Weekly Photo Challenge: Texture

All these textures for the weekly photo challenge are from my garden. Yes, the aphids are rather gross, but they’d be a lovely feast for someone! I have never seen them like this. I sure hope that lady bug is hungry!

Weekly Photo Challenge: Renewal

Ahhh, Renewal, the circle of life, How I love thee! Here are some milkweed seeds from pods from my garden. I think this has become one of my favorite plants! The wispy parts are very “slippery” and when pulled out of the pod they seem to spring open and burst away from each other. The seed itself easily comes off the wispy flying machine. After shooting these it was tricky putting them into a little baggie. It is almost like they have a mind of their own.

Summer Loving, had me a Blast

Oh yes, summer lovin’ under the milkweed leaf! (If you are not a huge Grease fan, that is where the title comes from.)  I saw these two yesterday doing their thing. It was entertaining. This is the G-rated angle. The male is very funny, wiggling his body every so often. They stayed there a long time too. The moment was significant to me occurring on the last day of August. To me, summer ends when school starts, but as I sit here today in 94% humidity in front on a fan first thing in the morning, I sure could use a dip in the pool or turn the a/c back on. I have tried to leave the air conditioning off, and it’s been ok, the nights have been rather cool, but boy, I feel like I am sitting in a sauna. I get to work on taxes later, so I might need to break down and turn it on for a bit.

I hope everyone has a safe wonderful weekend! It’s Labor Day Weekend here in the States. Wikipedia says, “Labor Day is an American Federal Holiday observed on the first Monday in September (September 3 in 2012) that celebrates the economic and social contributions of workers.

Labor Day pays tribute to the contributions and achievements of American workers. It also symbolizes the end of summer for many Americans, and is celebrated with parties, parades and athletic events.”

So, I guess we are either celebrating the end of summer or American workers. I thought it was about fair working conditions. The 40-hour week, 8 hour day. I think most people just celebrate food and beverage. Either way, I am grateful for all things good! Summer 2012 was fun, fabulous, but fast! I am also grateful for happy little lady bugs, with hopefully more on the way!

Success is…

Last year I had 1 milkweed plant grow in my garden. It is a really cool plant, very not “weedy”. This year, I have 9. They grow tall, with smooth leaves that stick out horizontally. Very graceful. The flowers are exciting and the seed pods are super cool. The plants are visited by lots of different bugs, but this morning I noticed something under one of the leaves. I found a cicada shell on one of the stalks a few weeks ago. Upon closer inspection it was a monarch caterpillar!!!!!!! The whole reason for leaving my friends the milkweed in my yard. YEA!!! I have a butterfly bush next to the milkweed. He is still out there hanging out (I just checked). I am so happy! My garden gets so many fun guests, but I am more than thrilled about this one. I hope the Monarch can survive the human race. I won’t go all melancholy here, but I do hope we can quell the extinction of so much flora and fauna. Anyway, below are: Milkweed flowers (a good example of the different stages), milkweed pods, my front yard (yes, it needs some TLC, but it has been too hot for me, and I refuse to hire weed people this year), 😉 and finally the cicada shell. I am still trying to photograph a live cicada, but they take off before I get a shot off.