Gross Post

 I'm going to start here today by posting a couple of pictures of flowers just as a buffer to keep you from seeing what I really am here to post in case you don't want to see it. What I am really here to post today is pretty gross, so this is your chance to just bail without scrolling down to see it. The flowers are here to protect you, don't go past them if you don't want to see the gross thing I took a picture of today.

The chrysanthemums are still blooming, in spite of the frosts we've had. I have been covering the plants, but this one is too far away from the others to be covered by the old sheet I am using, and it is continuing to bloom in spite of being unprotected from the frosts. Ironically, the reason I wasn't covering this one to begin with is because it wasn't doing so well, so I didn't think it mattered whether or not I covered it, because it wasn't going to bloom anyway. And here it is, blooming.

I am going to provide you with a picture of a winter ant on a pumpkin, too, for an extra buffer:

Okay, now for the gross thing, scroll down. I guess it technically counts as Arachnid Appreciation:

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I saw something odd on the driveway when I went out to get the mail today; it looked like a squashed, dead mouse. When I looked at it closer, and poked it with a stick, I realized that it was a squashed, dead mouse. But when I poked it, a whole bunch of mites came swarming out. I went inside to get my camera, even though it is disgusting to photograph a dead mouse, and had to poke it with a stick again to get the mites to come back out. Not as many came out the second time, and they disappeared pretty quickly, but here you go, a picture of mites on a dead mouse. Definitely not something I expected to see in my yard.