River Dog loves mud puddles, but Gretchen has a solution: vacuum the dog!
Blondie wonders, what are they doing to you? Continue reading
River Dog loves mud puddles, but Gretchen has a solution: vacuum the dog!
Blondie wonders, what are they doing to you? Continue reading
These young pines have survived multiple hurricanes.
Four volunteer bottlebrush longeaf, Gretchen, and her shadow, River
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There’s one thing River likes even better than mudholes: her very own bathtub.
The other dogs sometimes use it, but River goes in there almost every time she comes back from a walk.
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River really likes mud.
Sky and Blondie like to get their feet wet.
Honeybun cools off by sticking her head underwater. Continue reading
Twenty one species in a thousand feet down the Not-a-Driveway from piney woods through seepage slope to beaver pond.
Plus Canis familiaris and garden variety human. While we did not see any beaver, Castor canadensis, there was quite a bit of evidence of them.
Species identifications are by Seek by iNaturalist, which is usually pretty reliable. I do doubt a few of them.
For example, what seek identifies as Pineland hibiscus, Hibiscus aculeatus, sure looks to me like halberd-leaf rosemallow, Hibiscus laevis.
Far more species than these live in our subtropical paradise. These are just the plants (and fungi) I happened to focus on today.
Ten-angled pipewort or bog button, Eriocaulon decangulare, 2025:06:15 09:52:26
But Sky Dog is not in the picture.
River, Honeybun, Blondie, Gretchen, Lucky Peggy’s north field, and the sky
Sky was behind me, on the golf cart.
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She covers them up after she catches them.
River and her buried armadillo
And she grumbles if any other dog comes near.
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Sky and River howled like something horrible was happening.
Movie: Sky and River howling (30M)
Actually, they saw me walk into the woods towards the garden, and they heard me calling them.
Blondie ran back to get them, and explained to them how silly they sounded.
Video:
https://youtu.be/Jyljdi-sHQk
Continue reading
Down the Not A Driveway, over and under the Hurricane Helene deadfalls, following the dog pack, lies an acre of wild azaleas, plus wild blueberries.
Blondie, Honeybun, Sky, River, over the deadfall into the wild azaleas
Some of these Rhododendron canescens are already blooming. Many more are just budding.
Wild azaleas, pine deadfall, and dog on Not A Driveway
Wild azaleas and loblolly pine cones
Wild azalea beneath oak deadfall
Closeup wild azalea beneath oak deadfall
“Here Spring was already busy about them: fronds pierced moss and mould,
… small flowers were opening in the turf, birds were
singing. Ithilien, the garden of Gondor now desolate kept still a dishevelled dryad loveliness.”
—Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit, The Two Towers, JRR Tolkien
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