Impossible Dream- Spicebush Swallowtail Butterfly

 Hello, my friends! I hope you are all doing well! July is here and I have a few photos to share with you. The following two images are from our back yard, these are "whorled rosinweed" flowers. They are wildflowers that first appeared a few years ago and Richard has encouraged them to grow and now, we have more of them. Now, I must tell you, it took a while to research this one but we believe it to be correctly identified. (A member of the Aster family.) It grows very tall, some of them are almost 5 feet tall!

You see how the leaves are in a kind of "whorl" around the stem? That is how it got its name!

Just to add to the show, we also had a few sunflowers that came up from the bird seed that we put out for the birds! A volunteer is a sweet surprise.

Remember me telling you about the spicebush swallowtail caterpillar on our sassafras tree?  Yesterday, I was so sad when I saw a really scary looking black mass on one of the leaves. I was convinced that the caterpillar had died from some kind of virus that I had read about but today, I saw the caterpillar- big and green and healthy looking!  If you look at the video above, you might guess that I will not be touching the caterpillar.  No, I just observe it...and since it is on a low branch of the tree, I am crouching down and am usually in broiling hot sun with the temp at almost 100 degrees! (If my neighbors wonder what I'm doing, let them wonder!) Oh, I hope so very much that we see the butterfly emerge from this tree! We are both taking out the Japanese beetles, Richard and I are trying our best! 

Another yellow flower to show you! This is the flower that we see blooming at Panola Mountain State Park and we think it is called the "Woodland sunflower".  It is a beauty!

 

Besides flowers, we also are crazy about ferns! Guess what, I found a fern (it was an Autumn fern) on sale for only $4.00.  It was a tiny little thing but we bought it and it is now a very full and frilly fern! (I don't seem to have a photo of it but perhaps I will show it to you on a future post. The photo above was from one of the gardens we visited in June.) Richard is very good in the garden.  In England, they would say that he has green fingers! Isn't it funny that in the USA, we say that someone has a green "thumb"? Can anyone explain to me that no matter what it is...in many cases anyway, we Americans just HAVE to say it a different way? Go look it up on your "cell" or "mobile" phone, depending on what country you are in! LOL!

Just observing the caterpillar in the different "instars", makes me think what an impossible kind of dream it must be to become a butterfly!  That reminded me of one of the BEST tv adverts that featured such a great song....I have had this on here before but it is so very good! Enjoy!