I didn’t take a lot of photos while I was on vacation, doing jack-shit, but I did make a few friends, and we’ve got some new kids!

I might have posted these already, but perhaps not. I watched the female deposit these on the snakeroot (video on YT if I remember to link it).

I checked on them one morning to discover that…they were hatching and ready to meet the world!

Just about everyone. From this batch, at least. Another female must have come by a few days later to deposit more eggs because I found a few more clumps that weren’t quite ready.

Moving around a little. I like their tiny noms in the leaf. <3

I can’t see them, but I saw their noms!

I also found more on the Dutchman’s pipe.

AAAAAAND…some on the tiny string of tomentosa pipevine that I got from J this spring. I think Pipevine Swallowtails are making a run for world domination…at least in Parview’s Bistro!

AAAAAAND…I was brushing spider webs away from the security cameras, and thought there was a paper wasp caught in a web. I reached to brush it off…and it backed up. It also wasn’t a paper wasp; it was a creature that looks like a praying mantis had an illicit affair with a paper wasp. The first mantisfly I have ever seen IRL! Super-cool little thing!

Not so rare as a mantisfly, and certainly not my first because I have hundreds of them this year, but a Painted Lady is always welcome.

Speaking of welcome, the baby Rose of Sharon that had volunteered by the Cliffie bush, and which I had suspected would be a baby Cliffie bush…isn’t! Grey Stick is dead. Long live Grey Stick! I don’t know whether it was a seed, or a piece of root, but I think root is more likely because poor Grey Stick didn’t bloom well over there at all. Anyway, I have a baby Grey Stick!

Hibiscus making a few more blooms before cold weather (now that it’s not so disgustingly hot).

Same goes for morning glory.

The rest of the jewelweed died in the heat/dryness, but this smart little cookie put its roots…into the pond. It’s alive and well, and attracting Mean Little Birbs, too!

EDIT: Finally remembering to link to the video on YT.