June 19th

Edgar Allan Poe

skull and pirate treasure trail

gold-bug cipher bite

We had the washing carousel out, which made a kind of tent like secluded wind break, but still allowed the sun to filter through. It was kind of like how I imagined a medina in Marrakesh would be like, with a nice patch to sit on outdoors and drink mint tea / smoke shisha, behind thin curtains, except with our bed linen hanging out to dry instead of un-dyed natural cotton billowing.

It was nice, hadn’t had much time to think of late, the day was warm as well. So I just sat down, then lay down and looked at the sky. Listened to the birds. A blackbird and a song thrush had a competition. One was in the oak, the other in the Eucalyptus tree, but it might have been in the Willow, it was hard to tell.

I felt safe being surrounded by our flowers. One should not underestimate the therapeutic and reviving qualities of a loved garden.

D then noticed something, a small golden beetle near the herbs. It looked amazing, neither of us had seen anything like it. It reminded me of Edgar Allan Poe’s (conveniently his name is 5 syllables) short story, The Gold-Bug, from Tales of Mystery and Imagination.

Except with a bit of research, we confirmed they’d be no buried treasure to dig up. The offending critter was a Rosemary Beetle, yes, they love Rosemary and their larva can destroy it, they are a non native pest. We have tons of Rosemary growing. Neither of us like to kill any animal, no matter how small, so we’re going to try to reason with him!

(all photos by me)

other stuff happening. A bee on the knapweed.

A bee in the foxgloves (an action shot – woooo)