Mattrkbgkf
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mattrkbgkf.bsky.social
Mattrkbgkf
@mattrkbgkf.bsky.social
45 followers 100 following 240 posts
Knife salesman, gamer, he/him
Documenting the effort to replace our property's vegetation with native plants
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mattrkbgkf.bsky.social
Technically we saw the Aurora tonight
A shot of the night sky. There's a green splotch across the center.
November 12, 2025 at 3:35 AM
mattrkbgkf.bsky.social
Found a happy chunky baby on the trampoline netting earlier. Very vibrant color with how the light caught it.
A vibrant almost neon green caterpillar on mesh netting. It has tiny red spots with hairs. It is quite rotund. There's a blurry tree in the background.
October 1, 2025 at 12:53 AM
mattrkbgkf.bsky.social
Na Na Na Na
Na Na Na Na
Bat House!

We got the bat house attached to the grape enclosure. This pole should be much sturdier than the last one.
A bat house is mounted on a twelve foot 4x4, which is attached to a screened enclosure with grape vines inside. There's a pine tree in the bottom left corner of the photo.
September 24, 2025 at 7:14 PM
mattrkbgkf.bsky.social
Now that our grape enclosure is essentially finished (we still need to install the door handle), I spent the day cutting apart the old trellises and de-tangling the grape plants in preparation for training them to the ceiling.
Several grape vines in wooden enclosed fenced in by chicken wire. The vines are being held upright by strings. The ground is covered in tiny stones. A trash can with several cut apart metal trellis pieces on top of trash bags.
September 16, 2025 at 8:03 PM
mattrkbgkf.bsky.social
"I'll get you, Dr. Venture!"
A monarch caterpillar, upside down on a branch, with sedge and honeyvine leaves behind it. The caterpillar has black, white, and yellow stripes.
August 27, 2025 at 5:02 PM
mattrkbgkf.bsky.social
Overdid it a little this morning, but I'm very pleased that the frame for the new grape vine enclosure is complete, and more importantly COMPLETELY LEVEL. Next steps are securing it with cement, figuring out where the door is going to go, then wrapping the whe thing in chicken wire.
A wooden frame of 4x4s surrounding a much smaller fenced in line of grape vines. There's a ladder and a wooden fence on the right side of the picture, a stone path on the left side, and a blue and green shed in the background.
August 19, 2025 at 7:25 PM
mattrkbgkf.bsky.social
"So now that you finished pulling the back yard, you can take a break, right?"
Me, having already purchased the materials for the next project (a full enclosure for the grape vines): "That is certainly something I could do..."
A tidy pile of 4x4s and metal brackets on a red paver path. There's dirt and leaves in the foreground, and a screened in patio with chairs of various colors in the background. The 4x4 wood pieces laid out around a group of grape vines. The vines are fenced in with chicken wire. There's a stone paver path along the left side of the picture, and a blue and green striped shed at the back.
August 13, 2025 at 4:44 PM
mattrkbgkf.bsky.social
Found a colorful friend doing some yard work this morning.
A hand in a dirty black and red work glove holding a vine. On this vine is a caterpillar with orange, black, and white tufts of hair.
August 9, 2025 at 2:18 PM
mattrkbgkf.bsky.social
The pile of grass from the back yard, with me for scale.
A man in a black shirt with pink writing and black pants, standing next to a giant pile of grass in a driveway. The grass pile is ten feet long, six wide, and three tall. There's a lot of green plants in the background
August 9, 2025 at 2:17 PM
mattrkbgkf.bsky.social
The work stripping the back yard of grass is done* and I am so very sore. I'll post a picture of the grass pile later when my wife can get a picture of me next to it for scale.
New seeds go down after all the leaves are raked for the year.
(*Excluding follow up spot weeding)
A picture of my back yard. It's surrounded by stone paver paths. There's a trampoline in the center, with sycamore branches obscuring it. The ground is just bare dirt and native violets.
August 7, 2025 at 5:17 PM
mattrkbgkf.bsky.social
Two thirds done with the back yard 🎉
A square of break yard, bordered by stone walking paths. It's all bare dirt except for some native violets. There's a shed in the background.
August 4, 2025 at 5:06 PM
mattrkbgkf.bsky.social
Got to spend some time with a pretty chill beetle today.
A left hand with a patterned wedding ring, with trees in the background.There's an inch long lucanid beetle crawling on the hand.
July 23, 2025 at 7:03 PM
mattrkbgkf.bsky.social
Work continues, clearing the back yard.
Our back yard, a square of mostly dirt surrounded by pavers. There's still some grass on the left side of the picture, but like 80% of the visible ground is bare.
July 15, 2025 at 11:01 PM
mattrkbgkf.bsky.social
Making progress on clearing the back yard :)
A corner shot of the back yard, with paver paths on two sides and a green shed in the back. A lot of the grass has been removed, leaving mostly bare dirt.
July 12, 2025 at 5:31 PM
mattrkbgkf.bsky.social
I have begun the process of tearing out the back yard grass. In September the native wildflower seed mix goes in!
A corner of our back yard. The picture is framed by paving stone paths. There's a green shed at the far corner. The grass has been torn out of the yard in the area closest to the camera. A picture of the back yard, framed by paving stone paths on two sides. There's a trampoline in the background. The grass in the area closest to the camera has been torn out, leaving behind native violets.
July 12, 2025 at 1:43 PM
mattrkbgkf.bsky.social
Front yard is native grasses, sedges, and native violets. The back yard has a patch of asters and goldenrods, and we're tearing out the grass this year to put in native wildflowers.
(The non-native trees are from before we started our landscaping project and we don't want to tear them out.)
A front yard. There's a short brick dividing wall separating sedges from native grasses. There is a Japanese maple tree toward the right side. A patch of mostly goldenrods and asters, bounded by a stone path.
July 7, 2025 at 2:48 PM
mattrkbgkf.bsky.social
We have baby birds!
A bird's nest in the corner of a small window awning, supported by a metal strut I installed. There are three fuzzy bird heads peeking over the rim of the nest, and two have their beaks open.
July 5, 2025 at 9:16 PM
mattrkbgkf.bsky.social
Found a hummingbird sphinx moth today. I put it up on a tree so it could finish hardening the wings
A hummingbird sphinx moth. It's got a green body and black wings that have transparent cutouts. It's resting on an upturned hand.
June 27, 2025 at 8:39 PM
mattrkbgkf.bsky.social
Found a firefly hanging out on one of our native sedges while doing some weeding this morning :)
A firefly, an oblong black and yellow striped beetle with a red and black head, hanging out on a sedge leaf (that looks like grass) above native violets with paddle shaped leaves.
June 15, 2025 at 2:15 PM
mattrkbgkf.bsky.social
I love how our phlox garden is turning out :)
A strip of land about 4 feet wide between the sidewalk and road. Instead of grass, it's all plants, mostly phloxes with pink and white flowers. There are also a ton of violets, and some pepper weed, as well as random other things.
June 7, 2025 at 2:53 PM
mattrkbgkf.bsky.social
A very pretty bug tonight.
An oblong green true bug with brown markings on a goldenrod leaf. There are also small red aphids on the plant.
May 31, 2025 at 11:52 PM
mattrkbgkf.bsky.social
There is a sedge *we didn't plant* growing at the edge of our property!
An oval sedge growing in a triangle between pieces of sidewalk. It looks like grass, but instead of grass seeds it has spiky seeds that look kind of like a medieval mace.
May 24, 2025 at 2:49 PM
mattrkbgkf.bsky.social
Our wild strawberries are going wild, for lack of a better term.
A dense patch of wild strawberries being held back by a gloved hand. Each stem has three lobes and the leaves have serrated edges. There are tiny strawberries under the canopy, each about a centimeter across.
May 24, 2025 at 12:55 PM
mattrkbgkf.bsky.social
Today I finished my volunteering project at the museum. The entire main entomology collection is actually usable again, and the secondary collection has been inventoried. The museum got me a gift and card.
I'm not crying, you're crying...
A card with a tiny stone dragonfly statue on top of it. The card says "Matt, thank you for all of your hard work on the entomology collection! The collection has improved tremendously thanks to your efforts and we appreciate you sharing your time and knowledge with us! -The Collections Team"
May 20, 2025 at 7:10 PM
mattrkbgkf.bsky.social
*Tire screeching sounds*
A horseshoe crab on a beach. The crab has left a trail of footprints and drag marks in a circular loop reminiscent of a car doing a burnout.
May 18, 2025 at 1:27 PM