Lughnasa Waxing Honey Extraction Moon
While harvesting Swiss Chard this morning, I looked down and saw a streak of blue head for the edge of the raised bed. I stopped all motion and, sure enough, the blue streak slowed, 
stopped and looked. A skink with a bright blue tail had a curious, what’s going on in my world, peek, then scurried down a small hole underneath the horizontal board topping the side of the raised bed.
One of the pleasures of non-toxic gardening lies in the number of garden critters that develop happy homes in and around the beds. We have salamanders, skinks, various snakes, toads and frogs as well as the more common gopher, chipmunk, opposum, raccoon, groundhog, rabbit and squirrel.
The number of insects and arachnids also increase in variety, too. I see spiders, lady bugs, wasps, native pollinators and diverse number of mosquitoes, too. Of course the butterflies, moths and dragonflies also show up as do lightning bugs. Not so many of these last as my childhood nights in Indiana, but they are here. Many, maybe most, of the insects and arachnids I do not recognize.
Birds, too. Rose-breasted nuthatches, robins, blue jays, chickadees, red-tailed hawks, great gray owls, pileated woodpeckers and red-tailed woodpeckers, crows, sparrows and even the odd sea gull and pelican at certain times of year.
These sightings remind me of the truth I wrote about last year at some point: Kate and I share this property with so many other living beings, most of whom will be here long after we leave. Well, their direct descendants anyhow. The bank and Anoka county say we own this land, but we don’t. We’re merely occupying it for a period of time, co-habiting with an astounding number of others.
