New life!

on my way home from work, I was called by Sister and invited to stop for some peach pie.  Yum!  As usual we met in her yard.  Greeted first by dog, Snoopy, who was promptly given a treat. I try to remember to carry treats for him always!

The pie was delicious but so was the view.  One of her Black Swallowtail butterflies emerged from it's chrysalis not long before my arrival.  I watched as it pumped fluid into it's wings. Of course I took photos!
In the second photo, if you look at it full size you can see he's got an impressive proboscis. All the better to nectar with my dear!

                                                               love those yellow spots

His old chrysalis.  Black swallowtails usually emerge in 9-11 days. This male took 19 days to emerge!  He's lucky Sister is patient and not prone to give up easily.

Another black swallowtail chrysalis

More  Monarch butterfly chrysalis

It was already getting hot out so I headed to my own yard.  Checked to make sure all 12 of my black swallowtail cats were still in their new home I built them and that they had plenty of food.  Looking good so far!  I found another tiny tiny just born cat on fennel so I moved him in as well. Two more on the rue I left in place, for now.  The new home is getting crowded. 

On my swamp milkweed I have hoards of oleander aphids. I've done a lot of cutting and disposing of them, but there's sooooo many of the darn things.  Luckily these aphids won't migrate to other unrelated plants.

But after seeing all the ones on there today, I was happy to see this asian lady beetle.  I hope she brings friends!

I'd really prefer lady bugs, but who am I to fuss in the face of a zillion aphids!?

I now know that (one of the) the wild plants growing in the butterfly/hummingbird garden is Sweet Annie.  What a fab fragrance. Unfortunately I'm not a crafty person. I've read where this is some times used to make wreaths and some times used as a substitute for babys breath.

Maybe I'll ask around on freecycle if someone wants it. There's plenty growing on out there!

Lastly, I've been wondering if the snapping turtle eggs are ever going to hatch and emerge from the bank of the garden.  It had taken the female so many days to find a suitable place to lay them, because of all the rocks in the ground. She kept digging holes all over, and rearranging plants all the while.  But I got to see her lay at least 10 and bury them before she left.  I just hope they survived my walking all over the bank, and sliding in the loose soil over top of them.  I'm sure no predators got to them. But they should be emerging soon, maybe within the next two weeks.

I was lucky to see this once before at Wildwood Park in Harrisburg. I saw the momma lay the eggs and was actually there a few months later when some babies emerged from the same nest!  To say I was excited was an understatement. I'll have to find those photos to post. One of them won a photo contest and was published in the Pennsylvania Angler & Boater magazine.  Actually if you want to see the photo it's still online at
http://fishandboat.com/anglerboater/2009/02marchapril/06photo.pdf
It's near the bottom in the reptiles, amphibians, invertebrates category.

This afternoon sister and Snoopy came to visit. Snoopy had a ball running around the water, trying to find the owners of all the different smells. While sister and I were scouting out crayfish in the stream, the Fed Ex guy came to deliver my new phone.  He didn't see us outside, so when I called to him I startled him...he said I scared him!  :D   Then, before he left I made him admire at all my caterpillars.  LOL   I'm sure that delivery will stick in his mind for awhile.  Luckily he had a sense of humor!