An early morning stroll in my ‘back 40’ led to some pleasant discoveries. First, the lovely Hardy Hibiscus ‘Kopper King’ is now wielding massive 8 -10 inch diameter blossoms on stems with bronze colored foliage. The fun thing is, it looks as gorgeous from the front as it does from the back – if only you take the time to notice.

Hardy Hibiscus ‘Kopper King’

While inspecting the common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) that I planted two years ago (doing my part to save the Monarch butterflies) I discovered two half-inch long Monarch (Danaus plexippus) butterfly caterpillars happily munching away. It will be fun to watch them mature.

Monarch butterfly caterpillar

Milkweed blossoms

Red Milkweed Beetle

There are many other insects that appreciate the Milkweed patch. One of the most obvious is the Red Milkweed Beetle (Tetraopes tetrophthalmus). At first glance, this may appear to be a Spotted Asparagus Beetle, but it is actually one of our native long-horned beetles. This second photo has some focus issues, but the charachteristic long-horned antennae are more visible.

Thanks to a late August birthday, I didn’t have fond memories of celebrating childhood birthdays in my school classrooms. Why? Back-in-the-day-oh-so-long-ago, school started after Labor Day. Needless to say, it felt like everyone had a birthday to celebrate during the school year but me. The one thing I always remember about my late August birthday is that you could tell that summer was winding down. How? The start of the cool and foggy mornings. Something like the one we had today. In mid-ish July! Spiderwebs adorned with the jewels of dew are mesmerizing!