Day 256

Eastern Blue (Perhaps they are called Eastern Blues because of their blue blue eyes.  If you click on this to make it large it seems to be staring up at the viewer, upside down.)

The loud ringing of the phone caused me to leap out of bed feeling rather confused at 10:10am this morning.  I had drifted back to sleep after barely registering the kiss goodbye, vaguely aware of the house settling into quiet after the morning rush before school and work.

And what amazing dreams, vivid stories peopled by those I knew and strangers I didn't know.  Incredible locations, amazing events, with high energy and excitement so that when I woke up I felt charged and happy and flying!  And so guilty for having slept in like that.  I felt as though I had been caught by my mother doing something wicked!

At the other end of the telephone was the school nurse telling me that Nick was sick and needed to come home.  I had to fetch him.  So I tried to pull myself into the real world, finding clothes, shoes, maybe if I put some earrings in I wouldn't look quite so asleep still!  The dog needed to go out, there was no petrol in the car, but eventually I got there and retrieved my congested son, brought him home and nursed him with nice things on a tray, cold drinks for his temperature, grapes and vitamin C, movies to watch (well, he found those himself) and then I took the black dog for her walk, thinking I would run later, but that of course didn't happen!

So today some images from that walk, in the cooling Eastern Seaboard temperatures of autumn, with a heavy sky above which gave way to rain eventually this evening. 

This little blue-eyed lass has only one antenna.  All the butterflies seemed lethargic today, perhaps their lives are coming to an end, or the weather got them down too.

The evil-berried plant.  These plants just look evil, don't they?  They belong in a fairy story, with an evil prince and a wicked queen, a nasty wizard and a feisty heroine who rescues herself for a change!


I have no idea what this plant is and this is the only place I have ever seen it, so perhaps it is magical.

Queen Anne's Lace and Molly.  I like the contrast of the black and the white and how the tail repeats the line of the stalk.

Symbiosis.
Milkweed with its pods all ready for autumn, and Bittersweet having taken up residence on the milkweed plant. 

Monarch caterpillar.
This was the sweetest little caterpillar that I found on a very runty Milkweed specimen indeed.  They have matching heads and tails, but the end with the longer antennae is the head of the creature.

I decided to help it along and put it on a better, larger, more juicy-leaved plant, so I started to break the stem of the leaf it was on as I didn't want to touch the caterpillar itself in case I hurt it with the chemicals in my skin.  As soon as I put my hand over it to do this, it curled up and played dead. 

I duly picked the leaf with the dead-looking caterpillar and settled it on top of a new leaf on the taller plant.

And I waited for it to come to life again.

And I waited.

I went to throw the ball for Molly for a bit, then came back and yay!  It was alive!  I hadn't killed it.

And then I had a strange interaction with this little organism.  I happened to cough while I was watching it, and it reared its head suddenly  while I was coughing!  It was as though the sound had frightened it!

So I coughed again, and it reared up again.  I thought that it must have ears, but on doing some research later, it seems they don't.  So it must have sensed the noise with its antennae.

I stood there coughing and laughing for about 5 minutes at this beautiful thing, which will hopefully still eat enough, pupate, metamorphose into a Monarch butterfly and then fly 2000 miles to Mexico.