Mister Lovely

This is, in my opinion, one of our most beautiful butterflies - the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail (Papilio glaucus).  This one is a male, and probably recently closed judging from the immaculate condition of his wings and the presence of both "tails".  They are easy butterflies to photograph because they tend to settle on a nectar source and spread their wings.  In this case, he had settled in one of my phlox patches which set off his buttery yellow color perfectly.  

My mountain mint is now blooming in my big pollinator garden and the Great Black Digger Wasps, Hidalgo Wasps, and bees of all kinds are present in good numbers - making a very happy entomology geek!  The only bummer is that it is blazingly hot and humid today and it takes less than 10 minutes to work up a significant sweat doing nothing but crouching by the flowers.  Even too hot for Jax to keep an eye on me - he retreated to the deck in the shade which left me out of his sight (a rarity).  

My dear Hubs went out and put caution tape up around the bluebird box today, being constantly scolded by both parents.  But now we don't have to worry about our lawn mower disturbing the birds for the next two weeks until the young fledge.  The things we do for our tenants!  

Had a nice long FT chat with my parents this morning.  Portland is hot right now too, although lacking our humidity, so they are getting out early in the day and then retiring to their cool condo in the afternoon.  

Mister Trump has announced his pick for VP, a 39 year old with two years of experience in politics.  He will be the man who will be literally a heartbeat away from the Presidency should DJT be elected.  I'm just shaking my head.  It is this woman's opinion that our country is in a huge political mess right now, regardless of who wins the November election.  

Hubs and I watched "Born on the 4th of July" with Tom Cruise last night.  It brought back a lot of memories for me of the political environment of the late 60's and early 70's. I can remember attending sit-ins and peaceful marches to protest the ongoing war in Vietnam while the older brothers of friends came home in body bags, or damaged in ways that are unimaginable.  I can remember at the time being so angry that our leaders kept sending young men (no women in those days) into a war that seemed hopeless.  And then for reasons I still can't comprehend, many of the soldiers who managed to get home were greeted with hatred and anger - as if it was their fault that we were engaged in a very unpopular war.  I don't often think about those days, but this movie really did bring a lot of memories back.  

Dark, plain and luscious, today.

xo
Debbi