We had rain recently so I decided to buckle down and remove some invasive stuff while the soft ground made pulling easier. The tansy flew, the Queen Anne's Lace succumbed, the thistles surrendered ... and then I set a new personal record for ant bites, and I gave up and went home. If one of those little demons crawls into your shirt and panics (or, more likely, goes on a suicide mission to inflict as much damage as possible), you're in for a bad time. Now I'll be trying to ignore the itching for a few days.

A baby snail is a much friendlier creature:

I realized earlier this season that I've seen snails everywhere my whole life and I know very little about them. I turned to Wikipedia, usually a good first step for quick research, and found the snail entry extremely interesting and informative.

The tansy is forming flowerheads now:

These will soon turn into bright yellow buttons, taunting me from every corner of Beechwood:

Taunting me, I tell you!

The cup plants are beginning to provide a more welcome splash of yellow everywhere:

That "cup" feature still works perfectly:

We're expecting a lot more rain over the next few days, so stay tuned for some soggy posts from your watersoaked wetlander.