Owls, hanging baskets,jeeping, and wormwood

Quite the nature drama we have here. A great horned owl decided to plant itself at the edge of our woods two days ago, sitting perfectly still for hours. Absolutely gorgeous creature. Learned they are the largest owls in the state (6 foot wingspan),they don't make nests and borrow a crow or hawk's, lay eggs in January and February (when its minus 15 here!) and are the only owls who fearlessly attack skunks and porcupines. Lo and behold, we saw this morning- her babies! There are three, and apparently mama has decided our woods by the house are a good junior practice hunting field. Oh, the magic, sacred woods.

Mama(courtesy Mark and zoom lens)

Mama (courtesy Mark)

two of three babies - couldn't get them all together

Mama, can I get in the hammock?

So what's this black thing sis? (mini sunshade for our baby tree)

whooooo

My hanging baskets. Yes, well, they haven't been spoken of in some time, and the reason is - disaster. Blah... I had done everything I could think of, and slow death was happening. Mark finally took over and said, "it must be the water". The water - really?, it's our well water (non water softener treated). It's been 10 days and yes, it clearly was the water. The minerals or something... I didn't take a photo of them at their worst, where there were zero blooms, but here's the current. On the mend using rain water and spring water. Lots of blooms, but not all the way back. Hopefully it will recover before frost time (early, early here - sometimes August!)

new

now

Noxious weed specialist hired by our homeowners assoc. to knock out the bad non native species. Ran into him on my morning walk and became much more educated on what we have here at SMR. Pretty looking white daisies, all kinds of thistle, and wormwood. Wormwood looks like sage, was brought here with the miners - to make hooch, as the weed specialist said. That's the stuff that made absinthe, the famous drink that made some people go insane. Hmm...

sage

wormwood

Update on Scooby, aka irobot Scoomba. The floor washing robot is having severe issues. Lost its brain I'm thinking - only goes around in tiny clockwise circles and constantly starts its drying cycle when the washing tank is full. Customer service trying to troubleshoot and sending me two replacement rubber rings for the back wheels. Ha, I say - if that fixes this I'll be amazed. Too expensive a gadget to not force the issue, so we'll see.
Great jeep trip yesterday. We went up to Red Mountain - a 17 mile trek with a little hiking at the top looking for the apparently phantom two lakes drawn on the 4 wheel drive map. No elk or deer to be seen but one GIANT bull wandering around. There were also bones scattered around in two places, and not to be too graphic here, it hadn't been that many days ago. Clearly there are bears about. I think it would make me a tad nervous to camp there, no matter how beautiful... The wilderness.

Been behind on reporting books read. The House I Loved by Tatiana de Rosnay, good - historical novel set in 17th century Paris. The Spies of Warsaw by Alan Furst, excellent writer of WWII European spy novels, and Hens Dancing by Raffaella Barker, a light Bridget Jones kind of story - set in the English countryside.
Mark off to Detroit this week while I'm off to visit my parents for a few days. Dad is at home getting excellent care from hospice and other outside nurses.