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.

Gabe, Flowers, Butterfly

Daily Monarch

My Pet Monarch

He's out here every day, eating and eating.

Summer Days

Monarch in my Butterfly Weed

Clethra alnifolia

At long last, another mystery shrub in my swamp is identified! Sweet pepperbush!  There is a large area full of beautiful twisting stems in my wet woods in the winter. In the summer, I kept missing the blossoms somehow. The foliage just blends in otherwise. But here, I finally caught it in bloom - and how had I ever missed such a spectacular show before? I bet because I melt like a popsicle in this heat. The flowers are abuzz with bees, and smell so sweet as to almost be sickening.

Someday I will have time to get out there with a real camera again.