Go with the Floe

My ice plants are being a bit naughty in the garden. They are growing and growing and already spreading like crazy, squeezing out the other plants. To make matters worse, I bought a new kind of iceplant, and put it in the new fire ring in the courtyard. 

Now I'm afaid I've set into motion some kind of upcoming end-of-summer gladiator battle between the pale tangerine ice plants and the new red-ringed ice plants. The tangerine ice plants are fierce tigery plants, hale and hearty with extra-juicy "leaves." The more delicate red-and-yellow-blooming ice plants have little kitty-toe leaves. Well, I must protect the underdog, or in this case, the undercat! 

Now, my ice plants have just put forth a few puny blossoms so far. When they hit their stride, in about two months or so, the entire plant will be covered with blooms, like so, or even moreso:

But for now, the single blooms here and there are the jewels of the garden!

That last photo is taken, literally, on the "nature table" by my courtyard window ("There she goes again, talking about her closet-sized courtyard, yap yap yap, aw shaddup."). I took all the things and the tin display pedestals I had on my nature table and put them on a table in the school's lobby yesterday. 

We are preparing for an accreditation visit, and every private school I've seen or worked in has had a nature table. The administrators were a bit doubtful, but when the students saw it, they went wild, predictably wanting to spend most of their time looking through the magnifying glasses at the wasp's nest and the mummified geckos and lizards. I had a wonderful mummified baby rattler, but a moment's inattention and there was a crunch and a half-barfing gulp and a guilty-but-proud look on the face of my chiweenie. He may have only three good legs, but he is as fast as lightning when anything foodish is involved.

I put a print of the toad I found in our garden plot, on the table, too. And just wanted to knock the two sisters' heads together when BOTH claimed they never heard of the "Toad Catcher" game mentioned in the last post. REALLY, LADIES? You argued about it for ten minutes right behind my chair! TOAD CATCHER, TOAD CATCHER! 

I also put some potted orange mint on the table, with instructions to pinch a leaf and then smell. I love to grow pot plants! Oh, that didn't come out right. No, plants in pots, I better say! Not the other!

It was strange to see the kids trying to smell the mint through their masks. What times we live in, yes?

I would look at the seeds on display with the magnifier. I have dozens of unusual seeds to examine. Would you look at the seeds, the hummingbird nest, the wasp nest, or the "mummies"?