A perfect day

Yesterday was a perfect day.  The temperature was 95, which feels fantastic to me, with relatively no humidity, and a nice breeze was blowing.  I spent the entire afternoon outside in the yard communing with nature.  The afternoon felt like those of my youth; a girl in a field observing and appreciating nature in all its forms.

Everything in the garden is growing wonderfully and the flower beds continue to dazzle us with splendid shapes and colors.  The irises have given way to poppy, yarrow, peony (they're late bloomers), saliva, and a few Stella d'Ora lily blooms.

The most exciting discovery is that the praying mantis' hatched!  We purchased three eggs in March and placed two in the front yard and one in the back yard.  They've been outside for approximately three weeks now and we've been carefully observing the eggs daily for signs that the mantids have emerged.  The eggs looked differently today, which excited me, but I thought that it was just the beginning of the hatching process.  One side of the egg had a ruffled look to it.

To my delight, as I pulled the camera away from the egg (after taking the above photo), a swift movement toward my left hand along one of the leaves caught my eye.  It was a teeny tiny mantid!  It quickly retreated back into the depths of poppy leaves and disappeared once I turned the camera in its direction.  At their size disappearing is easy to do.  Presently, they are approximately half an inch in length.  Once their presence was known, I spent at least thirty minutes carefully inspecting the stems and leaves for praying mantis's so I could attempt to photograph them.  This proved to be difficult as they were frightened by the large object moving toward them and, even with the super macro setting, the camera had a hard timing focusing on the tiny beings.

Enjoy Sunday afternoon as seen through the lens with Lisa:

A strawberry flower

Wright Gardens

A Question Mark butterfly (Polygonia Interrogationis) 

Skyward

Young red raspberries

Our neighbors young peach tree is finally taller than the fence separating our yards.
These now fuzzy green orbs will be delicious treats come August.

Lamb's Ear

A female carpenter bee.  She's huge!  Nearly two inches in length.
The white stripes are Spackle.  I used it to plug the holes these industrious
creatures created on the eaves of our garage.  I feel bad about doing this now.

Newborn mantid.  Do you see it?

Hello!

Such remarkable creatures mantids are.

Leggy.

Have a better look at these photos at the Wright Garden Chronicles blog itself, or review past blog posts and their respective photographs, at http://wrightgardenchronicles.blogspot.com.  For instance, the August 27,  2011 blog post includes a video of a hummingbird moth that appeared only as a blurry photo in the (then) new-post email.

Enjoy your Memorial Day plans and don't forget to raise a glass to all of the men and women who have died while serving in the U. S. Armed Forces.