Nothing to Do But Enjoy

We're still having some wonderfully warm days, so I haven't been having to do much winter prep.  I've finished digging my spot for roses and herbs, and we've had some rains on it, which is just what I was hoping for.  Consequently, it's still a little bit too wet to dig and plant the rose bush that's going from pot to ground this fall.

My granddaughters and daughter-in-law harvested a big mess of lima beans this past weekend while they were here visiting, and the younger girl had a great time searching out woolly-bear and other fuzzy caterpillars.  If there's any truth to the old tale that the wider the orange stripe is on the black and orange ones, the milder the winter, we should have a very mild winter this year.  Unless, that is, the one of that kind we saw was mistaken.

She found some of a color that I'd never seen before - a pale mauve tint - and yet I didn't have the sense to take any pictures.  If I come across any myself, I'll do that.  She also encountered a praying mantis or two, but was disappointed in her hunt for frogs.  This little guy had found somewhere else to go for the weekend.

He had that perch for a couple of days last week.  I'm not sure how he got up there, unless he used the thorns on the trunk of this Madagascar palm (Pachypodium lamerei, not a palm at all) like a ladder.

A few butterflies were still active, but mostly just some small moths.  The previous few weeks had been full of the larger, more colorful butterflies, including Monarchs and swallowtail Parsley Worm butterflies.

I've always heard that Monarchs feed solely on milkweed.  I've always been skeptical, too, and upon seeing the one in the pictures above obviously feeding on other things in the wildflower garden, I searched online to find out what they do eat.

"For starters, the larvae (caterpillars) of monarch butterflies eat ONLY milkweed, this is why the monarch butterfly is dubbed the ‘milkweed butterfly’. The larvae stage is the only stage of the monarch butterfly that feeds on milkweed; there is something in milkweed that allows the caterpillar to grow and keep all of the vitamins needed to transform into a beautiful butterfly. In turn, the adult butterflies consume all sorts of different things including nectar, water and even liquids from some of the fruits we consume. If you are looking to attract monarch butterflies to your backyard, simply plant a few fruit-bearing trees along with plenty of flowers and you should definitely have yourself a back yard full of monarch butterflies. They especially like to drink from mushy slices of banana, oranges and watermelon."

So it's partially true that they eat only milkweed; that's in the larval stage.

Although most of the showy butterflies are gone, my older granddaughter did spy and took a great photograph of a Painted Lady.

Photo: A. Morrow

The hyacinth bean vines are still brilliant, full of bright purple pods.

The cucumber vine is climbing its way up inside the tomato cage. 

Hopefully, it will produce some slicing size fruits before this year's frost kills the plant.  Right now, there's lots of flowers, but just one fruit, and it's not quite as big as my little finger.  I may end up doing some pickling if the plant doesn't pick up speed.  We're supposed to have a very warm weekend coming up, so that should help.

Speaking of tomato cages - I still have a good number of large green tomatoes on a couple of my plants, so I'm expecting to get enough tomatoes to keep us in fresh fruit and more to freeze as long as the weather holds.

The fall lettuces are beautiful.  And tasty.

I'm still getting okra, but I'm also getting tired of it.  It's hard to believe at the beginning of okra season that I'll get tired of it, but by this time, I always do.

But I love the misty early mornings.

Happy October!  Until next time.