“It Was the Third of June . . .”

Franklin sun-soaking

. . . and our moods are mixed and mostly somber. We’re sorrowful about terrible events in the nation. We had hoped for a world of kindness and compassion by now.

I post this on facebook every year on June 3rd; so now I’m posting it here too. In 1967 this deftly worded mystery went to the top of the charts for four weeks. It continues to haunt. I like the first video better for vocals; the second is better for visuals, IMO. The line “There was a virus going around . . .” hits a little harder now.

I’m not used to posting videos so I hope they work okay.

. . . and, June means summer! How’d we get so green already? I said that back in April. I’m still astonished, and now mimosas are starting to bloom. So we’ll look back at pictures of another spring gone, and acknowledge the green world.

Volcanic iris:

Convolution

Iris everywhere I look

Iris with spiderwort

Mystery ground cover

I got more comments on this ground cover photo on Facebook than on anything else I ever posted. It’s everywhere, and many knew more about it than I did. I misidentified it as “clover” when it’s actually oxalis rubra, or pink sorrel. It grew all over the yard of one of the hubs’ uncles, so they called it “Uncle Frank’s Weed”. I think I’ll go with that.

Pink Sorrel

Here it is with more blooms.

Profuse, tangled, entrancing

Robust foliage mixes it up

So many plants, I saw the name of one but lost track of it.

Tantalizing plants unknown to me

I can’t call the name of this one, either.

Cloudy wisteria

Wisteria on one of those gray spring days, when we had so much rain.

Rainy day violets

Mystery caterpillar

There was this caterpillar and when I tried to look it up all I found were similar critters in Europe. Everything’s hectic now so I didn’t try to look further. We don’t see nearly the number of bugs and critters we used to.

. . . here’s the greening. This was freakin’ April 9th. It happened before that, took us by surprise.

Cloud show seen through the canopy!

Fresh Green emerges to meet Evergreen

I thought you’d never get here, lol

Clouds and cobalt

Still can’t shake off the melancholy.

Lagniappe:

Lovely Shelley

One day I may do an entire post about Shelley’s unusual tail, which is tortie pattern until almost to the tip, and then changes to orange and white stripes with a black tip on the end.

Franklin with the my cat book, Catwoods

To keep Franklin happy instead of hissy, I make him lead cat for every post instead of substituting the kittens. However, the kittens will be back with a post of their own, it may take some time as I’m so busy, but meanwhile, the link to purchase my book Catwoods is still up there to the right, and on the “Order Catwoods the Book Online” page. If you are outside the US, please email easty@ernestandhadleybooks.com (the publisher) to arrange to get a book. Sorry about the inconvenience, I hope it will be temporary.