Ants, aphids, hornets and kittens

There are some interesting things happening on my calendula. I have aphids and ants:


It's only on one of my plants. Here they are close up:

I'm sure their relationship must be beneficial - to each other, not to my calendula.

In an earlier post I included a picture of a hornet's nest that had been blown down in a storm. Here's the original picture:

And here's what the nest looks like now. A racoon or something found it the other night and ripped it apart, I guess to get an the larvae still inside:

Here's one section of cells from inside the nest. These look like they were mostly empty already. The cells that looked like they might still have contained something had been munched and all that remained were a few pieces with some black remnant of past occupants clinging to the bottom:

Kitten update ~ Freki kitten has begun tentative explorations of the outside: