Category Archives: Pets & critters

Special Garden Visitors – Black Swallowtail Butterfly – caterpillar

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We decided to do away with a couple of our flowerbeds and let the areas go back to yard. My husband took the soil from the flowerbeds and put it on our garden. The result from adding the soil to our garden is volunteer zinnias growing sporadically throughout the rows among the vegetables.
The other day, I was taking pictures, with my phone, of a lovely patch of zinnias growing in our carrots and cucumbers. A beautiful female Black Swallowtail Butterfly was feeding on the blooms. I managed a few photos, hoping one of them would be fine. I wasn’t sure about the zoom feature, but it turned out okay.
Yesterday, as I was looking to see if the carrot tops had actual carrots making under any of them. I was surprised to see an adorable black swallowtail caterpillar feeding quietly on a carrot top. I was so excited.
Unfortunately, it was fixing to rain, and I didn’t have my camera, so I rushed (not ran lol) to the house and grabbed my phone and rushed back to the garden. I snapped a few photos and rushed back to the house just in the nick-of-time as the rain began to pour. Considering my rushing, this photo turned out pretty good.

I’m so happy I got to see the caterpillar. Unfortunately, because of birds, I fear the caterpillar won’t make it to be a butterfly. Then again, it might, I wouldn’t have thought a caterpillar could’ve made it to the size it has.
I considered taking the caterpillar home with me and finish it’s raising in an aquarium like I did with some back a half dozen years ago, but I just don’t have the heart to take it away from the fresh air, rain, sunshine and fresh carrot tops. Here’s a link to one of my blog posts during my butterfly raising adventures: Black Swallowtail Butterfly Lifecycle

*Just a note here:
I know the caterpillars will happily eat the carrot tops to the ground. We’ve plenty of carrots growing and it’s not an issue if we lose a few of them.

Here’s wishing you all beautiful butterflies and smiles.
Have a wonderful weekend!

 

 

Shelibean Our Bye-Bye Boy

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Our handsome little Shelibean gets super excited when I ask him if he wants to go bye-bye. He’ll dance around, until we scoop him up and leave. He really enjoys going for rides.
When he was younger, he absolutely hated rides. He would howl, bark and whine the entire time we would take him anywhere, no matter the length of the journey. Front seat, back seat or kennel it did not matter, he was not a happy passenger.
Then I started sitting him on a towel on the center console. He didn’t fuss as much and now he sits there quite nicely.
However,
We realized that just sitting him there, wouldn’t be the safest thing if there was an accident. So we figured it was time to get him a car seat.
We originally were going to make one ourselves, then I was shopping online and found a ready-made one for a reasonable price.
I took it out of the box and began to set it up. Shelibean claimed it before I could even zip up the front flap.
He snuggled down in it, so I left him there to take a nice long a nap. He was so cute all curled up like a sweet baby.
The car seat installed easily with straps that wrap around the console compartment lid. I placed Sheli in it and he proudly sit up like it was his throne.
What I like about this seat, is it, hopefully, protects Sheli better. It also has a lead that can attach to his collar to restrain him when need be.
Now when we go for a ride, SheliBean is the King of the car sitting in his throne being the handsome Alpha-dog he is.

So this is the last day of November. We haven’t put up one solitary decoration yet. It feels kind of strange not to already have out tree up. We’re having some work done on the house soon and we’d have to move the decor out of the way. Hopefully, if the weather behaves, the work will be done and finished mid-December.
And then the decorating madness can begin. 😍

I hope y’all are happily making plans and looking forward to the upcoming holidays.

 

 

Wildlife Wednesday – Mockingbabies

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While trimming one of our snowball bushes, my husband found a nest of wee mockingbirdies. They were so cute.


The parents kept bringing the fledglings food.
Then, one afternoon, we watched a fledgling flexing its wings as it ran across the yard. Over the next couple days, the other fledglings, like the first one, ran and with short hops and flights as they learned to fly up to the treetops.
And now the nest is empty.

You know it never ceases to amaze me how quickly baby birds learn to fly.

Bird watching made for an extra bit of joy over the past few days.

I hope you all have an enjoyable rest of the week!

 

 

Doves and Classic Impressions Needlepoint Update

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I had planned to do only a wild-bird Wednesday, but I decided to add a work-in-progress Wednesday along with it.
This needlework has been super-duper slow project because I get sidetracked so easily. It’s the same ‘Classic Impressions Needlepoint‘ That I posted about 1-22-2020. Hard to believe it’s been over 2 years and I’ve still not finished it. I hope to finish it this year, but I might not. We’ll see.

Wishing you all a cool and comfortable rest of the week.