Worms & bats

My camera has been loaned to someone else who does my type of research - and hopefully won't get dropped in a stream somewhere - so I'm without photos for this blog. Ken has a camera, but we've been so filthy & gross lately that you wouldn't want to see any photos anyways. Poor neighbors, subjected to our compost-and-loam covered, sweaty, buggy little one-act play called pretending to be professional landscapers. Plus, our yard just looks like a bunch of dirt. Our neighbor across the street thought we were turning the entire yard into a vegetable garden. Hee hee!

So, get ready for a mental picture. Close your eyes - or open your mind's eye so you can keep reading.

Last night, I went out the one of the new annual beds to plant a little paper flower I got at the Home Show, that has flower seeds embedded. I forgot to do it till just after twilight, but there was still enough light to see (a bonus of living up north - it takes a while to get pitch black in summer). As I walked to the annual bed, something quickly slithered away in front of my feet. A snake? Couldn't be, not this time of night - and it looked pretty small. I stopped for a moment, and looked harder at the dark soil. Suddenly, all around, I noticed them: nightcrawlers, all out of the soil, stretching their barely-glistening bodies across our new earth, possibly searching for better real estate. As I walked around, sprinkling bits of the paperized wildflower seed, I could hear them and occasionally see them all zipping back into their holes.

To cool. I had to go get Ken. This is when you know you have a great guy - when someone, contentedly relaxing on the couch for the night, is willing to throw on shoes and accompany you outside in the dark to see a surprise - and then is ecstatic that the 'surprise' is a bunch of worms. While we stood, admiring the worms and encouraging them to aerate and fertilize our new soil & plants, a bat flew by. And then again. We stood for quite a while, the little bat making many passes, in an oval shape, covering the whole side yard. A bat in Maine in June is a glorious visitor, since they eat up to 3,000 mosquitos per night. 3,000 fewer bites - now that's a contribution. Thanks bat & worms!

We promise to get out the camera this weekend. Yesterday we planted 2 twigs (a.k.a. American Elder shrubs - yes mom, I'm going to make elderberry jelly too), and they've started to leaf out. My White Dome Hydrangeas are scheduled to arrive tomorrow, and will go right in the ground. Operation: shrubs is almost complete!