Can't say anything right now but it has been a very good day for me. Busy as usual, but good. Tomorrow on the other hand is going to be absolute chaos, for instance there at 826 cases on the traffic court calendar in courtroom #1. This means several things for me a) it is going to take FOREVER for me to go over and discuss our cases with the ADA as the line of lawyers waiting to speak to him is going to be out of the door b) our cases that are set for trial (and are marked FINAL - ie HAVE to be tried tomorrow) are going to be at the latter part of the day as it will take all day for the ADA to just get through talking to lawyers and unrepresented defendants. c) the simple traffic tickets that I would have loved to have taken care of tomorrow will have to be continued again because there is no way the court will have time to do them and d) my boss is going to be grumpy. It will be like an absolute ZOO over there tomorrow because for every person who has a lawyer then there are just as many without a lawyer, so you can figure that there are going to be 400 sweaty bodies over there jamming to try and get into the courtroom. If the adminstration are smart (as they were on Tuesday when there were 600 cases on the calendar) then they will have three Assistant DAs in there (normally there is just Paul, the sweetest man you ever met). Tuesday they had Paul dealing with the attorneys and two senior ADAs (who are usually assigned to Superior Court) taking care of the defendants, which to be honest is usually alot of fun, cause the superior court ADAs are so used to dealing with much more serious cases (ie rape, murder etc.) that they tend to be a little flippant when it comes to traffic court.... here is an exchange I heard the last time they did this ADA "and what are you charged with?" "driving while license revoked" "well that was a silly thing to do wasn't it, what do you want to do about it?" "Huh, don't know what can I do" ADA "how about I let you plead guilty to no operators license?" "okay".... it was like a damn fire sale over there, deals were being cut, speeds were being reduced, charges were being dismissed like there was no tomorrow. So while I am stood there in line for an hour it should be quite amusing to watch the superior court ADAs taking care of the traffic tickets. When I get home I will do my usual, I will pour myself half a glass of wine and wander out into my garden to check out what is blooming, what is wilting and what is being eaten by some critter or another. At the end of a day like that it is the best way I know how to de-stress. Gazing deep into the throat of a perfect flower and sucking in a lungful of fragrance can transport you from a courtroom to paradise in a second. That is why I garden.

She asked me today, how to attract butterflies to her garden, and I quickly gave her advice. However, per her instructions, she asked me to post here how to attract butterflies so I am nothing if not cooperative. Here it is Deb! First up you have to provide nectar for them to eat, while in some cases this means flowers (more of that later) in other cases it means rotting fruit and tree sap. For the flower nectar lovers, I have found that a) Lantan b) mexican sunflower and c) butterfly weed are the winners in this game. Lantana is very popular, and it grows like a weed in Eastern NC, particularly the variety "Miss Huff" which is perennial in our area and becomes a rather large shrub as opposed to a tidy perennial. In my case I grow Lantana mainly for the flowers and not for their butterfly friendliness as the flowers are positioned such that the butterflies must flap their wings constantly to stay attached to the bloom, not a good photo taking opportunity (okay so sometimes it works)


Mexican sunflower on the other hand provides a flat platform for the butterflies to land on and they give an ideal phot op. Mexican sunflowers are the King of the butterfly attracting plants as far as I am concerned, and I am backed up by a study done at NC State I believe that found that given a choice of ANY other plant the butterflies, hummingbirds and bees chose Mexican sunflower over everything else.



Butterfly weed serves two purposes, not only do the butterflies love to feed on it but the monarch butterflies use it as a host plant for their caterpillars... and therefore lay eggs on it.



The best thing to do is to get a list of host plants for the caterpillars from a decent butterfly web site and to plant food plants that the butterflies love. I have found these to be the best:

Lantana
Mexican Sunflower
Zinnia
Butterfly Weed

As an aside butterflies will drink nectar from almost anything that produces it, which is most plants, however, the above plants appear to produce an inordinate amount, particularly lantana and mexican sunflower. Go for it Debs, let me know how you do!

Hugs Britty.

When I got up (early) this morning I wandered out onto the patio to see what had happened to my caterpillars overnight...., the caterpillars who had already attached themselves (in other words the first photos that I posted the other day) had completed their transformation into chrysalids, in the first shot, a fascinating item for me, you can see the shed skin of the caterpillar lying below the chrysalid....



the one on the arbor was obviously the first one to begin his journey as, as of 6am this morning he had already transformed into his "disguise" that of a dried leaf...



By the time I got home this evening all of the caterpillars that began their journey yesterday had turned into chrysalids, they were still yet green, but they had shed their skin and turned into chrysalids proper. I am assuming that by tomorrow all of the babies will have turned brown and all we have to do it sit and wait....

so as Hermione said to Harry Potter in "Prisoner of Azkaban"

"And now we wait"

Yesterday the muses were with me, and today, the caterpillars provided hours of entertainment. For some reason just about everything I shot yesterday turned out right, and I got some shots that I absolutely fell in love with as soon as I saw them. So if you are sitting comfortably then I shall begin:

I have been trying to get a decent shot of a Halloween Pennant Dragonfly for some time now, no joy, all my attempts turned out fuzzy or underexposed or something. Yesterday while I was taking pictures of my caterpillars this Halloween Pennant decided to come in and DEMAND to have his photo taken, I mean he just landed right in front of my camera and posed so nicely that it would be a hard hearted photographer indeed to ignore him... of course I didn't and I got this shot, which I absolutely love....



And the caterpillar photos turned out really nicely too, I saw this on upload and could not help but title it "Cata(pillar)pult" it seemed appropriate:



And, yes in a moment of pure serendipity I came across this shot, I moved and shot the dragonfly against a background of the white vinyl siding of my house as opposed to the blue shutters but when I compared the two, well, there was no comparison, I knew where my heart was on this one, I call it "Blue"



Then the sun was obscured by the clouds, and it appeared that a storm was coming in, in observing the almost brilliant light that was now available to me I ran out there with my tripod, my backdrops and my spray bottle of water and took shots like a mad woman to take advantage of the brilliant light.... here is "White on White" the white "Casa Blanca" lilies shot against a pure white background.



I also got some shots of my pink orientals.... against the same white background...



And, most importantly, my first Mexican Sunflower bloomed yesterday, while this may seem insignificant to most folks, the mexican sunflower blooms means that nectar lovers (bees, hummingbirds, butterflies) will be flocking to my garden from now on to feast on its delights.... I am so excited....



and just to show you that mother nature doesn't always get it right, the siamese flower, I am not really sure what this is supposed to be but obviously the two little cells did not separate the way they were supposed to and we end up with this, and, as strange as it is, I really like it, (but then you all know I am strange like that)....



ahhhh it was such a good weekend.

This morning as I went out to check on my caterpillars I noticed that some were missing. I was concerned, as we had had a pretty violent thunderstorm last night so I was worried that perhaps they had been knocked, or blown off the fennel. I looked around and realized to my delight that they were fine, but they had begun the next stage in their lives. I found three one, coincidentally enough, on the butterfly weed



one on a fennel stalk that had fallen down



and the last on the gate of my arbor



I checked on the other caterpillars and they were all sleeping. Suddenly one twitched and arched its back, making it look for all the world like the caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland.



at which point (there is no delicate way to put this, it did an enormous poo. (no I didn't take a photograph of that

Then the caterpillar set out on its journey down the fennel, in search of just the right spot. I wondered as I watched it what, if anything it thought of that, leaving what has been its entire world for its short life to venture out into the unknown. If they feel at all, then I should imagine it is fear, or perhaps, as I suspect at this point they are just driven by pure instinct. Without stopping once for a final snack he began to look for a suitable spot to begin his journey to becoming a butterfly. I am not sure what they look for when looking for a suitable spot, but it appeared to me that the process involved a lot of sniffing, and feeling with the nose and mouth.



If a spot did not look right then they moved on. (At this point I should let you know that I was monitoring three different caterpillars making this journey, which is why you see them in different places in the flower bed).



Once a suitable spot had been found then the caterpillar began to "mark" it, almost like a cat (I wonder if this is where the name comes from?) marks various parts of its territory (including its humans) by rubbing its cheeks against it. I speculated while watching this behavior that this part of the process had something to do with creating the silk that eventually would anchor the chrysalis to the chosen spot. However nothing could be seen by (my) human eye. I was delighted to discover, on uploading my photographs that this indeed was the purpose of the "marking" as you can clearly see the silk in this shot.



At one point the caterpillar reached all the way around the stalk to no doubt ensure that the silk was well anchored.



In addition to the "marking" there was also a move where the "forehead" was pressed hard into the spot, I am not sure what this was for, other than if you look at the completed chrysalis it is anchored at the head and tail and the center is away from the spot. Once the "marking" process was complete the caterpillar scrunched itself up in a chrysalis shape and sat motionless. All of a sudden the caterpillar would decide, for some reason unbeknownst to me, to turn around



Whereupon it would sit, in its chrysalis shape for a certain period of time before again turning around and sitting upright again. I have no idea what this phenomena has to do with but it is no doubt essential to the entire process as all three caterpillars that I was watching did the same thing.



Eventually this turning around behavior stopped and the caterpillar stopped moving entirely no doubt its journey from caterpillar to chrysalis had disabled it.



I have to admit that the entire thing was utterly fascinating and I am extremely grateful that I got to witness it. I am also delighted that all of the caterpillars are where I can monitor them to check on their progress, as in years past I could never find any of the chrysalises that resulted from my caterpillars.

So now we wait...