Cream Cheese, Butterflies and Bylaws

Over the weekend, my daughter came home and made some no-bake cheesecake. She even let Bow lick the bowl.

There was just one stipulation, that the bowl not touch the ground. So the little folding table was brought in to Bow's side

There was nothing about not putting his head inside the bowl, though.

It is a funny thing about rules: there are always ways around them, and there are always loopholes.

I was preoccupied with rules that weekend. There was a Bylaws Committee meeting in Kansas City, and I had sent in a proposal for a change in the rules. Of course, I could not go to attend the meeting, but it was going to be streamed on Facebook.  On Thursday the fourteenth, I was uploading a twelve minute explanation of the proposed change, but the internet was very slow that day. In Licking, the local paper's news room had no internet service all day.

It had started out as a foggy morning, but turned into very nice weather later on. Nature is just outside the door, and while things were uploading, I went out into the field, where I came across a very accessible Monarch butterfly.

Because it was still morning, the sun was in the east, casting my shadow on the butterfly as I drew closer.

The entire encounter did  not take long.

I should have been thinking about the Bylaws, but the butterflies in the field distracted me. There was a pipevine swallowtail, too, and it had a damaged wing.

At first I filmed the pipevine swallowtail from a distance, afraid to frighten it away.

But the swallowtail did not show fear when I came closer.

When I had had my fill of butterflies and was on my way back to the house, I noticed there were strange green seeds embedded in my pants.

I went back inside, but the twelve minute talk about the LP Bylaws was still uploading. All afternoon, it was still uploading. After a while I went back outside, and I saw a turtle.

As I came closer, it went back into its shell.

.My friend Pam estimates this turtle, who appears to have suffered a serious injury to its shell, might be over sixty years old. As I was returning to the house from the field, I saw a deer in the front yard.

I thought surely ,my twelve minute video would have uploaded by lunch, but it didn't.  It didn't upload until two pm. Bow had a some pickle ice as a snack about then.

The internet continued slow all that day. Bow's friend Charla came with the bananas, and Bow had a nice time socializing with her. In the evening,  I was able to just catch the sunset after putting Bow to bed

The next day was very exciting. Sword came home for the weekend, and a man came to repair the lights in the pens. Bow was so excited, he is barely visible in this action shot of him flying through the air on his rope while the repairman was on the ladder.

And then there was the preparation by Sword of some thirty-odd no-bake cheesecakes, and Bow licking the bowl, while I remotely listened in on the Bylaws Committee meetings. That was quite a weekend!

 When Sword went back to college, we had leftover cream cheese, so I made blintzes.

The Monarch and the Pipevine Swallowtail on a Thistle

There was a time when I suspected I had seen a Monarch butterfly on my property. and it flew circles around me very fast, so it was impossible to take its picture. In those days, all varieties of milkweed were flourishing on my property, and Great Spangled Fritillaries were quite common and accessible. But the Monarch was rare and elusive.

Yesterday, standing out in the field, in an area I like to call the meadow, where a variety of wildflowers bloom, I had no trouble at all spotting and filming and even taking still photos of a Monarch butterfly.

There were no Great Spangled Fritillaries in sight, and also no milkweed. In fact, the milkweed flowers this year were all eaten by deer, so that even when an expert on milkweed asked me to help him by gathering seed, I could not. The flowers were never given a chance to become seedpods. If milkweed is to continue to grow here, it will have to propagate from the root and not from seeds. This is the reality when the deer are this plentiful. But the side benefit is that there is relatively little poison ivy growing in the meadow, because the deer appear to have eaten it down, and they also left generous trails around the flowers, which allow me to walk unmolested among the flowers.

Yesterday, standing in the field and texting to a far away friend in California, I was able to see not only a Monarch, but also a Pipevine Swallowtail butterfly feeding side by side on a thistle plant.

The Pipevine Swallowtail was more flighty than the Monarch.

But when Swallowtail flew off, the friendly Monarch came and joined him, and the two continued feeding close together.

I have held Pipevine Swallowtails in my hand before. This is soon after they emerge as butterflies, when their wings are not yet dry, or after an injury. But when they are in their prime, they flutter so much that it is hard to get a good picture, because they are constantly flapping their wings.

.
They flap their wings so much even when hovering over a flower, that the closeups are a little blurry.

In any event, if there had been any doubt whatever that there are both Monarchs and Pipevine Swallowtails coexisting in my meadow, then this should set those doubts to rest. But sometimes it's not that no one believes you. Sometimes it's that they just don't care.

When I showed Bow my butterfly pictures yesterday, he quickly scrolled away from them, looking for pictures of himself, instead. In the same way, I don't actually believe any longer that if I could only "prove" that Bow can spell, it would make a big difference. Mankind is so transfixed by its own marvelous image, that most people, and especially those in the scientific community, would not look at proof that takes away from our stunning image.

But just when I thought that nobody was paying any  attention to my butterfly images, I got a comment from Scotland, about the thistle flower. "Wow! I didn't know that Scottish thistle grew in the USA!"

There was in fact another person locally who told me the thistle was an "invasive".  If so, good for it! Here is a song about the thistle that I like to listen to in my spare time.

Cooperation and Competition

The weather has been very warm, and there has not been any rain in the past few days. Bow takes advantage of the opportunity to sunbathe.

Lately the glass door to the outer pen has been sticking, and I need Bow's help to open and close it. Yesterday, after basking in the sun for a good, long while, Bow let me know he wanted to come back inside.

I reminded him as he was coming in that he would need to help me close the glass door.

He went out into the corridor, but after I had locked the metal grid door, he came back and closed the glass door for me. I thanked him. Now that's cooperation!

This morning as I was letting the dogs out, I noticed a butterfly in the garage, It was just sitting there on the floor. I don't know how it got there.

I opened the garage door, but it did not fly out.

I coaxed it onto my hand and took it out. It was a pipevine swallowtail.

I put it down by the tulip tree, Later I came back, and it was not there any longer. I hope that means our cooperative effort, the swallowtail's and mine, was successful.  I hope that I helped it to survive.

The irises at Orchard House are still blooming, while those by the lagoon at my house have already faded. The landscaping at Orchard House is wonderful. It's as if the flowers are cooperating by taking turns being in the spotlight.

There are new flowers blooming there at every part of the season. I think someone should just buy Orchard House for the flowers alone. I am planning to sell it at auction by the end of the summer.

Nature is full of cooperation, and equally full of competition. It would not work without both, The free market is that way, too. You get what you pay for, but only when you and not someone else does the paying. There could not be life without death. All the bad stuff that happens when we make a mistake is what makes success possible. Negative feedback is important.

On my walk this afternoon I saw fresh signs of a kill. Feathers scattered everywhere.  Part of the flesh of the bird seemed to have been just left there, amid all the feathers. Was it the heart? It's probably not the heart. But suddenly I remembered that line from a Disney movie: "Bring me Snow White's heart!" Why the heart? I've always wondered. Wouldn't the head be easier to recognize?

Speaking of trouble with recognition, just around the bend in my path, after the remains of the bird, I thought I spotted a milkweed plant! But I had been wrong before, The last time I thought I had seen a milkweed plant that had not yet bloomed, it turned out to be dogbane. However, my friend Kathy confirmed it. This time it is milkweed!

That bodes well for the butterflies.

A Fall Bouquet for Bow

Fall comes every year. This year, the first day of fall is today, September 22. It's still pretty warm out, but somehow the animals and plants outside sense that it is time to get ready for winter.

In fact, they have been getting ready for the past week now.

The wasps on the goldenrods are stocking up for the winter. 

The honey bees on the white wildflowers are doing the same.

The pipevine swallowtail is in such a hurry to meet all its deadlines, that it flits right past me in the field.

It won't stay in one spot long, but it will pause long enough for a clear view.

An American Lady butterfly, a little worn in the wings, enjoys the goldenrod flowers.

Them a Common Buckeye and the American Lady Butterfly socialize together on the swaying goldenrods.

A fuzzy little caterpillar makes its way on the ground among the fallen leaves.

And then there is the dogwood all decked out with faux berries, an unmistakable sign of fall. 

The dogwood tries to dupe us into thinking its bright red drupes are luscious fruit, while the dogs frolic under its branches.

The tiniest butterflies, the eastern tailed-blue and the pearl crescents, hold social balls on the gravel road.

There are still so many flowers blooming out today, that I decided to gather a bouquet and present it to Bow in a vase. Bow was interested.

He began taking out the flowers.

I thought he was getting all excited about the flowers, but actually it was the vase that he wanted.

"Hey, what's in that vase?" Bow seemed to be wondering. "Nothing, after you took all the flowers out!" I wanted to say. "It's just an empty vase now." But we didn't actually say any of that. We just acted it out. 

Once he had made sure that the vase was really empty, Bow handed it back to me.

I think that's sort of how it is when we expect something special to happen on the first day of fall. It's just a date. It's a day of the year. It's an empty possibility, until you fill it with something. It's like any other empty vessel.

Turtles and Butterflies, Despite the Cat

I have been feeling a little uneasy about this cat who won't go away. It is not mine, and I will not claim it. But it is an invasive species, and it doesn't exactly belong here, and it looks as if it wants to be a domestic cat, rather than a feral one.

On the advice of a friend, I put out some milk in the barn, to let the cat know that this is an offer to be a barn cat, but we have no opening for a house cat here, and if it has its heart set on being a house cat, it needs to go elsewhere to look for a position like that.

Something stung me when I entered the barn, probably an insect. It hurt for a while, but then the pain passed. I feel bad for the cat. I know what it is like to be rejected, and I am afraid that the cat might be thinking that it is so pretty and cute and adorable that it deserves better and  that I don't appreciate beauty when I see it.

The fact is that there are many unclaimed treasures on this earth. Sometimes it is sad that something is not used to its highest potential. But isn't it a good thing that we don't just have to curl up and die when others turn us away? That cat is free to live.  And whether it recognizes it or not, it has its freedom, which is something the owner of a house cat usually takes away.

The unemployed and the homeless are also free in ways that employed people with mortgages will never know. There are two sides to every coin. So enjoy your freedom, cat!

When Lawrence came back from his vacation, he saw a dead mole on the lawn. That was the cat's doing. I began to fear that I would lose all my wildlife just because of the unwanted feline presence. Would there be no more rabbits or turtles or even butterflies, and all because of that cat?

In fact, I have been seeing all sorts of animals lately, despite the cat. On August the 9th, I saw a toad in the back yard.

That same day, I spotted a bumblebee in the pasture by the twin cedars.

And while all the large, most beautiful butterflies in and around my fields kept passing me by, I did get a close look at one of the smaller species.

But would I ever see a turtle or a rabbit again, now that the cat was on the prowl? I wondered. On August 17th, I saw a bigger, more impressive butterfly close up.

It stopped to take a rest on the maple in the rock garden. I think it is an Astyanax red spotted purple. But still it had been a very long time since I saw my last turtle. Was the cat responsible for that? Would it ever leave? Would that incessant meowing ever cease?

And yet yesterday after lunch, there was no sign of the cat. I did not see it on the porch, nor on the lawn and I did not see it in the barn, when I put out the milk and got stung. So I went on my walk, and I spotted some mushrooms. Except that one of the mushrooms, on closer inspection, turned out to be a turtle.

I was so happy to see that turtle!

Surely the presence of this turtle out in the open meant that the cat had finally gone away! It was a reddish-colored male three-toed box turtle, but much smaller than the other reddish males I had seen earlier in the year. My friend Pam, the turtle expert, thinks it is between twenty-five to thirty-five years old by the marking on the shell.

I felt very lucky to have seen that turtle, and I thought maybe our cat problem was over. Maybe the cat had found a more receptive household to join.

But later in the day, I spotted a very beautiful butterfly, much bigger than I had ever seen close up, fluttering in the grass in the front lawn. It was a male pipevine swallowtail. And just as I was losing myself in the enjoyment of the butterfly, I heard a plaintive meow behind me. The cat was back!

The butterfly needed protection from the cat. It did not seem inclined to fly away. Possibly it was so brand new that its wings were not quite dry.

Would the cat get it, as soon as I turned my back?

The pipevine swallowtail kept fluttering its wings, but it showed no sign that it was prepared to fly away, and the cat was meowing behind me.

 I decided to give the butterfly a lift to a safer location.

It happily climbed on my hand and from there to the fence of the pasture.

From atop  the fence it flew into the pasture. But when it landed there, it was still fluttering rather aimlessly, the cat meowing in the distance.

Of course, if the cat had really wanted that butterfly, it could have gone into the pasture and gotten it. But the cat seemed to be more interested in me than in the butterfly.

And what about rabbits? you may be asking. Did the cat chase away all the rabbits? No, not really. I spotted quite a few rabbits last night. They just seemed to be keeping a greater distance, that is all.