When you're stuck on what to post about, just walk outside

News: Sharon and Lynne are okay. Thank goodness.
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I was wondering what to post about tonight, and thought about just skipping it.
But I wanted to walk the yard, so I grabbed my camera:

The prairie is giving us lots and lots of flowers to cut and bring in the house. I just wish Nellie would stop walking through the grasses. Her big ass feet are smooshing all of it down!

Shannon had told me about the "Hooper Gritties", but I hadn't seen them until today. When Nellie does it, we call it the "Hyena Run", when she tucks her tail under and runs around like, well, a hyena. (Kind of like bunny binkies, just bigger)
Shannon also told me that Hooper gets the Gritties for about 30 seconds and that's it. And she was right. Nellie and Hooper act like they grew up together. It's wonderful to watch and I am so glad we brought him here. He's a joy to have around.

I am also glad that I let a bunch of sunflowers seeds grow into nice, tall plants. The goldfinches and house finches are eating me out of house and home with the thistle, so all the sunflower seeds to be had makes it easier for me to feed them. They have gone through a 5 lb. bag of Nyjer seed in a week.

I'm also glad that I checked the milkweed. I have seen monarchs flying through the yard in the
past few days, and I was hoping they would find the milkweed. And they did:

This was thrilling enough, but I looked under some more leaves...

...and found tiny, perfect caterpillars.

I rounded up everyone I could find (two cats and three eggs) and put them in the butterfly habitat. Our pipevine swallowtail cats didn't do so good, and that was my fault. The leaves I kept putting in there were drying up too fast, and I didn't think I could put them in water (afraid the cats would fall in, I guess) but I saw on Birdchick's blog that she was putting hers in water, so I did the same.

Now I am off to research how long all this birthing, pupating and emerging takes!

And if you ever wondering why it's called MILKweed...
When this stuff dries, it's like plastic, or glue.

See what happens when you plant NATIVE PLANTS ??? No milkweed, no monarch butterflies.
Everyone say it with me...Native, Native, Native, Native, Native.....