A short but colorful stroll

Needing a break from the computer this afternoon, I grabbed my camera and took a walk outside.  Rain is predicted by evening but at midday the sky was still bright and sunny.

Everywhere I looked, butterflies were fluttering.

Monarch on orange cosmos

Monarchs hovered over the orange cosmos, which are blooming prolifically in the east gardens.

On the other side of the house along the clay wall, zebra longwing butterflies busied themselves with the purple and white duranta flowers.

Zebra longwing on white duranta

As I climbed the stairway set into the clay wall, butterflies became fewer but bird sightings increased.  At the top of the steps, a small peach orchard abuts a shady woods dominated by large, broad oaks.  Although the birds I saw there weren't unusual, they were certainly colorful.

Male cardinal in peach tree.  

I always hear bluejays before I see them.  These squawky birds have beautiful feathers

Just before I turned around to come home, a red-bellied woodpecker flew out of an oak and onto the top of an irrigation spigot before landing on an old cane of Oldhamii (Giant Timber) Bamboo.

Red-bellied woodpecker on irrigation spigot

Searching for dinner on a cane of Oldhamii Bamboo 

I'm guessing I was outside for less than 30 minutes but I saw so much.  It's important to take breaks.

It's raining it's pouring...

A "Simply" Extra
What a storm tonight!

The rain poured down, the wind picked up.  A beautiful storm

It started to storm just after we returned got home from berry picking. While unloading the car, I glanced at the lake and saw a sandhill crane in the distance, standing on the island where the cranes had their nest.

With all this rain, there's not much of an island left but one of the cranes still spends the night there occasionally

I haven't seen the family of cranes since they moved to an abutting property when the baby was 12 days old.  But every now and then the male returns to the island where they built their nest.

Seeing him makes me hopeful that one day the entire family - mom, dad and their baby - will come back to our property.  Baby cranes can fly when they are 70 days old and that's just about how long it's been since the fluffy chick hatched out of its egg.  Perhaps the male crane returns to the nesting site by himself to check things out before bringing back the whole family.  I like to think so anyway.

A couple other pictures I took today during the downpour:

Cucumber growing bigger by the minute with all the water coming down

Green peppers that we're hoping will turn red soon.  Maybe the rain will help.

And finally, a picture of the Blue Timber Bamboo by the clay wall.  Bamboos love rain.   It makes the new shoots grow tall even faster than they normally do, about a foot a day!  

On the hunt...for garden bugs

The tomato hornworm caterpillar is a garden pest that can defoliate an entire plant within hours.

SIMPLY LIVING

It’s dark outside and although I’m still snuggled beneath a mound of covers, my husband is not by my side.  He’s been up for hours, outside and active.  It’s hunting season – not for deer or turkeys or game animals of any sort.  His target is garden pests - the slow-moving snail, slimy slug, smelly stinkbug and leaf-defoliating caterpillar. 

Although Ralph doesn’t carry a gun, he’s not without weapons.  In one hand is a flashlight, in the other a container of soapy water.  When prey is spotted, he swipes the offensive bug into the soapy mixture to meet its sudsy demise.

I’m still rubbing the sleep from my eyes when my bright-eyed husband concludes his hunt, shuts the door and comes inside. 

“You should see all the stinkbugs I caught!” he says while I totter unsteadily toward the bathroom.  “I found a couple big, black caterpillars.  You should come out and see.”

Stinkbugs are a menace in the garden as well as in the orchard.  A pair mate while clinging to an unripe mulberry.

I give him a look that I hope combines my support for his efforts with a strong dose of leave-me-alone-until-I’ve-washed-my-face. 

A half-hour later, a more coherent me joins him in the kitchen for breakfast.

“What time did you get up?”  I mutter while filling a tall mug with caffeinated tea.

“Around 5a.m.,” he replies.  “I couldn’t sleep so I thought I’d check on the plants.”

My husband is passionate about his gardens, especially his broccoli plants.  Unfortunately, many garden pests share his passion for members of the Cruciferous family (broccoli, kale, cabbage, etc.)  They nibble holes in the leaves, suck juice from the stems and gnaw their way into the inner chamber of cabbages.  

Although I'm holding it, my husband grew this beautiful head of broccoli, his all-time favorite vegetable 

Although Ralph is opposed to using toxic sprays in his garden, his arsenal does include a few biological weapons approved for organic gardens. 

Thuricide kills caterpillars by using Bacillus thuringiensis (BT) bacteria to paralyze their digestive tracts.  

Organocide is a sesame oil-based spray effective on a wide range of small soft-bodied insects.

Spinosad is a broad-spectrum insecticide that, like Thuricide, uses bacteria to cause digestive disruption.  In addition, it attacks insect nervous systems, killing on contact.

Although biological controls are effective for short periods, they only work well in dry weather.  The lightest downpour washes their potency away.  Handpicking pesky bugs, however, has no limitations.  Insects can be collected rain or shine, day or night, although nighttime seems to be their most active period.

A black caterpillar on the squash plant is about to be swept off into a bucket of soapy water

 

That brings me back to my husband’s pre-dawn, post-dusk and occasional midnight forays into the garden with flashlight and bucket in hand.  While I sleep, he’s doing his best to protect the food that feeds his family. 

When I think of hunters, I think of men in camouflaged clothing toting rifles or bows and arrows.  I think of men who get up early to follow deer tracks in the sand or huddle behind duck blinds in the marsh.  If they’re successful, they’ll bring home meat for dinner.

My husband doesn’t eat meat but that doesn’t make his hunting any less meaningful.  Thanks to his perseverance and persistency, Ralph’s efforts yield some of the freshest, tastiest vegetables I’ve ever eaten.  He grows, protects and diligently provides food for the table.  In that way, he’s not unlike the hunter stalking wild game in season.

I’m proud of Ralph’s efforts and applaud his successes.  If I have any complaint, it concerns his effusiveness.  While I find his unbridled enthusiasm endearing, I wish he’d restrain himself until I’m more fully awake.  One cup of tea – that’s all I ask.  If he’d only wait to tell me about his bug-hunting adventures until after I’ve had my first mug, I’d be ever so grateful.

Butterfly Sex

(A "Simply" Extra)

I walked outside today and chanced upon a cluster of Monarch butterflies, their colorful wings all aflutter, attached to one another on an unopened cosmos flower.

As I watched, the entire cluster - still linked together - fell to the ground.

falling...

fluttering...

landing on the sidewalk

Although the butterflies landed on the hard concrete surface, they seemed less concerned by their location than by the activity in which they were so completely engaged.

Copulation. They were obviously mating.  Not one-on-one sex or even menage a trois.  No, this cluster of must-do-it-now-ers were engaged in an orgy of butterfly love.

Soon after the foursome hit the ground, one Monarch detached and flew away.  Sated, I presumed by the prolonged attachment.

and then there were three

I thought of the children's song, "There were 4 on the bed and the little one said, "Roll over, roll over."  So they all rolled over and one fell off.  There were 3 on the bed and the little one said, "Roll over, roll over..."

A few minutes later, another butterfly separated itself and took off as well. Only two Monarchs remained.

The final two...

The remaining duo outlasted me.  I had to leave while they were still connected.  Butterfly sex...who knew the amorous exploits of winged beauties was a group activity!  Spontaneous sex on the wing, on the bloom, on the concrete walkway.

I wonder if they had as much fun as I did?