Letting Go of the Bay Leaf: Swallowtail

Showing posts with label Swallowtail. Show all posts

Sunday, September 25, 2022

Mosaic Monday #191: Summer Highlights

Autumn arrived in Montana right on schedule. On September 22, low clouds shrouded the hills and rain pattered on and off, accumulating to six-tenths of inch - a deluge by western standards and the first rain since August 27. The thermometer stretched toward 60 degrees, but that may have been aspirational. Overnight, the aspen leaves are more gold than green. I was suffering from a bit of a cold; snuggled under a quilt on the couch. What better time to look back at the highlights of summer?

Note: I am accustomed to seeing the Sego or Mariposa Lily, which is smaller and pure white, but the Sagebrush Mariposa Lily was a stunning new species!

As long as we are in the natural world, let us continue.

In June and July, Swallowtail butterflies were common visitors in the garden. Check out these videos. In the second one, the butterfly is missing the bottom part of one wing ... hard work pollinating all these flowers!

Birthdays always provide a convenient excuse (as if I need one) to draw!

When we are on Skype calls with #1 Son, the conversation at some point touches on newsworthy events, quite often of a political nature. #1 Son is well informed and asks questions that can sometimes make you uncomfortable and certainly make you think. In a June call, he pointed us to Tony Benn and the Five Essential Questions of Democracy. Tony Benn was a British parliamentarian who died in 2014 at age 88. To quote the article at the link below, Benn was "a tireless promoter of a power-to-the-people ethic that placed its faith in the great mass of humanity rather than billionaires, media moguls and political powerbrokers."

Benn believed that those in positions of economic, social and political power should always be asked these 5 questions: "What power have you got?" "Where did you get it from?" "In whose interests do you use it?" "To whom are you accountable?" "How do we get rid of you?" "Anyone who cannot answer the last of those questions does not live in a democratic system," he explained. "Only democracy gives us that right. That is why no one with power likes democracy," he would continue. "And that is why every generation must struggle to win it and keep it." Wise words in 2014, and seeming quite prescient. (If you would like to read the whole article, here is the link. And if you want to test your civics knowledge, consider any elected position and try to answer the questions for it.)

Pioneer League baseball came to the Flathead Valley this summer, and everyone is asking why didn't this happen sooner? Easy access to Flathead Field, not a bad seat in the house, appropriate (read: gorgeous) views of the Whitefish Range, and baseball snacks. What more could you want? One July evening, the game went on a 30-minute weather delay. And no wonder. Check out these skies. I have never seen cloud formations like this. In the end, we left the stadium, anticipating a LONG delay. And, this is a storm that dropped ping pong and golf ball-sized hail on the nearby town of Kalispell. You still see "Hail Repair" signs across town, especially at auto repair shops.

You can click on the photos below to enlarge if you wish.

July also marks the birthday of Spousal Unit. I decided to try my hand at Trifle, a classic British cold dessert of sponge cake and fruit covered with layers of custard, jelly and cream.

This was not a traditional Trifle, and I would change several aspects of the outcome, but it was still DELICIOUS!!!

And here's the birthday card!

I have written about my native garden, and my attempt to let the natural ecosystem work without interference. I was intrigued to see these birds eating something off the Goldenrod. The plants were not in seed at the time, so my only conclusion is they were picking off the aphids that I had "allowed" to stay. Good for them and good for me ...

At the end of July, we were tickled to be visited by a long-term neighbor from our former neighborhood near Cleveland, Ohio (Cleveland represents - we have had 7 visits from that area). Neighbor - you know who you are! Loved having you and I am already looking forward to our adventures next summer! Here are a selection of photos from his visit.

Two photos from Kootenai Falls.

We take almost everyone to the Highline Trail in Glacier National Park. With limited time, it delivers maximum views for minimal effort (relatively) and almost always has wildlife in store. Once again, the Highline kept its stellar reputation.

First time I have ever seen a Columbine with this pink/yellow combination.

I swear that we did not pay this mountain goat to walk right in front of us near Grinnell Glacier Overlook!

At Granite Park Chalet, we saw a mule train resting before its onward journey. I knew mule trains are used to stock the Chalet in the summer, but this is the first time we saw one.

But by far, this was my favorite picture of the day!

Mosaic Monday

Welcome to Mosaic Monday, a weekly meme where we get together to share our photo mosaics and collages.

Please include at least one photo mosaic/collage in your post.

The link will be open from 1 p.m. Sunday until 11 p.m. Tuesday (U.S. Mountain time).

Remember to add the link to your Mosaic Monday post and not the one to your blog.

Please link back to this post so that your readers will be able to visit and enjoy more wonderful mosaics; taking the MM blog button from my sidebar is an easy way to link back.

As host I will visit every participant and leave a comment so that you know I stopped by.

Please try and visit as many other blogs as you can, especially those that join in later, so that everyone's creativity can be appreciated fully.

Thank you for joining in today and sharing your mosaics with us.

Sunday, August 21, 2022

Mosaic Monday #187: Garden Gala

Well, you know it's been a hectic summer when you realize I have not penned a single post about my flower garden! So hold on tight - I am blitzing you with 2 months of photos, and I might throw in a critter or two along the way. The good news? Not a lot of words to read!!!

This is my only collage from May and all of these are naturally occurring plants; the lupine was a transplant from nearby.

I am not a fan of this bunny, but I sure like this Lamium that I plopped here out of one of my deck pots at the end of last summer.

We had a wet spring, and the apple trees responded accordingly. (Fast forward to present day - the Goodland has no apples - it produced its first year. But the Honeycrisp has at least 4, and this is the first year it has fruited since it was planted in 2018!!!)

Does anyone know the insect in the collage below?

And we had rainbows to accompany the rain!

Just tramping around the property, you can see amazing things if you keep your eyes open ... this collage has the Spotted Coralroot Orchid, which previously I had only seen on hikes. To think we have this orchid on our place!! Since this photo, I have seen one or two other specimens on our property. And no less beautiful is the dainty Blue-Eyed Grass.

One day I was weeding and heard the characteristic calls of a sapsucker or woodpecker. I looked up and saw this bird working over one of the skulls Spousal Unit has placed around the firepit. Can one of you birders make the identification? I suspect the bird was eating ants.

We are always concerned about forest fires in the summer, so we are methodically thinning our pines, and adding more deciduous trees. This spring, I planted 4 paper birches. To the right is just one of them.

Columbines are one of the first plants to bloom, and I have red, pink and purple. I love this plant, which is so easy to propagate with its miniscule black seeds!

We have seen Western Swallowtails periodically throughout the summer. Here is a video of one working over the Lantana in one of my pots.

And the bunnies are still around, too. If you doubt that there is more than one, check out the photo below with two in the same shot!

Roses grow naturally here, and I love the one in the shot below, with it's heart-shaped petals. It is joined by the first Blanketflower of the season, and a Paintbrush bloom.

I don't often wear my glasses when I am in the garden, so occasionally my pictures are not in focus. But sometimes, this means an "artistic" photo. This shot of Pussytoes is one of these, and I am delighted with the result.

The spikes of Yellow Penstemon are distinctive in their own right, but also when multiples grace a plant. A close-up shows the beauty of each individual, delicate flower. Flax is a plant that arrived as part of the native grass/flower blend that we planted our first fall here. Its blue blooms are radiant, and it is a shame they last less than a day - they are morning blooms that fade quickly. A good reason to get up in the morning! (and why it shows up in this blog post twice!!!)