saddle up!

 More beautiful caterpillars!  I'm in love!

stinging rose caterpillar

saddleback caterpillar

Both of these guys are "no touch 'ems."  These little spines are full of venom that will break off in your skin if you make contact...especially the saddleback caterpillar.  The pain has been described as "electrical" and can last for hours.  Rash, headache, and nausea are common side effects, and some people going into anaphylactic shock and/or hemorrhage. To be safe...just leave them alone!  

I also found this Orgyia definita...

...more brown-hooded owlet caterpillars...

And look at this guy!  It's the caterpillar for the spicebush swallowtail butterfly.  It's an incredibly common butterfly but I've never seen the caterpillar before!

I love caterpillar hunting in the fall.  

Some other fall insects...I'm afraid my pumpkin crop has been pretty much ruined by squash bugs.

Todd cleaned them off and I've been able to salvage a few for the porch!

The mantises are out and about.  I was cutting down the perennial garden and noticed a pile of butterfly wings, all different sorts.

It could be the work of birds, who tend to have favorite perches...but this gal is the likely culprit.

This time of year they're big, hungry, and likely pregnant.

It's extraordinarily difficult to cut down plant stalks that loom 4' above my head, knowing that a ginormous mantis might be clinging to one, but so far I've been lucky.

Cicadas are still singing...

a lucky catch!  Linne's cicada

...and the deer are out in force, eating as much as they can before winter.  This buck has been hanging around our barnyard.

When I got a little closer to him, I could see why.  Do you see how swollen his left hoof/ankle is?  It's hoof rot...again.  It's not very common, but the bacteria is definitely around here somewhere.  This is the second deer affected - that we've seen - this year. 

We haven't had too many changing leaves yet, but definitely some interesting discoloration.  A sign of the advancing season?

There's SOME color, of course!

Inside, the cats are soaking up every bit of late-summer sun...

And our formerly sweet, quiet Pepita, who is approaching sexual maturity and is coursing through with hormones, has become quite a rambunctious little girl!

No, she doesn't want to take naps.  No, she doesn't want to play with the same old toys two days in a row.  No, she doesn't want to be in her playpen.  No, she doesn't want to respect the cats' space...most of the time.

At least this is a temporary phase...and we can finally say that she's pretty much potty trained!  She's only had a handful of accidents in the three months we've had her, and she's learned to give me "the stare" when she's ready to go out.

She stares, I query, and then she gives an excited shake.  There, we have communicated!  

Just a few more months until she settles down.  :)  Until then, she's running off that energy!

Have a great week!  

life and death

This past week was our annual spring ephemerals hike...and it might've been our most successful one ever!  So many flowers...

spring beauty

star chickweed

celadine poppy

dwarf larkspur

Virginia bluebells

nodding trillium

jack in the pulpit

rue anemone

But my very favorite...at least on this hike...was the wild blue phlox.  

It grew en masse along the hiking trail...

...and everywhere else!

It was absolutely magical!  Of course, we saw a lot of interesting non-flowers too...a lot of beautiful green grown.  Spring chartreuse is my favorite!

solomon's seal

wild ginger

So many different types of ferns, too!

rattlesnake fern

maidenhair fern

broad beech fern

both are christmas ferns

It was perfect!  However, we had some nature-related sadness this week, too.  Eastern tent caterpillars were spotted along our daily walking path...

...and, at home, I kept seeing a white-tailed deer in our front barn yard.  I was surprised it was alone and that it didn't run away...

...until I saw its front hoof/ankle, swollen to many times its normal size.

A little searching told me that this was likely hoof rot, an infection that can happen when a cut becomes infiltrated by bacteria.  At this late phase, it's probably fatal.  I emailed our local DNR contact, who sent me a list of county resources, cautioning that it was likely that I would need to let nature take its course.  As I suspected, not one local organization handled deer.  

Two days ago, the deer spent most of the day lying in the shade...today, it's gone.  I hate to see any animal suffer...and yesterday, we caught a coyote on our trail cam...missing a back foot!

It's heartbreaking.  There's no way that this guy can probably survive, and we have no way of helping him...or the infected deer, for that matter.  We just have to, as the DNR contact suggested, let nature take its course.   

Try to focus on other things, like new life.

It's not easy, but I'm trying to just look forward.

Have a great week!