The garden is flourishing, despite the lack of rain, and the coneflowers are full of many different kinds of bees and butterflies. Above is a tiger swallowtail.
And a black swallowtail. (Sorry it's blurry, but it wouldn't hold still.)
And a gorgeous copper, brown and white one that I don't know the name of.
And another unnamed one. These are smaller than the ones in the above picture, have more black, and don't have the white spots.
There's also an elusive white butterfly with blue markings that I REALLY want to get a picture of, but no luck so far.
I had some company this weekend. Two girlfriends that I've known since childhood. We lost contact with each other for awhile, but recently re-connected through Facebook. (Isn't that one of the cool things about Facebook?) We had planned to get together here last March for Chris' birthday, but the weather didn't cooperate, so we gathered at Jenny's house in Lexington, NC instead. The weekend here was a "make-up session" and we had a really good time! They arrived here Friday afternoon shortly before a nice, and badly needed, rain shower that cooled things off significantly.
On Saturday we went to one of the local cheezy gem mines where you buy a bucket of dirt and wash it off in a sluice of water to find the gemstones that they've salted it with. We got some garnets, aquamarines, citrines, amethysts and a few other stones. Chris found a small ruby. (Jenny and I think she cheated, because the bucket of dirt was right by her foot and she was taking extra scoops.)
On Saturday we went to one of the local cheezy gem mines where you buy a bucket of dirt and wash it off in a sluice of water to find the gemstones that they've salted it with. We got some garnets, aquamarines, citrines, amethysts and a few other stones. Chris found a small ruby. (Jenny and I think she cheated, because the bucket of dirt was right by her foot and she was taking extra scoops.)
We had a nice lunch and shopped (thanks, girls, for spending money at Hands Gallery!). The Highland Games are taking place this weekend at Grandfather Mountain, so we saw a few men in kilts while we were out and about. Then we spent most of the afternoon sitting on the porch waiting for wildlife to show up and we took a long walk by the river. Both Chris and Jenny are great photographers and I hope they'll send me some of the shots they took. Especially the ones of me with a different hair style. On Saturday morning Chris plastered some industrial strength goo in my hair and spiked it up like she wears hers. It was interesting. If I get a picture I'll post it and get your opinion. Maybe.
Well, it's nice to be back and I thank you for your patience. It's summer time and the livin is easy, so no promises of when I'll be here again.
1 comment:
C'mon Zoe show us the spiked hair! I showed my new do for pony tail training! Let's see, let's see! Glad you had fun with the girls and even gladder you got some rain.
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