Flower Friday With Bugs

Good day friends. This is The Daily Bone and I'm your doggie reporter Chester L. W. Spaniel.

It's another hot summer day. The cicadas are buzzing in the trees, and the white puffy clouds are floating by. It's been so dry around here that we don't have many flowers left. Ghostwriter cut down the dessicated daisies, pulled out some weeds and trimmed back the lamb's ears that were running rampant everywhere. So here's what we have left: 

Something's been eating the cone flower petals.

We have a few black-eye susans.

Liatra.

White phlox.

Purple phlox.

Bee balm.

Hydrangea bush. 

Our gigantic hydrangea bush is usually covered with flowers by this time of summer. But this year, there are only a few buds. We wonder what's up with that? The silver maple and the Norway maples had hardly any seeds this year either. Maybe it was due to the mild winter we had? And now, on to the bugs! 

This funny looking insect was crawling around on the banister outside the front door. We think it's a carpenter bee mimic fly whose wings haven't filled out yet. It was quite big. Here it is crawling over the back of ghostwriter's hand. It was quite harmless, and we let it go after the photo session. 

We thought this was a moth at first—it was hanging around the back porch light with the other moths—but it's actually a butterfly. I chased it away. The next morning we found it on the garage floor with one leg caught in an old cobweb. Ghostwriter picked it up and it flew away. But the minute it went out the back door, a little birdie swooped down and caught it. That's life, I guess. 

Here's a cicada ghostwriter picked up from the grass last week. Why it was there instead of in the trees, we don't know. It's an other one of those gigantic insects that looks all fierce and deadly, but is quite harmless. Hopefully it made its way to the tree tops where it's making a lot of noise with all the other cicadas up there!

Now here's an update on my elderly colleague Joseph (Joey dog) Spaniel. He still won't eat. Ghostwriter tried everything, even our best yum yum doggie treats!

I see you have a doggie treat that you don't want. Can I have it?

No. It's mine. Maybe I'll eat it later.

Very well. Then I shall sing you the song of our people, like Miss Ginger used to.

Aroooo! Awoooo! Bark bark bark bark! Awooooo!

Bark bark bark bark arooooo!

Wooooooooooowooooooo!

Well, I see that my singing hasn't changed your mind. 

Harumph! I thought he'd never shut up!