Summer Gullywasher

I'm cleaning up my phone's stickpile of photos, and I came across this snapshot of one of our few good rainfalls this year. It was a dry year, and I love rain. I do not understand people who boo-hoo wet or overcast weather. The sun makes me wilt.

The underside of the mystery moth

Mystery Moth

I snapped some photos of this moth outside of a grocery store two months ago. I have no idea what it is. Anyone?

The Grasshoppers were Epic this Year

Two Left

The pair of Papilo polyxenes caterpillars on my smaller dill plant proved to be too much. I found the plant reduced to a stump, devoid of cuddly butterfly babies. I imagine they have since starved in the flowerbed somewhere, because there is no other food source for them nearby.

These remaining two, above, for now at least, are plump eating machines. If their host plant can keep up with them, they will soon overwinter in my garden in their chrysalis form.

Shudder

I once watched a praying mantis devour a live honeybee. Here is a yellow jacket dining on a mantis. The mantis isn't quite dead yet.

Gotta love the brutality of nature. Shudder.

Autumn in my meadow

Eastern Black Swallowtail

My friend Amy sells plants and produce at my local farmer's market. I think she underestimated exactly how excited I would be when she pointed out a giant black butterfly laying eggs on her dill.

It was probably a good thing that I knocked a few of the eggs off when watering in my two dill plants, because each of my small dill plants can only support two of these rapidly growing eating machines.

Here is one of my four little Papilo polyxenes, posing by a dill flower.