08/30/2021 – Around Colehaus

Late summer flowers around Colehaus © Colehauscats.com
Late summer flowers around Colehaus © Colehauscats.com

We’re going into late summer and yet, amazingly, given the hot temps and continued drought our area is experiencing, flowers are still blooming, visitors are still visiting.

Mr. MewMew © Colehauscats.com
Mr. MewMew © Colehauscats.com

This is MewMew, or Mr. MewMew to you and us. He was a neighborhood dump or possibly left behind when his family moved away. Our neighborhood had a lot of families pack up and leave over the past year and a half. MewMew hung around our outdoor feeders for nearly a year before a great family just a few doors down decided he was exactly the cat they needed. And now, he has an official home. And yet, he still takes second breakfast here every morning. He’s mostly friendly but when he’s ready to move on, he’s gone in a flash of his floofy, floofy tail.

P likes the small watering holes © Colehauscats.com
P likes the small watering holes © Colehauscats.com

Another neighbor cat, P, visits almost every day. She likes drinking out of the small depressions and holes in the rocks next to our big fountain because she’s a petite slurper that way. We haven’t seen her orange brother W in months and though we know he likes hanging out around the houses way down the hill that are closer to the greenspace fields with all those mousies, voles, and rabbits, we sure do wish he’d come visit so we’d know he’s okay.

Black-eyed Susan, August 2021 © Colehauscats.com
Black-eyed Susan, August 2021 © Colehauscats.com
Crocosmia, August 2021 © Colehauscats.com
Crocosmia, August 2021 © Colehauscats.com
Russian Sage with Butterfly, August 2021 © Colehauscats.com
Russian Sage with Butterfly, August 2021 © Colehauscats.com
Sedum Autumn Joy, August 2021 © Colehauscats.com
Sedum Autumn Joy, August 2021 © Colehauscats.com
Mom's Cyclamen, August 2021 © Colehauscats.com
Mom’s Cyclamen, August 2021 © Colehauscats.com

Mom’s Cyclamen is hanging in there through all the heat. It flowered heavily earlier this year after being planted directly in the ground last year and Mom’s now let it go to seed. She knows that might spell the end of the little plant Dad gave her back in 2018, a few months before he was laid off, but she’s okay with allowing it to do whatever it wants. She’s still amazed that this greenhouse plant, grown mainly to look pretty indoors for only one year, is alive at all. And putting those cracked hazelnut shells around the base really does keep the slugs away!

Cherry tomatoes, August 2021 © Colehauscats.com
Cherry tomatoes, August 2021 © Colehauscats.com

We decided to grow just cherry tomatoes this year. Last year, even with all the heat, drought, and smoke, our bigger tomatoes did poorly. We got three. Well, technically, two and a half. It wasn’t a tomato year and one never really knows which year will be a winner for tomato growing around here.

Well, apparently, this was the year for growing big tomatoes, according to everyone Mom’s talked to in and around our area. And here we are with only dinky little tomatoes.

But, boy, do they ever taste good!

The unwanted sunflowers, August 2021 © Colehauscats.com
The unwanted sunflowers, August 2021 © Colehauscats.com

We don’t purposely grow sunflowers. Oh, we like them okay, we just don’t grow them intentionally. The birds do that for us by bringing, sometimes pooping, seeds for all kinds of things that, sometimes, Mom likes or dislikes, allows to grow or rips them out of the ground immediately. Like horribly invasive blackberries.

We let the sunflowers, a whole bunch of them this year, grow because we hoped they would help feed the birds. Then our latest heatwave got to them. This photo was taken in early August. Nope, they aren’t happy-looking flowers now but we’re hoping the birds will get seed from them anyway.

Unwanted Marsh Marigold, August 2021 © Colehauscats.com
Unwanted Marsh Marigold, August 2021 © Colehauscats.com

Here’s another bird-poop plant, as Mom calls them. She’s always excited to see what those birds might bring and was wildly excited when she discovered this Marsh Marigold under one of our blueberry bushes. She loved the thought of growing a Marsh Marigold! Then, she read that Marsh Marigolds are very invasive and are considered poisonous to small animals. Despite cutting back the pom-pom seed clusters so she could enjoy seeing just the flowers and leaves, she knew its days in our garden were numbered. And they were just that.

Dwarf Crepe Myrtle, August 2021 © Colehauscats.com
Dwarf Crepe Myrtle, August 2021 © Colehauscats.com

Probably due to the hotter-than-usual weather, our crepe myrtle bushes are blooming a month earlier than they should be. And we were resigned to the likelihood that the heat would burn up all the flowers and buds, like happened last year.

But they’re hanging in there okay so far. Mom’s keeping them a bit more moist than she felt she could afford to do last year and that seems to be making a difference. Couldn’t save the front yard grass from burning, but that will come back in a few months.

Raccoon toy, August 2021 © Colehauscats.com
Raccoon toy, August 2021 © Colehauscats.com

We found a tennis ball in our backyard a couple of weeks ago, probably a lost toy from our neighbors who, briefly, had a puppy (and got rid of it just as soon as it grew into a gangly, barking teenage dog that no one over there wanted to play with – GRRR! BAD, BAD people!!)

Our visiting raccoons seem to like it and we find it in different locations every week. Wouldn’t it be fun to get a photo of those babies rolling it around?

Shaggy/Peeky's babies, August 2021 © Colehauscats.com
Shaggy/Peeky’s babies, August 2021 © Colehauscats.com

These are the babies who we think play with that tennis ball.

Looking for a toy? August 2021 © Colehauscats.com
Looking for a toy? August 2021 © Colehauscats.com

See? This raccoon baby is probably looking for that toy right now! Pssst! It’s down the steps and behind the big flower pot!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

A Colehaus Cats flashback:

2020 – No post
2019Art in August, Cat Style
2018 – No post
2017Already Looking for Autumn
2016 – No post
2015 – No post
2014 – No post
2013Still Pining
2012 – No post

This entry was posted in Outside Cats, Toys, Visitors, Yard and Garden and tagged , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

11 Responses to 08/30/2021 – Around Colehaus

  1. Rene says:

    You have such a lovely yard.

  2. Beautiful flowers and fun to see your visitors!! Our tomatoes all got hit by mealybugs.

    The Florida Furkids

  3. We’ve been very hot and humid, and I’ve pretty much let the gardens go wild because I won’t get out there to sweat profusely and get eaten by mosquitos.
    Love your photos of your yard visitors, and good for you at keeping an eye on invasive species.

  4. catscue says:

    August is hard on everything, but we’re amazed at how our flowers and tomatoes are surviving too. Maybe after that horrible winter, only the strongest survived? I love seeing your neighborhood cats and the raccoons, what darling visitors you have at your place.

  5. Brian says:

    It’s nice to see everyone and to see all those nice plants and flowers too!

  6. guyz….tell mom her flowerz bee lookin awesum; R’z izza sorree mezz rite now; we hafta say see ya in de spring ~~~~ { de gurl grew small materz thiz yeer two…they did WAAAY better than de big boyz that get put out each yeer 🙂

  7. Memories of Eric and Flynn says:

    I grew small tomatoes only this year too an they have grown like crazy. Last year my big tomatoes were also a disaster. It is nice to see your visitor cats.

  8. 15andmeowing says:

    Beautiful blooms. I am so happy for Mr. MewMew.

  9. Summer says:

    You have so much going on in your yard!

  10. meowmeowmans says:

    There sure is a lot going on around Colehaus! We loved seeing your plants, and your adorable visitors (and their toy).

    We are growing big tomatoes this year, and know wood, we’re getting lots of healthy and yummy ones.

  11. Timmy Tomcat says:

    What wonderful flowers and thanks for helping the community cats. They add a lot to a good life

Comments are closed.