Thurs, 6/15

I find a tick (nymph? very small) crawling around my arm after
planing all those flowers today. I brush it off into the cat box
holding bucket outside. No sense in just brushing it off back into
the wild.

I'm also being merciless* to any and all ants I see crawling around
my kitchen sink/counter. When I go to Maine, if they are still around
they will get store bought chemicals used against them. The baking
soda and the Fantastick haven't eradicated them. This is the first
year they have appeared for more than a day. (It started March 13
when they appeared by the cat bowl. They haven't come back there
since I poured baking soda all along the baseboards. I also see some
spiders living nearby so they might be getting them too.)

The de-anting technique up until I go to Maine has been wiping them
up with a damp sponge and washing them down the drain. (Same thing in
the bathroom.) It took a long time before I stopped feeling bad that
I was murdering all these ants. Now I am just mad they keep coming
back.

This from a guy who escorts almost any other insect found in the
house, out. I haven't intentionally killed anything I am aware of. If
I know it's there I'll escort it outside. Now if I am stepping on
ants in the bathroom or kitchen, I am not concerned but I do avoid it
if I see them.

I'm hoping that my taping the top edges of the storm windows up will
prevent any or at least most of the bugs I get inside each summer. I
get way too many. At night when the lights are on, all kinds of
things glue themselves to the screens and storm windows, eventually
getting in. I want to have the non-sticky side face out so they don't
get stuck and die from that but that is too hard to do at this point
so I'm sure I'll find some bodies when I pull the tape off when it's
time to pull the storm windows down again.

Time for lunch.

Cat has eaten her pill wrapped in a Pill Pocket!! Let's hope this
will happen again!

A beautiful black and blue butterfly was seen briefly by my outdoor
table. Didn't have my camera and it flew away quickly towards Aldo's.
I may have seen one like it last year. I thought I saw baby Monarchs
in the grass yesterday as I cut it but I bet they were just moths.
Some definitely were.

Saw a woodchuck as I was planting the geraniums by the bird bath. He
saw me first and ran under the chicken coop/dog house. Later, as I
was planting I saw him poke his head out from underneath it. We
stared at each other for a awhile, me talking to it to reassure it.
Eventually he went back under and I didn't see him again but I heard
all kinds of poking noises from there for awhile.

Aldo's tortoise shell cat seen out front earlier. I took a pic from far away.