I have been reading up lately on Butterfly Feeders. There are tons of recipes out there on the web- concoctions of fruit, beer and yeast. I was on Garden Web (butterfly forum)yesterday and someone posted a picture of a plate with rotting fruit and a ton of butterflies. I figured I'd give it a shot. It works! 36 hours after putting out a frozen banana (the brown slug looking thing in the picture) and a few plums that are past their prime I was visted by a Red Admiral- Woo Hoo!
On a sad note- I went out to the back 40 today to see what the dogs were barking at (I never found out) on my way back I peeked in the back square of the veg garden and saw a Spicebush Swallowtail hanging out on the ground near my volunteer Nicotania. I ran back to the house and got my camera and got some good pictures of it before it realized I was there and it crawled under some leaves. We left for a few hours and came back and I checked just to see if it was still there. It was but it hadn't moved. So I went into the garden to see if it would move when I got close. Nope. I got a stick and wiggled some of the leaves above it. Nothing. I think it died :( I'm totally bummed.
I was also visited this week by a White Admiral (who had seen better days) and a Silver Spotted Skipper as well as the Monarch and Tiger Swallowtail and a couple of Hummingbirds. If I could figure out how to post more than one photo per post I'd add some pictures.
On another happy note: No sight of the dreaded late blight. I checked the late blight map a few weeks ago and it showd that a house in my neighborhood was reporting spores. I walked past the house- no garden, no pots of tomatoes. Just an overgrown bed with a badly pruned lilac. I wonder where they get their info.
