Hello Stinky!

 On two occasions I have carried a bouquet home from a certain farm I love and this strong odor starts permeating the city bus. That would be a stink bug, or two. Twice stunk, never forgotten. When I took this photo of bugs and larvae in mom's garden if I had known they were "Twice Stabbed" stink bugs I might not have got this close up a personal. This post from The Home Bug Garden helped me identify these suckers.

 This has been a weird year at my parent's place because of the large amounts of rain that fell this spring. This is also the first year my mom has seen Monarch butterflies in her garden.

Isn't that the horribly invasive purple loosestrife? Why yes it is, full of butterflies and bees.

 Here you get a glimpse of the cracks in the garden soil. It's such a challenging zone.

 Mom gave me some beets to take home. We had some tonight, shredded in tacos.

 No matter what the weather, mom always has an amazing garden.

The feral kittens love playing in the garden, chasing grasshoppers and crickets. There were big black noisy crickets everywhere you looked. In fact the first night, I turned to my partner and said "Those crickets are driving me crazy!!!!" Dead silence. I'm not kidding you. It was uncanny. And I didn't hear them again the whole time we were there. Just call me Madame Cricketspeaker.

Crickets, stink bugs, and bees, oh my. Good night!