Poison Ivy

 

Steve's cousin's son took this of Coney Island half mile from where Steve grew up 

The lake I bike by in the morning. Couldn't capture the intense purples and pinks

As Naomi is now working, Maya is up north with her dad. Her step mom did this

After visiting a skateboard park where Allieskirts around teenage boys, we went out to eat with Josh and the girls

Daniel turned 11. From a preemie to this.He wanted a Hamilton schemed treasure hunt. We provided some Hamiltons

 check my milkweed for Monarch larva. Might have seen an egg but no caterpillars despite lots of adults flitting about

My niece in Colorado

Maya taking a break from going fishing

My friend's dinnerplate hibiscus. I have the same kind but as mine is less than a month old, I am lucky to get two blossoms a day

I think e was some fogging of my lens. It was fine later I had planted a hundred glads

Cleome, dill and orange cosmos

almost all my sunflowers are in bloom now

For his birthday Shanna took Daniel to a Marvel exhibit

My road in the morning. Pre-covid, it would be too busy to go on at this time

Black swallowtail. I had been feeding a larva for a week when it suddenly died. A blue swallowtail has been hanging around. Alas no photos

I am a mass of painful weeping sores. Usually they don't appear until 3 days after exposure but these popped up within 18 hours. I am careful. I always wear gloves that are rubber on the palm side but I was pulling up 4 foot tall catnip putting it in a pile until I amassed enough to put in a bag. When I picked it up I saw the poison ivy it had been resting on. My gloves only extend a few inches beyond my wrist. It is possible the catnip touched my bare arms. Now I know it definitely did. I wouldn't think the catnip was heavy enough to bruise the ivy but it must have. I can ignore it during the day but at night, it is difficult to despite the Benadryl and steroids'.

And I hate my new insurance. So, so annoying. I have a zipcode that suggests I live in a different county than I do. They keep sending me all this Wayne county crap. I call them up (a long multi step process entering my ID in 3 times) and tell them to send the stuff for my actual county. One person, who doesn't even live in my state was trying to prove that I lived in Wayne county. Or they tell me they know I live in Washtenaw county but send me yet again another Wayne directory. What providers you use are county specific so they didn't pay for my mammogram even though if I just had Medicare, it would be covered. Eventually I will get this straightened out but it is time consuming.

But aside from that. this week was fun. We even had some cool days so I could run in comfort though it is back to 90 degrees and no rain. We had a Mom's night outside last weekend. Another night I called my friend who I had tried to ride a bike with from Pittsburgh to DC but rain stopped us halfway. He had moved to Nevada right after that but came back to Michigan a few weeks ago. Although he lives a 100 miles away, he was right by my house when I happened to call. So he came over.

Saw my grandson on his birthday and then saw my granddaughter with her scooter go up and down ramps at the skateboard park.

Lots of time gardening. Now it is just watering and weed patrol