Macro Chicory

September 14, 2015September 14, 2015 | Allison

Chicory is one of my favorite wildflowers. I love it’s periwinkle blue color, and it’s simple but beautiful petals. Once I took some macro photos of chicory (or rather I cropped them so they were macro), and it’s fascinating what they look like up close. Here is a close-up one to start with:

And here are some macro pictures. The last one looks kind of odd, but it’s a picture nonetheless.

And I’ll throw in a bonus picture just for kicks. 🙂 Can anyone guess what flower the little bee (or whatever it is) is on?

***Allison***

Strawflower and Thyme

September 4, 2015September 4, 2015 | Allison

Megan, my sister had a gorgeous strawflower blooming in her garden, so of course I had to take pictures of it. (See her beautiful pictures, and Willow-the-photo-bomber here.) I also have flowering thyme in my garden that I took pictures of with an interesting bug on it.

One more thing – can any of you spot the hidden animal in one of these pictures? (Hint: It’s not the spotted orange bug in the last picture, actually, it’s not in the last picture at all.) If want to inspect a picture more closely, just click on a picture to make it bigger. It might take a bit for the picture to load completely.

***Allison***

Metamorphosis

July 30, 2015June 5, 2016 | Allison

Recently, we have been picking caterpillar after caterpillar off the parsley and dill in our garden. So far we have, hmmm, I think 11 caterpillars! Some are small, some are big, and some are in chrysalises! We had the privilege of watching a few caterpillars turn into chrysalises right before our eyes: the caterpillars hung from a branch or twig for, I don’t know, maybe 24 hours, and then in like five minutes they shed their skin, and there was the chrysalis!

I took a video of this below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWnv74dbWQc

The caterpillars are really easy pets to take care of, but boy do they eat! That’s pretty much the only thing they’re interested in. The six caterpillars in chrysalises right now don’t eat (of course!), but the four others are just stuffing themselves. Every once in a while they shed their skin so they can have room for more food, so they can get bigger, so they can turn into chrysalises, so they can turn into butterflies, so they can lay eggs, so the eggs can hatch, so more caterpillars can stuff themselves! It’s a never ending cycle. These particular caterpillars are black swallowtails. I can’t wait to watch them turn into butterflies, and hopefully I can get a video of that too!

Have you ever kept caterpillars as pets? Did you get to see them turn into butterflies?

***Allison***

A Caterpillar Eats His Skin

July 10, 2015June 5, 2016 | Allison

This little guy came over on a carrot top, shed his skin, and ATE it! We didn’t see him shed his skin, but we got to see him eat it! Here are some photos, and a video! (Doesn’t it look like he’s eating to the music?!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VI-NNDk0NIU

Such a cute little guy!

***Allison***

Creatures and Critters

September 24, 2014March 14, 2016 | Allison

Here are some pictures of a few of the creatures and critters around our farm.

A green frog (we are actually keeping her in a terrarium in our house)

An orb weaver spider – see the zigzag in her web?

A bumblebee

A monarch – Did you know you can tell if it’s a monarch or a viceroy by checking if it has a black band across its bottom wings? If it doesn’t have the band, it’s a monarch, if it does, it’s a viceroy. This is a monarch – no black band.