year, I also wanted to attract butterflies, so I added plants butterflies love to my garden.
Because I'm always working, and don't have the time spend sitting in the early morning garden, I haven't seen much of anything except the slow progress of my plants.
But Sunday! Well, let me tell you about Sunday. The weather wasn't great, but it was tolerable enough to be out in and leave the door open a crack for the cats. I like to let my three cats out in the garden when I'm out because it's obvious they love it so much. And in general they're pretty well behaved, staying in their yard.
My youngest still has to wear her harness and drag her leash though because she has a bad habit of wandering out of the yard and into the neighbors garage. On Sunday, we started out with the harness and leash, but she kept wandering back in the house and laying on the couch looking miserable. When I checked on her I could tell she was suffering from a kitty cold. Lethargic, dry nose, clingy. So, feeling sorry for her, I took them off. When we went back outside, she seemed content to stay close to the back door.
Well, one thing and another working on projects in the yard and I look up to do a head a count, but there are only 2 cats. I usher the other two back into the house and check all her usual places she's been known to wander off to. No cat. I'm getting worried, but you know cats, there is really very little point walking around the neighborhood calling their name because they will just pretend you don't exist. So I got a magazine and made myself comfortable in a lawn chair to wait. While I was sitting there trying to read and straining my ears at every possible cat sound, I catch out of the corner of my eye a movement. A tiny chipmunk like animal with a long tail pops up out of my creeping charlie by the dead tree stump, looks at me, looks around and pops back into the ground cover.
Well, I'm tickled pink! A cute woodland creature was in my yard! And then I notice movement on my chives. It flexed it wings and I realized that I had my first butterfly in the garden sighting. I ran inside to grab my camera and he was still there when I came back.
In the end, the cat returned on her own. I picked her up, scolded her thoroughly and threatened that if she didn't stay in the yard, the neighbors dogs would eat her. This is far from true as they have a cat of their own, but what kind of parent would I be if I didn't use scare tactics to make my child behave?
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