A Quick Glimpse

I do not seem to have the hours to just look out my window or wander the woods behind my house.  These days find me driving, putting lots of miles on my car back and forth to my mom's and taking her to see my dad.  This isn't how either of them wanted it but we find ourselves here and can't figure out a way to make it better.  One afternoon while trying to catch up on a little housework, a butterfly caught my eye in the backyard so I stepped outside.  I cropped the first shot, realizing I caught a glimpse of a humminbird.  I am grateful for this patch of color.  Five of the six butterfly bushes survived the winter.

Wordless Wednesday

 Cabbage White Butterfly

 Painted Lady.....with a busy proboscis. 

 A glimpse of the upperside of the wings.

I love this shot, to get some scale with the Painted Lady and the Fritillary behind (Great Spangled?).  I almost missed the bee sharing the stem with the Painted Lady.

View from the Yard

We were given 6 butterfly bushes last year to plant in Amber's memory.  Three different colors for Amber's parents' yard and three for our yard.  The bushes spent last summer in their original pots as we were just too stuck to do anything.  The babyMomma's yard is a work in progress and with two puppies who like to "garden," the bushes have not been moved to her yard yet.  My hubby did heel in the six bushes in a raised bed the babyMomma had in our yard.  To our delight and amazement, they survived the near neglect of last year and a harsh winter and are blooming!  Dark purple bloomed first, followed by a deep red-violet, and the pale pink is just beginning to bloom.  Yesterdays visitors included a Hummingbird Moth and a Red-spotted Purple Admiral (as far as I can tell).  At first I thought it was a Spicebush Swallowtail, but it didn't really fit the bill.

Wordless Wednesday Out My Window

Mourning Cloak for a Monday Morning

Lots of life for a Monday morning after the 4th of July hiatus.  Two turkeys in the front yard, a snake trying to fit in a crevice in our retaining wall, a colony of ants swarming the ant bait by the front door,

 and this butterfly hanging upside down on a window screen upstairs.  It closed its wings as I snapped a picture.

 I found a description here with much better pictures than I was able to get.  I think Mourning Cloak is just right.