5 October 2013 - Snow and critters

As the weather prognosticators got more strident about freezing temperatures and possibilities of snow, I went about moving my potted plants into protected spots, and cutting flowers for inside. 

I brought in a handful of geraniums and some coleus cuttings to brighten up the kitchen. 

It was fun watching the hummingbirds check out the flowers from outside the window. 

 






Then several days later I noticed a lot of black speckles on the window sill. My first thought was how could it be seeds? 

Then I realized it looked a lot like caterpillar pellets.  Sure enough, even the culprit was there, even with more pellets. Great. 

I also brought in several house plants that had been summering outside. It was rather chilly when I brought them in. As they warmed up, so did  a passel of critters that I didn't realize were hitchhiking in. I had hover bees, honey bees, big buzzer flies, lacewings, lady bugs and who knows what else. The boys caught (and ate) the flies, I caught the bees, lacewings and lady bugs and let them go outside. 

The day of the storm, I was running errands and saw the leading edge coming east across the valley. On my way home I drove up to the Neff's Canyon trail head where you can get a good view of the valley. It was pretty spectactular. 

By the time I got home a mix of rain and snow was coming down. Ultimately we had two inches of snow, lots of hail--larger than peas but smaller than marbles, accompanied by thunder. The snow didn't last, but since all the trees are still green and fully leafed out, there were lots of limbs to pick up.