Wednesday, August 3, 2016

Second Look--August 3, 2016

They always say, be careful what you ask for. After not having more than a few sprinkles of rain for weeks, we had a downpour on Saturday. Six inches of rain fell over the area in just a few hours. That caused flash flooding that was particularly devastating for a nearby town. However, we were okay here even though I measured 7 inches of rain at my house. This measurement was taken with a stick and a weeding bucket, so I'm not sure that it was totally accurate. But we did get a lot of rain. The weather is now a little cooler, so the flowers are showing some life again. And so am I.

Here a few things I saw this week 
during a Second Look.

This goldfinch was eating seeds from the zinnia in front of it. 


Tiger lily


Swallowtail Butterfly



Day lily



Remember the little yellow mushrooms from last week? They turned into this after the rain. The big one here is about 6" across.



Balloon flowers. Guess which direction the sun is.


Swallowtail butterfly. Among its legs and antennae, notice its proboscis going at a right angle into the marigold to collect nectar.


This butterfly is not using its proboscis. Notice how it has rolled it up into a curly cue






8 comments:

  1. All your pictures capture summer, but the swallowtail butterfly pic with the bright flowers is stunning.

    Hope you are drying out! That's a LOT of rain.

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    1. We are drying out okay. However, the damage still exists in other places. That butterfly rarely spread its wings, so it was hard to get a picture with them open. I planted marigolds and zinnias to attract butterflies and birds and it's working. Yeah!

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  2. Beautiful as usual. I have not seen tons of birds or butterflies around my zinnias or marigolds but I counted 8 butterflies on the lantana all at the same time, along with 5 or so bees

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    1. I have not seen tons of butterflies or birds around the zinnias, but I have seen some. I'm trying to follow the example of my sister who plants specifically for the them. Her yard is always filled with birds and butterflies.

      I haven't seen anything around my lantana, but it is very small. I bet you bush is full of visitors.

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  3. You take amazing pictures! I can't even pick a favorite today. Ok, twist my arm, I love that one of the finch eating straight out of the zinnia. It's awesome.

    Thanks for pointing out the positions of the prosbocises and the direction of the sun. Talk about a second look!

    I didn't realize you live in that area that got flooded so badly. 7 inches! I'm glad you're OK and your garden must feel relieved to have finally received some much needed rain. It rained here tonight too although only for about 15 minutes so not enough to refill the rain barrel, I'll have to go check the level tomorrow morning. It was so nice to see rain that Greg and I had a "date" moment just looking at the rain out the 2nd floor window together and celebrating it!

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    1. When you were looking out the window with Greg sounds very sweet. You were living in the moment which is something I forget to do sometimes.

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  4. Oh wow, you're in that area, that amount of rain is something else. Glad you are ok. LOVE the Tiger Lily photo and the one of the Swallowtail butterfly. Your photos are gorgeous, hope you know.

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    1. Thanks, Strayer. The main reason to do a Second Look is to get outside and see what's going on. If I get a good photo, all the better. I was lucky this week that I found some particularly good things to photograph in good light.

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