Praying Mantis

I found this praying mantis hanging out at the edge of our driveway today.

This insect fascinates me... and scares me.

Whenever I encounter them, they always seem to be aware of me

before I am aware of them.

Creepy!

This is the only insect that can turn its head from side to side 180 degrees.

Eek, do you see him looking at me?

And also, I find it a bit disturbing when an insect not only eats insects,

but also may eat mice, lizards or beautiful hummingbirds!!!

Here's a u-tube clip of a praying mantis attacking a hummingbird.

Is the praying mantis creeping YOU out yet?

Shared Autumn Joy

Me and this bumble bee...

...were both enjoying this Sedum Autumn Joy in my garden today.

I pat my back

On Sunday morning I did something I haven't done in a long time. I weeded my whole garden. Something I haven't done since June sometime. I blame part of it on the fact that I was gone on vacation for 3 weeks, and the other part... well, I just don't care for weeding that much. Especially in the dead of summer with temperatures in the 90s, burning hot sun, and the humidity so thick that you feel like your walking in to a wall. It can't be healthy for you to do any kind of garden work under those conditions.

As you can imagine, there was a lot of pulling to do. So much,, that if the Garden Blog Police, had decided to stop by my garden, I would have been banished - forever.

So I put my garden gloves on and went to work. After 4 full hours and 4 full wheel barrows, I was done with the main part of the garden, which was my goal. I felt soooo good!

Funny thing is, after pulling the first weed, it was as if I couldn't stop. It became this obsessive compulsive thing where I needed to pick every single one of them. All of a sudden I needed my garden to be all nice and tidy, after walking around for months not caring at all. Go figure.

I think I just really enjoyed seeing the reward of nice and clean garden beds, and, weeding is in a funny way meditative, I believe.

It's Tuesday today, and I'm still patting my own back for a job well done.

I'm so proud of myself.

Before I leave, I'd just like to know...

What on earth is this?

Here's something I came across on my tomato plant, while weeding, that I would love your help with. It completely boggles my mind.

It looks kind of like an insect, but has only 4 legs.

There are antennae visible.

It's not more than 5 mm long.

Every once in a while its wings tried to open, kind of like a lady bug.

There appears to be dots on the back which also leads my mind to ladybugs, perhaps in some kind of transformation phase, but then, why is there only 4 legs?

My intention was to keep this mysterious bug under observation, but the wind swept the leaf away before I contained it.

Beautiful Butterflies

In the past few days, this section of my garden has gotten a lot of attention from the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly.

Pink and purple flowers are among its favorite and it has taken a particular liking to my Dwarf Korean Lilac at the top of the picture.

Here is a female enjoying the lilac.

Here is another female. They are really big. The wingspan is about 3-6 inches.

Here is a male in the creeping phlox.

I think this one is an American Lady Butterfly. Much smaller, but beautiful as well.

If the neighbors were watching me trying to capture these beauties, I'm sure they had a lot of fun. A lot of chasing and hopping between plants was done. But I got my pictures. Ha!

Here is a great website for identifying American butterflies, it's called Gardens with Wings. The site also has good information on butterfly gardening, identifying caterpillars, etc.

Did you know that butterflies rely on warmth and the sun to heat its body temperature and to get going? If you're trying to attract butterflies to your garden, it's a good idea to have rocks around to provide a basking site for them.