Rainy Day Katydid

Today has been relentlessly rainy which greatly limited my desire to be outside with a camera.  During a brief break in the rain this morning,  trotted out with the macro lens and found this extremely obliging katydid sitting right on top of the African Daisies.  Temps in the 50's meant that she wasn't warm enough to fly or really to do much of anything.  And she was covered in jewel-like droplets of water...perfect!  Definitely an easy blip today.

Also during the break in the rain, I headed over to my friends' farm to snip some milkweed and have a quick visit.  Barb, who is in her first summer of raising monarchs, needed to move a couple of chrysalids that had pupated in awkward locations and asked if I'd give her a hand.  Nothing like handling a small gem-like green chrysalis to make your hands feel huge and useless.  However, we got all three successfully moved to a small twig with the only harm done being that to our nerves.  

By noon, the rain had resumed so I did some caterpillar maintenance in the Monarch Nursery before heading out.  First stop was to visit a friend who had major back surgery last month and has had some serious complications.  We had a brief visit, because I was mindful of not tiring her too much.  From there, I headed to see MIL who was in great spirits.  We walked, we talked, we laughed.  Hubs is away but happened to call while I was there so she talked to him, too.  All good.

Eight monarchs eclosed today:  5 males, 3 females, all perfect.  Because of the rain and temperatures below 55, they won't be released until tomorrow.  And, each will go on its' way in honor of someone.  Still taking names...

Cheers, people.
xo
Debbi