Author Archives: Vivia

This year we have blck swallowtail caterpillars. I witnessed a black swallowtail laying her eggs on the parsley we have planted in pots, and have kept my eye on the development of the four cats. They move from one stage … Continue reading →

Fall fast approaches. The wrens are finally done raising young, at least 4 clutches this year!- in the house hanging from the sycamore tree in the back yard. Some large creature, maybe large dog-size, has matted down the tall physotegia … Continue reading →

This morning as I sat on the back steps with my coffee, the male wren sang a young fledgling out of the wren house for its first flight. We’d noticed the night before lots of singing and movement by the … Continue reading →

Last night a big storm moved through St. Louis and weathermen and women on TV pointed at screens full of dire-looking red lines and squares on an area map while Dennis and I drank tea and listened to the sirens. … Continue reading →

Mary Isabelle was blanketed by wild geranium

A beautiful spring morning- about 50 degrees, the back yard is greening and filling up with ferns and ginger and lilies-of-the-valley with their delicate smell, celandine poppies, aquilegia, iris, heucera, button bush, ninebark, lots of things we’ve planted over the … Continue reading →

Goose on nest, the night after a huge rain. The edge of the island the nest is on was covered by water, but the nest was high enough to escape. A nest onn the other end of the island was … Continue reading →

A walk at the arboretum today, after weeks of putting it off due to ice, snow, frigid temperatures, flu, colds. Because it’s been so cold, not much has happened, visibly, since last time we were there, but soon there will … Continue reading →