More on butterflies

The last painted lady crawled out of the chrysalis this morning. We’ve added some blooms — petunia, calibrachoa, catmint — to the mayonnaise jar to keep the butterflies in nectar. The kids are delighted with our success, for which we have Boreal Northwest to thank, especially for their free shipping offer that made the purchase possible. Thanks to Boreal too for the extra two caterpillars — all seven hatched — and the nifty wall poster.

And speaking of butterflies, all yesterday afternoon I was kept company by an Anise Swallowtail, who flitted from flower to flower and pretty much ignored my presence. I first spotted it in front of the house, on the chive blossoms,

Then it flew to the raised flower bed, mostly perennials, behind the house where I was digging and transplanting and watering. It found the irises, new since I bought them last Spring at a church flower sale while the kids had art lessons. You can also see old man sage in the background on the left, and monkshood leaves on the right,

Then it discovered the catmint, which is as close to lavender in look (though not scent, sadly) as I can get up here,

And just this year for some reason the meadowlark has discovered our (salvaged secondhand*) television aerial and fondness for singing from on high,

Some flowers without butterflies, including more irises (tall and thin and short and squat, and all from that church sale),

and columbine blossoms,

All in all a delightful Sunday in the garden, capped off with much-needed rain in the evening. And more this morning, enough to fill up the rain barrels and bring some ducks to the driveway. Laura reported seeing a fox scent-marking some bushes in the front yard, too. I’ll have to camp out on the deck by my new hummingbird feeder so I can get photos of the male and female, which seem to have a nest nearby. Oh, and Davy reports checking up on one of our bird boxes; he found some tiny pink baby swallows inside.

(I’ve included this post as part of cloudscome’s weekly Sunday Garden Stroll at a wrung sponge.)

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