This summer’s balance of rain and sunshine has produced an abundance of flowers and a bounty of thriving greenery Charlie didn’t plant. Perhaps some lovely volunteers snuck in and are worth keeping. But equally likely they are the advance scouts of a coming weed invasion. How to know?
Long a user of Merlin, a free app to identify birds by sight and sound, I recently discovered the free app iNaturalist pictured above. I spent this morning trying it out on some of these mystery plants. Easy to use, one just snaps a picture and after “thinking” for a bit a suggestion is made with a prediction of accuracy. The loveliest interloper turned out to be giant goldenrod, now destined for removal.
Charlie tried it out indoors on our dog Zoe. I am not sure what he did, but it identified Zoe as Human with a 2.7% predicted accuracy. We didn’t want to disillusion her with this tidbit. She is certain, no matter what iNaturalist, says that she is Human with 100% accuracy
Saved By Words 
I have given up worrying about weeds. My garden is now so neglected that the Dandelions are actually the best flowers out there. 😊
Best wishes, Pete.
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That was what my yard looked like before a married a master gardener!
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Since the weeds grow so prolifically in the forest across my garden fence, I thought I would harvest seeds one autumn and get the more attractive wildflowers to grow in my garden. (This was a couple of years back when I wasn’t here full time.)
The trouble is, they won’t grow where I want them to… and mostly grow a lot of leaf before they get around to flowering.
And the other trouble is, they tend to hang around when you don’t want them any more 😦
But I’m with iNaturalist about the dogs.
Although… my son and grandson were here this afternoon and told me of an article they read about cats v dogs (having recently adopted kittens). This claimed that when your cat looks at you it sees you as another cat, whereas dogs recognise that you are a different species. (I’ll have to ask where they found that information.)
I do recall a newspaper article a year or two ago (it may have been a book review) that claimed that your cat sees you, along with the rest of the animal kingdom, as potential prey. It tolerates you though, as an aternative food provider.
I’ll stick with my dogs.
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It makes sense that cats see you as prey. They certainly aren’t as immediately affectionate as some dogs.
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Oh my goodness!
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Zoe is still offended since she apparently overheard us.
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Oh no! Tell her I didn’t mean it
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That’s too funny, but it sounds like the ap certainly knows the family dynamics!
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For sure! Fortunately Charlie didn’t test it on me.
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I would trust Zoe’s judgement above all others!
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2.7% predicted accuracy—now, that’s funny. Can you imagine if they gave the weather report like that?
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😊. We used an App to identify plants and repeatedly got the message that it could not identify them 😊. We uninstalled the app
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Interestingly another user posted an identification for something I couldn’t identify. I hadn’t realized that was a handy feature.
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Good to know! Of course Zoe is Human with 100% accuracy. 🙂
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I can tell you have been talking to Zoe!
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Haha!
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