Over the Top on the Fun-O-Meter and a Garden Surprise
07/09/2019
Ahhhh.
Summer.
The days are long and the pace is slow.
Except . . . when it's not!
For me, this has been a non-stop kind of summer. High on the Good-Things-and-Fun-O-Meter, for sure! But the pace has been relentless. (Someday, maybe I'll have a chance to actually sit and rest in this lovely corner of my garden.)
I have nothing to complain about here, truly. I've enjoyed a long visit with my sister, visited Mackinac Island and Chicago, co-hosted a super successful fundraising wine tasting event . . . and a summer solstice party (in the same week), (finally) spent a week up north, helped Brian and Lauren move into their new digs in Grand Rapids (on the hottest and muggiest day of the summer). And now? Well . . . I'm headed to Alaska with Tom later this week. So. Really . . . nothing but fun.
Still. Constant activity - even when it is the fun kind - is always tiring, y'know?
Okay. Enough whining.
Let's have a cool garden story instead, shall we?
I have this WILD butterfly garden.
I do my best to keep the path clear, and I try to keep the weeds down. But, mostly . . . I let it do it's own thing. It's an . . . organic, flowing, constantly-changing kind of garden. Easy care. Friendly to pollinators. Always packed with bees and butterflies. (It looks pretty good, too.)
There is lots of milkweed in my butterfly garden -- common milkweed, swamp milkweed, and butterfly weed. (Plants in the milkweed family are the ONLY plants Monarch butterflies lay their eggs on -- and the only plants Monarch caterpillars will eat.)
Over the weekend, I happened to be checking out one of the milkweed plants to see if I could find any Monarch eggs -- and was thrilled to find this instead. . .
See him down there? Near the bottom of the photo?
Here's a close up . . .
A Monarch caterpillar . . . just munching away on my milkweed.
I love a good garden surprise!
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How about you? How's your summer coming along?