Michigan Thread - all are welcome!

[Folly's place]

This year our butterfly bushes didn't come back, and there was very little at the few garden centers I visited. Miss them!
Mary
Must have been too tired; edited to fix that double negative not even meant!

 

[RaZ]

This year none of our butterfly bushes didn't come back, and there was very little at the few garden centers I visited. Miss them!
Mary

Butterfly bushes are now considered invasive in many areas. Native plants are always your best bet.
I love living where I am now. I have gone completely native here. The result is so many butterflies, dragonflies, moths, bats, and birds. Not to mention salamanders, frogs, toads, treefrogs, snakes, turtles, and other native critters. I would never be able to do that where I was before.

 

[aart]

I have gone completely native here. The result is so many butterflies, dragonflies, moths, bats, and birds.

Pretty sure they were all there before you came
Welcome to Rural!
My fav part about moving from the city to rural was no squirrels, or rather very few.

Is everyone ready for this next heat wave?
At least the nights cool down.

 

[1muttsfan]

Well we still have squirrels, only they are the red (devil) variety. I just got a trap, as some have figured out how to enter via the pop door and decimate the feed in the coop. They can live down by the lake instead.

 

[aart]

Well we still have squirrels, only they are the red (devil) variety.

Yeah, there are few red squirrels around, and now some black ones.
But there were battalions of fox squirrels at my city house,
they tore up everything in the garden and never shut the hell up.

 

[Annemade]

Poison ivy! I have so very much of it, because it's been neglected, and needs to come out. Somehow!
Mary

I have a continuous fight with poison ivy. It wins quite often

 

[Folly's place]

If only there was a market for it...
Mary

 

[RaZ]

Pretty sure they were all there before you came
Welcome to Rural!
My fav part about moving from the city to rural was no squirrels, or rather very few.

Is everyone ready for this next heat wave?
At least the nights cool down.

Yeah, they were here when I got here. But the fox thinned the cohort to where I rarely saw them last year. Now that the predators are gone, the squirrel population has boomed. That is fine by me. I love those tree-rats.

 

[Folly's place]

I enjoyed the squirrels too, until this year, when a family of red squirrels moved into our attic, and chewed openings in four places through the soffets and roof. They are now gone, but no longer do i like them! The red squirrels have also displaced the grays and fox squirrels, another issue.
Mary

 

[aart]

and chewed openings in four places through the soffets and roof.

Yep, had some chew into the coop shed, way before chickens, up high under the eaves.
A mama had some babes in the cardboard box holding my window AC.
Heard scrambling in there as I got ready to get AC unit out to install.
Thought it was mice, cut open front of box and they all were right there!
I screamed and ran, they screamed and scattered all over...must have been 5-6 of them.
Hilarious in hindsight!
Luckily they didn't soil the unit, just the box bottom reeked, but they did chew up the plastic fan, had to get a new fan.

Critters are cute and fascinating..... until they start destroying stuff.