Project 365 day 198: Munching

The bright orange and black striped caterpillars of the cinnabar moth live on ragwort. They have been stripping it of leaves and flowers, leaving little green stumps all the way up the tall stalks. These caterpillars will be next year's moths, but there was a similar feeding frenzy last year, so I hope to see some of the bright and elegant black and red moths at some point.

The extra duplicates recent photos, but the skipper and the meadow brown were obliging enough to alight on the same head of toadflax, an event which should not be ignored, and the late afternoon light was nice. I have cropped this one quite a lot, to eliminate some distracting background,  but I think the clarity is still not bad. 

I spent much of the morning trying and largely failing to do a few basic things on the computer. It is only eighteen months old, so should not be giving up yet. I ended up crying with frustration over the wasted time. However, I did finally manage to order the additional, larger external hard drive which I hope will help to resolve the problem by allowing me to store most of my photo archive safely elsewhere. The day was also redeemed by glorious, warm weather for P's first gazpacho of the year, made with a kilo of our tomatoes from the greenhouse and a large cucumber from our neighbours (and additional ingredients from Tesco). Harvesting vegetables from the garden always cheers me up too - today cauliflower, lettuce, sprouting broccoli, chard and a bit of soft fruit.