Gaia Garden

It's been a good day - I've discovered a few things and, most importantly, learned something new. I've been walking the burned a...

Four days after the burn. 1/10" rain on the evening of the second day. Becker, Blue and I just got back from our morning walk. Now th...

(You can sing the title to the tune of "After the Dance Is Over, After the Music's Done....") Sunday, the day after we did the...

Maintaining or restoring a prairie requires burning it periodically. Prairies evolved with fire, and nothing refreshes and nourishes a prai...

Sometimes it's hard to see grasses - even prairie grasses - as particularly important to wildlife. About 2 weeks ago, though, we got 9...

Pristine snow just doesn't seem to happen in our yard. Two German shepherds take that on as their special project. After two days of sh...

I've been reading some thought-provoking books this fall, and none more so than the one I just finished, The Spell of the Sensuous by D...

Sometimes there is incredible beauty in the mundane. This morning I awoke at 5 a.m., thinking the dawn was beginning because of the light co...

Two books have recently come into my life that make an interesting pair. I serendipitously read them back to back, which highlighted their ...

With Becker having decided that we need to take a walk every morning, I've given in and also decided that it's a good idea, at least...

Becker was anxious for a walk this morning, so I set aside the laundry basket and away we went. For the first time in quite a while, I took...

While out doing a bit of fall gardening yesterday morning, I stumbled across this awesome example of motherhood and was able to get her phot...

In an earlier post, I mentioned seeing a dainty sulfur butterfly but being unable to get a good photo. Well, last Saturday I was able to get...

This is confusion on my part, not on the part of the bumble bees I've seen, who presumably are quite comfortable with their own personal...

The wheel bugs ( Arilus cristatus ) were out in force last Saturday, the last time I was taking photos of insects in the garden. While prayi...

I met a new yardmate yesterday - a great golden digger wasp ( Sphex ichneumoneus ). Isn't that a cool name? She (he?) was nectaring on ...

Skippers are hard. They are just plain hard. First of all, the little dears often land with their wings folded into something called the ...

So the last butterfly that I took photos of on Thursday is the orange sulfur ( Colias eurytheme ). Interestingly enough, this is one of thos...

It's been years since I seriously tried to identify butterflies and skippers on a regular basis, but I've decided to start a databas...

I took this two years ago (and the silver bluestem is much thicker now than it was then), but it still seemed appropriate to post it tonight...