this small creature is one of the reasons i let milkweed grow wild here. in a few week's time, this caterpillar will have undergone metamorphosis and emerged into his final stage of life - as a beautiful monarch butterfly. 
two years ago, i blogged about this, which means i've been attempting to grow these flowers for four summers now. a friend has amazing success growing beautiful giant pink poppies and she keeps me in a yearly supply of seed, which i (now) faithfully plant according to her directions - always to no avail. but apparently this year, i've had some success as i find these spent pods tucked in the garden behind some taller and fuller perennials. the bad news is this: i totally missed the flowers. even though they must have been awfully tiny and hidden behind other garden greenery, i bet, for a few fleeting days, they were really pretty.
What is so rare as a day in june? a day in july! perfect weather today for a long walk, for some work outside at the table, for a snooze under the maples and for a picnic dinner with the little girl, eating watermelon and listening to crickets. summer as it should be!
when this arbor was built last summer, i agonized over the color choice for the paint. when it was finished, i was a bit disappointed to see how blue it was instead of the tree-trunk grey i had hoped it would be. but now that it's covered with lovely, lush vines, heavy with grapes, i see how silly that was. draped serenely in morning sunlight, it would still be beautiful even if it had been painted orange.
each morning this week i've tried to snap a photo of the raucous crows that have been waking me too early all summer long. screeching and shrill, they arrive at dawn to perch in trees around the yard. boldly, they swoop in and cover the lawn, squawking as they hi-step through the early morning dew. once this week, i awoke to rapid, rhythmic, incessant croaking. peering sleepily through the window i spied a young crow, jumping up and down in front of the blackberry bushes. with each screech, he hopped up and gobbled down a berry. needless to say, there are precious few left for us this year. 
just as this day is coming to an end, just as i am thinking nothing photo- or blog-worthy happened today, the tiniest toad hops onto the screen right where i am sitting at the window. and so ends the day.
here is the sight that i opened my eyes to this morning. it's pretty difficult to go back to sleep after witnessing something this amazing.
the little girl arrived at the beach yesterday and suddenly all that was familiar looks different. as we walk, she's like a hawk, spotting smooth white rocks and worn down pieces of beach glass and swooping down to pocket them. she calls the ocean by name, demanding that it come closer or retreat, and tries to hail gulls with a "hell-o! seagull!" she doesn't mind walking in the rain and thinks the resulting sunset is pink and beautiful. and the kite delights her, even though it doesn't fly very high or stay airborne for too long.
i'm not sure why its happened but i'm disappointed with the way some of my photographs have come out this week, especially the close ones. above, the small round beach rock on the right was mesmerizing as it glittered with a sprinkle of tiny copper colored flecks. and below, the opalescence of the small fragment of shell was captivating, the way it undulated and changed colors in the morning sunlight.
how long must it take for a snail to make progress like this, i wonder as i walk. seeing the snail reminds me that i have a herculean task ahead of me this coming year. i'm thinking i should make this photo into a "slow and steady" type inspirational poster and hang it over my desk! i can learn from this determined snail!
to me, this trio looks like ducks. they were perched well out in the water, standing on a rock, i think. as i watched and photographed them, the waves grew higher and stronger and their watery roost soon disappeared, forcing them to float out onto the sea. 
spent time on the beach late this afternoon with the telephoto lens, attempting to capture the activity of a flock of swooping terns who kept dive-bombing into the ocean for fish. here's a lucky shot, a tern in midflight, carrying his dinner-to-go in his orange bill.
lovely low tide walks are one of my favorite things to do here. interesting today to see how much the beach has changed since last summer. pictured here amongst the seaweed is a feat of nature i've not seen in a long time. it's an almost perfectly round sand collar, the egg case of a particular kind of moon snail. i hope this is an indication of what i might find on future walks!
here's my neighbor's woodpile, shot out the window on a hot july morning. this is another picture snapped through the window screen between the camera and the subject. i'm fascinated with the effect it has on the sunlight in the captured image. it almost makes it look as hot outside as it really is.
fieldstone has been removed from the middle of the perennial garden and the ground is settling in preparation for the installation of red brick pavers in early fall. the little girl thinks this spot is now her giant sandbox and has been observed digging out there with pails, shovels and trucks. and apparently she is planting, too. i laughed out loud this evening to see three solitary but strong scarlet runner bean seedlings, standing erect in the middle of the barren sand.
on the right, my old gravy boat from my favorite set of dishes. look closely and you'll see that the "boat" itself is riddled with surface crackling in the glaze and the accompanying plate is poorly held together in several spots with super glue. it's been in that condition for decades. often have i thought to replace it but it's a a bit pricey for the two times a year i serve gravy.
this tall plant is not very attractive. it seeds itself prolifically and, in the early summer, comes up everywhere. its leaves and stems are very sticky with milky sap that oozes when a plant part breaks. the spherical heads hardly qualify as flowers. you can see here its three graduated forms - the head with the buds at the top and the fully bloomed flower at the bottom. even the pink of the petals is a little mauve-y and washed out compared to other pinks in the yard.
it's amazing the things you can find while digging around in your garden. i wonder how old this bottle is. i wonder what swamp root is. i wonder who had to take it. and why. and when. living in this very old house and suddenly finding evidence of its other inhabitants and their lives always leaves me a bit awestruck, wondering for days afterward what life must have been like at this place one hundred, even two hundred years ago.
