Sunday April 3 - row by row, skink by skink...

It was a big weekend in the garden. On Saturday, folks prepared 13 flats of all sorts of tomatoes (heirloom, eating, paste and cherry)  and tomatillos (2 varieties) and put in half a row of leeks with irrigation and straw.  Nicole and friends added two queens with broods to the bee hives, laid weed control tiles, and otherwise serviced the bees - be cautious near the bees and small (straw) barn re slightly testy bees for a few days till they settle down. On Sunday, we weeded all 10 rows of potatoes. 

After all the Sunday work was done, Lloyd took 5 kids for a wagon ride and spotted all sorts of wildlife. My favorite wildlife of the day was the skink (a kind of lizard) in the greenhouse.  Maryland has 5 types of skink, and this one appears to be a broad-headed skink, Plestiodon laticeps. 

Fascinating fact of the day...Plestiodon is derived from the Greek words pleistos meaning "most" and odontos meaning "teeth". So the Plestiodons are the toothy skinks!

Skinks are "ectothermic" animals (ecto means outside, and thermal means heat), which means they can't regulate their body temperature on their own and have to find sunny spots to warm up.  Or if they live in the tropics, they keep still in the mid-day heat to avoid overheating. I must admit, I felt a bit "ectothermic" myself as I headed to the greenhouse to warm up!