This first one is actually from work last Friday morning, and the picture isn’t great, but it was such a lovely animal–juvenile Red-Tailed Hawk–that I had to at least get some kind of photo. (S)he let me get quite close because (s)he had a squirrel and was very reluctant to let go of it!

I didn’t think there would be enough sunlight in the pond to get more than leaves out of the water hyacinth, but a few of them disagreed.

When the Canadian columbine went to seed, I shook the pods out over the flowerbed in hopes that more of it will grow. It’s such pretty stuff; I’d have a whole field of it if I could. Anyway, if these little seedlings make it, I will have more!

Summer was so dry that the toad lilies didn’t fare too well, but they’re alive, and they did bloom. Seems like they should have a prettier name. I love toads, but they really aren’t “pretty”.

I finally got up on a step ladder and cleaned out the wrenlet hoce to put in fresh shavings for winter insulation. It’s so cute to think of those tiny birds, carrying every little stick and piece of grass (and one little rectangle of plastic) up there, one by one, and tucking it in place. There were no eggshells in the nest, but I know they had babies. I wonder whether the female ate them for the calcium. I remember thinking they looked as if they might have another brood in there. Anyway, the nest was cute…little fevvers to make it soft and warm. <3

So…the few little poop-a-pillar Black Swallowtail guys are still alive…are they ever!

C is on vacation, and I wrote her about the caterpillars, so rather than type it all again, I’ll copypasta…

I’ve had probably 25 Black Swallowtail caterpillars this year, the last lot of which you saved with the bunch of parsley that you brought in to work. After those caterpillars left, I found two more that were just tiny hatchlings. Small, and by then, the carrot had recovered a bit, and the root of the parsley you’d given me had produced more leaves, so I certainly had enough food for two caterpillars. Then, I found one more, but figured I’d still be okay.

Yesterday morning, I went down to check on my little dudes; I hadn’t looked in on them in several days. I noticed there was a lot less “green” in that spot; aside from about half of the parsley that had grown from the root, there was almost nothing left! I thought, “Damn…those are some VERY hungry caterpillars!” and I was right, but not only were they very hungry, there were also EIGHT, not three! They were, of course, no longer hatchlings, but neither were they in their final instar; they still had plenty of eating left to do. Since you’re on vacation, I couldn’t ask you for more parsley, so I called Alexis Weigel; she lives next door to Tammy’s old house, and she raises butterflies, so I knew she’d have food for them and thought she might be willing to adopt them. I’m sure she would have, but she didn’t answer her phone, and didn’t respond to the voice mail that I’d left. She’s a master gardener, and since her husband died, she often goes off for seminars, or to speak at schools/gardening clubs/whatever, and may be gone for days. I couldn’t wait any longer—the little dudes had enough food to get through yesterday, but not more—so I had to take a chance on “organic produce”.

I called Schnuck’s and asked the produce guy whether they had any organic carrots with tops on, parsley, dill, or fennel. He said that they had organic carrots that still had the tops, so I wrangled my hair into some semblance of neatness, put on a bra (you know I care about my caterpillars if I’m willing to do that on the weekend!), got in the car and drove to the grocery store. They had organic carrots, but also organic fennel, so I got some of each, brought them home and washed them, just in case. Expensive, but my little garden bed is the reason the female butterfly laid eggs there, and since my intervention caused them to exist, I consider myself responsible for them. So…on the table in the front room of my house is a 2.5 gallon white bucket. Inside that bucket is a bowl of water, and in the bowl is the bottom of a bunch of fennel. On the fennel are eight little stripe-y dudes who will eat for almost every daylight hour until they moult for the final time and turn into chrysalises (hopefully without wandering off somewhere in the house). When they do, I will place them into the screened cage I built last year for a Luna moth cocoon and two Spicebush Swallowtail chrysalises, and that will keep them safe from hungry mice and birds all winter. Next spring, I’ll open the top when they’re close to eclosing, and they will eclose, expand their wings and fly away while I’m at work because butterflies are little ingrates.