Summer

Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass on a summer day listening to the murmur of water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is hardly a waste of time. ~John Lubbock

Yesterday was a gorgeous summer day. FINALLY. We did get some thunder-rumbles in the late afternoon, but they passed without rain. It was great!

I have blossoms on my squash, one blossom on my cucumbers (which aren't doing very well -- as opposed to last year when I actually ended up throwing cucumbers away because I had so many and had already canned a zillion jars of pickles, and my neighbors were beginning to run for cover), little bitty green baby maters on my tomato plants. It's exciting.

Pillar Place was busy, too. We had THREE "J" bugs:



And we got a picture of 'pillar Diana kicking off the last shred of her former life as a pillar. It's a 2 minute video, and a bit out of focus because I couldn't pull the camera back far enough (the box was too narrow), but you can see how hard she had to work to get her 'pillar skin off. What amazes me is that they are suspended on each end by one slim thread -- a thread so strong it can take that kind of thrashing around.



Here is how she looked when she was done (though after about an hour, she turned brown to "hide" on the stick):



Ichabod and Abigail went through the same process last night. Ethel went on walkabout late, and is now a "J". We have two more that are about big enough to go walkabout soon... I suspect things will be very quiet for a bit in Pillar Place as they all become pupae, but then butterflies will be busting out all over!

====================

No writing yesterday -- I was far too busy putzing around outside. Today, though, it looks like rain. So I'm going to attempt to put fingers to keyboard and words to paper.

====================