A Stroll in Paradise

The nighttime temps are finally giving us a break and it makes for great sleeping here in West Virginia. I “camped” in the field Friday night and it was heavenly. With the lower temperature, I didn’t have to run the fans so I could hear the night sounds. I didn’t get to hear any owls, but it was still peaceful.

Before I came into the house, I took a stroll around the pollinator gardens to see what’s growing. I was thrilled to find about a dozen “Slender Lady’s-Tresses” orchids. They aren’t “rare”, but they are uncommon. I read they have boom years and bust years, so maybe we’re in a boom year. I also found prunella vulgaris, the common self-heal or “woundwort”. The largest garden is finishing its second year and you can definitely see the difference in maturity and growth. It will be interesting to see the difference next year as I add more gardens over time. There are actually a couple of tall bonesets…”Late-flowering Thoroughwort” and a “scrophularia lanceolate” from the figwort family. I know they all just look like weeds, but there are more bees around here this year and I find that promising. I have only seen one monarch butterfly this year and although I kept checking the milkweed, I never found a caterpillar.

The twin fawns were out this morning frolicking around the edges of the far field. They don’t try to come up to me anymore, but they aren’t necessarily afraid of me either. They stand and watch me from a safe distance till they finally turn and head deeper into the woods. We lazed around yesterday and watched the Olympic Games most of the day. I made grits and eggs for breakfast. I was a little disappointed with this latest bag of grits. I order them from Amazon and they’re the real deal from North Carolina. They’ve always been fabulous but these turned out runny and flavorless. I’ll not share the name because I sent an email to the mill where they are ground to let them know. We’ll see what they have to say.