One of many ...

... firsts of the day.

We had a lot of firsts happen today!  

In order to beat the heat (we didn't!) we got out before lunch for a walk at Housenick Park.  The humidity was simply awful and I was dripping wet by the time we got home ... not a pleasant feeling.   As a result of this stickiness when we got home I got in the pool for the first time this year!  In prior years I ordinarily would have been in the pool by this time but after last weekend's record cold temps the pool wasn't really warm enough until now.  It's still a bit bracing at first but I truly didn't care ... it felt so cooling on my overheated skin.

But back to our Housenick walk ... as we were walking we saw our first Monarch butterfly of the year!  And what a thrill to see her! I don't recall it being so late in the year before seeing our first Monarch and we were so excited to see her.  Now if we would only see one in our own yard ... there's plenty of milkweed growing. 

And we also saw our first chipmunk at Housenick, too!  I had despaired ever seeing another chipmunk there as it's been since last fall that one was spotted there.  It's been very unusual not seeing any chipmunks here as we normally would see them ... almost year round. 

After my swim we had lunch and then I sat in the sunroom trying to read the newspapers ... there were too many distractions!  One of those distractions was this lovely female Eastern Black swallowtail butterfly laying her eggs on the dill that we bought specifically for this purpose.  This is the first swallowtail we've seen laying eggs this year.  Although she wasn't the first swallowtail we've had on our yard this year since we released twelve butterflies back in April that we had overwintered since last September.  We had a total of thirteen overwintered swallowtail chrysalids and only one didn't emerge.  Not a bad result ... but I wish it had been 100% success rate. 

This isn't the best photo of her with the green leaf in front but it'll have to do. 

Backblipped: June 9, 2021