Tiny Tuesday : : Battus Philenor Hirsuta...

...or the California (or hairy)  pipeline swallowtail. The caterpillars  feed on  Asrtolochia or pipevine which is toxic and makes them unpalatable to predators. These butterflies are quite common in our garden, but I have never seen a pipevine .

Thank you osusanna for hosting this month and for your wonderfully informative tutorial on shooting bugs. It covers everything except how to get them to sit still! I lurked around the lantana patch for quite awhile this morning, and this butterfly paused many times just tantalizingly out of range. I will keep practicing, but not this afternoon as the temperature creeps inexorably toward 100℉.

You all know how much I love to vacuum and my request to OilMan not to state the obvious ('t...the plug is too far away...") when the combination of a retractable cord and my not very ladylike language led later to an in depth discussion of vacuum cleaners with my hairdresser. She considers herself something of a vacuuming diva and swore by her Dyson cordless, with which, she says, she can clean her whole house on one charge.The resident Engineer, trying to be helpful after his unhelpful remark, read that its charge  lasts for twelve minutes. My house isn't very big, but I don't think I am manic enough to be able to vacuum the whole thing in 12 minutes....

The search for the perfect vacuum continues....

When I Googled  "What is a perfect vacuum" I stumbled upon an extraordinary metaphysical discussion that had nothing  very little to do with getting rid of dust, but everything to do with philosophical discussion. I loved the conclusion: "the absence of presence...it cannot be achieved". That's just about as helpful as the Resident Engineer's comment, and it doesn't take a particle physicist to figure it out...just ask my hairdresser and me....