Outdoor Pets....

Here are just a few of the beautiful "pets" that visit my yard. This is a Viceroy who is enjoying the Butterfly Weed. It is much smaller then the Monarch butterfly that it mimics.

One of my daughters found this little guy while trimming scrub brush. After searching through the caterpillar book we found he is the larva of the Question Mark butterfly.

This beauty and many like it help to keep our yard free from deer and horse flies. He sat very patiently while getting his picture taken!

What striking colors!!! This is an Eastern Tiger Swallowtail enjoying a drink from the lavender Butterfly Bush.

Yet another sentinel of the air in our backyard. Much smaller then the big blues these like to hang out on the clothes line. They eat the smaller flies that are attracted to the Butterfly Bush.

Strange place for a spider......

I found this garden spider this morning, in of all places, our burn barrel. As garden spiders go it is very small, perhaps a young one or a male?

My newest cross stitch project is a Serval, an African Wild Cat. The pattern is by Jayne Netley Mayhew, out of the book Cats of the World.

A year later.....

It has been way to long since my last post......a year!

I am going to do better from here on out. For today

I introduce to you Morph, the newest member of our

family. He is a minature horse who's had a rough go at life,

now at five years old he's found his place in the world as

a part of our family. He dutifully "mows" the yard

everyday.

Wow, it's been over a month since I last posted anything!
Where does the time go?? A couple of months ago we
were given a canary....he was suppose be a beautiful singer.
Well, he is a SHE! I had never seen such a tiny egg.


This is my favorite color of Rose of Sharon. I
have many colors but there is just something about
this one that I am drawn to. For now it is the picture
I am using for my newly formed Yahoo! group.
If you like, wander over and take a look. Maybe
you will even want to join the group in our
endeavors.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BenevolentPiecemakers/

In memory of Wally...

This post is in honor of Wally. Wally is my dad's

dog and today he was laid to rest. Wally was our

patron saint of kittens. He was a sweet soul who

loved all but he had a soft spot for kittens. The

mama cats would even have their kittens in his

coop and he would watch over the babies when

their mom went hunting. You will be missed Wally.

"Who knows the spirit of the sons of men, which goes

upward, and the spirit of the animal, which goes

down to the earth?" Ecclesiastes 3:21

Just a pic of a neat little salamander. Not sure what kind
he is but he was living under a log with a bunch of termites.
YUCK!


I LOVE dragonflies!! This beauty was flitting around
and settled long enough to have its picture taken.


Are you my mother?? All we can figure is this little
thing is an orphan. It didn't have much fear of me
(obviously!). It wondered around until it found the
mulberries on the ground and then it had a feast!!


"28........Consider the lilies of the field, how they
grow: they neither toil nor spin; 29 and yet I
say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was
not arrayed like one of these. Matthew 6:28-29

Got Butter?

The answer to that question today is YES!!!
55 POUNDS of it! Why??? It was cheaper to
buy it bulk from the dairy. So, I spent three hours
today putting butter in every spare container I could
and then taking 26 pounds to other people.

Just had to share this, this is my dad enjoying

Father's Day last Sunday :0)

This pic was taken for my other dad (I'm blessed

with two). He loves his T-birds!

This beauty was caught trying to traverse our yard!

What a privilege to see! Hinged box turtles are considered

endangered in Michigan. This one was "stuck" at our

fence line so we helped it on its way.