What happened to the terrible weather we were supposed to get today? I took advantage of a fine sunny morning to walk down to Beechwood and get a little work done.

Know how to tell if you're standing under a black locust tree right now? Look down.

This is the kind of hole a pileated woodpecker leaves behind in the dead trees it searches for food:

There was a very pretty spider in the equipment box today. I don't know what kind, sorry.

I'm quite taken with the cow parsnips, as you may have noticed. Here are a few pictures of the flowers, close up and from below:

I removed tansy around our group of sumac trees, and found a little sumac coming along nicely. I'll have to go back next spring to remove that garlic mustard (the small, scattered leaves on the left) when it starts its second-year growth spurt.

I've been noticing what seems like a huge number of snails this year, and on my way home today I suddenly realized why: they're growing on trees! Seriously, this tree was covered with them. What the -- ?