Just a moth that was flitting around. But it had a pretty pattern on its wings, so a photo was in order.
Horned Toad Lizard
While I was working outside, I was surprised to see this little guy. When we first built our house, the ground around was very sandy and we seemed to find horned toad lizards frequently. Or maybe it was the same two or three that we kept catching to look at and releasing the next day. But after the weeds stabilized the ground, we did not see these. So possibly the work smoothing out the orchard and garden area turning things sandy again, brought the critter up to visit.
He was quite cooperative about being photographed. Hung around while I went in for the camera and let me take as many pictures as I wanted. This one was about 3-4 inches long. That is quite a lot bigger than the ones we found before.
Leaping Lizards
While I was hauling planter mix to fill the new raised garden beds, I happened to notice these two lizards near the house. Lizards are not at all uncommon. However, these both were larger than average, one was highly colored, and they were not ignoring each other taking in the sun.
Instead of the usual lizard behavior that looks like they are doing push-ups while soaking in the solar energy, these two seemed to be battling.
I could not capture the activity well enough with still shots. It appeared that they would grab one another and sometimes roll around or bounce up in the air a foot before they separated for another round.
Eventually I had to go back to work, so I did not find out how the confrontation ended.
More Raised Beds
Thanks to help from our neighbor Charlie and his son Tyler, the new beds were moved from the parking area to the garden.
We had a huge pile of planter mix delivered to fill up the new raised beds. Either my calculations were off or the initial delivery was a bit on the short side. A second delivery was needed to finish the job.
Once the beds were filled, the drip system had to be completed. Decided to try several different approaches this time to compare the results.
Little Boxes on the Hillside
Maybe not little boxes, but definitely on the hillside, the raised bed area for our vegetable garden has been more than tripled. Our next door neighbor Charlie and his son were a huge help in getting the boxes from the driveway to their designated spots. They are built from a composite material instead of plain lumber and thus should be a perfect solution for the garden. However, they also seem to weigh a lot.
The edge of the hill comes a bit too close on a couple of the new beds. That will have to be addressed over the next month or so as the hill gets sculpted around the garden and orchard. Meanwhile we need to get the drip system from the ground into each of the new boxes and fill them with the planter mix that will be delivered in a couple days.