Last week I had company and couldn't attend our usual outing, so I missed a frenzy of planting. I'm also having company next week and will be absent again. (This company thing must stop.) This week, however, I managed to join the group and spent an evening digging up dog-strangling vine. Other stewards were busy trimming around the sumacs we planted last fall:




Is it just me or is all the milkweed extra-flowery this year? I'm not complaining! The ants aren't either:

In honour of our recent Canada Day:

A new grape leaf, shiny as a copper penny:



Some doughhead tagged one of our signs, so I went down tonight to clean up. Before:



After:

OK, I wasn't very successful. I didn't have anything suitable at home so I tried a paste of liquid soap and baking soda, but it just wasn't strong enough. The evening wasn't a total waste, though: while I was scrubbing, some younger kids rode up on bikes. One girl had a cut on her leg and I broke open our first aid kit and gave her a bandaid. Then I flew off into the night in search of more good deeds.

(Oh, and I saw a mink -- I think. It was streamlined, large-ish, and appeared to be all brown, but it didn't pose for pictures so I can't be certain. It came from the pond area and ran across the path ahead of me.)