Masters of Disguise

This morning's walk was starting out as any other morning's walk. I headed out the door, took the path through the flower gardens and headed to the vegetable patch. Nothing was out of the ordinary, everything was as I had left it last night. Nothing momentous had occurred overnight. As I meandered through what used to be the lilies, a small movement caught my eye. No..maybe not. Maybe it was just the wind, but there was no breeze to be felt. Maybe my imagination? (I have talked about that before earlier, I do have an active imagination.) Ahh, there it was again. Almost too tiny to see, but definitely a movement. It took me a while to find, but a tiny lizard was on the hunt this early morn. It was so well camouflaged that I could hardly tell it from the dried lily blossom. I took picture after picture as it happily clung to the lily. It was only maybe three inches in length and was hunting tiny gnats and mosquitoes. I was really glad to see it in my garden and was careful not to disturb its hunt. After my walk, I looked at the pictures. I photographed two lizards that were just inches apart! I had not even seen the green one! They are definitely adept at disguising themselves.

Although these lizards are of two different colors, they are both the same species. The Green Anole is usually five to seven inches long and varies in color from bright green to dusky brown. They eat a multitude of bugs so are considered "garden friendly".

Speaking of the garden, a lot of it is dying out. The days have been quite hot recently and we could use a rain. It threatened rain today, but instead just thundered a bit. Thunder does not water the plants! I was happy to see that the Silver Crowder Peas were all poking their heads out of the ground in spite of no rain. Strangely, the one thing doing quite well is the watermelon. A lone watermelon plant started out in the tomato patch, rambled through the bell peppers, past the pole beans and is now entering the pea patch. It is headed toward the house! I will let it wander where it wants unless it starts to become too unruly. We shall see!