and so it continues....

All those little dark areas are ant hills or borrows. I assume it's a by product of being buried in silt from the floor.  Now if only the northern flicker would happen by! He's be well fed for little effort.

checking on the cats this morning, the one monarch egg I'd seen this week looks like it's opening.

Here's a cat chewing on one of the seed pods of the swamp butterfly weed.

and you know the cats are getting big when you can see them long before you get to the plant!

I'm going to be a good blogger and not post every photo I took of the cats this morning :)  I did take some video of the above two eating.  I want to know what happens when the top one chews through the leave, will hte one on the bottom be prepared to take a tumble?!  Does the top one know what he's doing? Cats have their own little soap opera going on out there!
I also killed 3 stink bugs that were on near by plants. Despite all other predators knowing the Monarchs are toxic, either the stink bug hasn't figured it out yet, or stink bugs can tolerate it.  Either way, they will kill the cats.  they suck all the juice from them and kills them dead.  Sister has seen it first hand, finding a dead cat with a stink bug on it. ugh!

I just looked out the door a bit a go and saw Little Dude, the groundhog.  at least I thought it was him.  now I'm not so sure. Right size, but he doesn't look so healthy. Looks a bit malnourished.  And he's still so small compared to the granddaddy one that lives across the stream. I was able to sneak out on the porch without running off, but that was as far as I got and he ran.  But he stopped by the cracked corn, I guess it was enticing if you are a hungry ground hog. He didn't stop for long and made a beeline for his home under the shed.

After a moment though, out he ran, with another groundhog right behind him.  this one didn't look much bigger. so I'm confused.  Maybe this one is an interloper.  I'd like to see them again, a little slower though, to compare. They ran up over the bank and this one came back down, ran under the herb container and out hte other side scaring a bunch of birds feeding in the other garden. But he kept stopping and looking at me...so I'm really now sure what's going on.  Maybe Little Dude is being bullied, hence not getting as much to eat?  I did get one poor photo of the other one...when he made his way back across the bank..a little too slowly so I wonder which of my flowers he was feasting on!  Some of my cone flowers never even got a start because of a groundhog LOL  But this one looked a little healthier.  Maybe he is little dude and getting rid of an intruder.

Last photo of the day is my meadow vole. I happened to look down off the porch and saw it eating remnants from the bird feeder.  What a good cleaner upper!

Sister gave me a bag of goodies to dump in the compost heap (mostly bunny poo from my 3 indoor bunnies)...most of which had been washed away in last weeks flood. But I suspect there might be a little left under the mud and silt. Still haven't had a chance to go through all she sent home with me.  There's lots of seeds too. woohoo!!