Circle of life

I was sitting in my rocker on the front porch today after mowing the lawn, when I noticed this spider having a snack. It got me thinking. I know, that is a dangerous thing, but I do it now and then anyway. Said spider is munching on what we call a fishfly. It's proper name is a mayfly. I suspect we started calling them fishflies as they hatch on the surface of the water and make delicious ready meals for the fish below. Circle of life. They leave the water and head toward the nearest light. Oh yes, did I mention they hatch at night? By the million? Oh, and the poor old fishfly only lives about 24 hours. They're born, they do whatever it is they do to reproduce, and then they die. So if you live on, or near the water, when you wake up in the morning, your abode is covered with these creatures. We'd have to go out each morning and sweep them off and the birds would come eat as many as they could hold. Circle of life.


When I left this spider, he was the top of the food chain.





He's not as big as this picture makes him look, so I doubt he'll remain at the top of the food chain long. Circle of life.




I got bored watching the feast after a while and started thinking about my gardens. I do so love my gardens. I planted them with great thought as to which flowers bloomed when. I love color. I always want something in bloom. I've got early blooming plants and medium blooming plants and late blooming plants. I've got plants that stay in bloom all summer, and some just plain old remain green and vibrant. So, right now in my garden I've got things just ready to burst into bloom, while others have died already. These are all perennial flowers so they 'die' each fall and are 'born' again each spring. Eternal circle of life. Gotta love that!



Below is my Easter Lilly, one of the plants getting ready to flower. Never blooms at Easter, but that's it's name anyway. It smells divine when it blossoms and has lovely white flowers.

Ahhh my roses. They're prolific. I've 2 bushes, a red, and a pink. They each have well over 50 buds on them and they will bloom off and on all summer long. The pink one is gorgeous and the red one has a heavenly scent. Each have their own beauty. Right now I've got the gorgeous buds you see below, and also roses that have budded, bloomed, and the petals have fallen to the ground. Circle of life.

The flower nearest to my heart is the lilac. Oh I love these. I think this could be the single thing that would keep me from moving to Florida year round. Florida does not have lilacs. They're the first thing to come to life in the spring, and the scent is divine! Oh my dear it makes me swoon to think about it. I don't think there's any smell on earth I like more. I've got early blooming lilacs and late blooming lilacs also. My early bloomers are dead and gone for another year. The one below, one of my late bloomers, is just beginning to come into full blossom.

This is a whole bunch of lilac bushes I dug up and planted together. Some are early, some are late. The thing most interesting about clump of lilacs is the smallest bush you see right in the front there. This was a lilac bush that my sons bought me the first year we lived in this house. That was 1987. It's never grown bigger than this and I've come to the conclusion that it's a dwarf lilac. When I was a little girl we had a HUGE lilac bush in the front yard. It was my mom's favorite flower too. I wish she were with me now to see mine. I sit with my grandson in the rocker on the front porch and we smell them together. Circle of life.

This pine you see was our Christmas tree the first year we lived in this house. We bought it live, decorated it for the season, and then planted it in the spring. I love this tree.

I do, however, hate the birds that nest in this tree EVERY year. They wake me up tweeting at 5:30AM EVERY morning. Circle of life my ass. I'd shoot them if my aim were better.