One more visit to Insect Alley

These are just random shots that I really liked...for some reason the last one is sort of magical for me. I do not know why I like it, but I do.

Painted Ladies of Insect Alley

I have spent a little bit of time in search of the name of the butterfly I posted first on yesterday's entry. I think it is the Bronze Copper, as seen here, but not real sure. If any of you have any other ideas as to what it is, feel free to tell me in the comment section. I also wondered if any of you noticed the Junebug in the fifth photo down from the top yesterday. I did not notice it at all when I took the picture, and I think it was the second or third time I viewed it on my computer before I noticed it myself. If I had noticed it when I was taking the photo I would have gotten a better one of it.

It took a while to find what one of today's entries is, but as you can see by the title of the post I got it figured out. I thought that I came up with a clever title for the post;-) Of the butterflies there, the Painted Ladies seen in the first photos seemed to be the least bothered by my presence. I have been trying for at least a month, if not longer to get some half way decent shots of butterflies in general. I do not know what the difference was out there, but after I would get out of the car for a little while, they seemed to accept my presence. All except the Buckeye, and I honestly think there might have only been one of those. There were several of the Monarchs and even more of the Painted Ladies.

I thought the butterflies with its wings together was a Red Admiral but I am wrong....I am correcting this on this late date of October 12--but better late than never.There honestly was a different butterfly there, but these are just painted ladies.. I made the discovery when I was visiting The EG Tour Guide earlier..from there I did a google search and was even more sure I was wrong.

Insect Alley, cont.

The first picture is of the little butterfly I don't ever remember seeing. This is the color it was. It is not your color off on your monitor. I have seen the little white ones and the little yellow ones all my life, and the teeny, tiny silver ones that are even smaller than this. I just don't remember ever seeing one this orangy-yellow with the black dots. Of course, I am so forgetful that it is possible I have seen one. Anyway, this is one of two pictures I got of him--the other is not even as good as this.

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Then there were the monarchs. I just could not make up my mind which others to post of them. So I just chose some of my favorites. I hope it is not overkill for you.

Sky Watch Friday

I could hardly wait for this day to roll around...I know these photos are not picture perfect, but I still was really pleased with what I captured. If you want to join the fun, check in at the Sky Watch Blog. If you don't want to join, I highly recommend going and visiting some of the links posted.

This will be posted a little bit early...I am hoping to be here to check and make sure that the photos enlarge. Last week, I did not realize till half way through that one of my photos would not enlarge. After Sky Watch is over with, I will post some more from Insect Alley.

From Insect Alley....

These images should enlarge when clicked...still have a few problems with that intermittently. I have been having some issues with noise in my photos and been trying to solve that mystery. Although most were taken at high ISOs which would cause it, I have a few that were taken at the lowest ISO. Anyway, due to messing with that I have not visited and commented on any blogs, but will get back to that shortly. I have decided to try to sit back and see how the next few shooting sessions pan out. I really think if there was something wrong with my camera/equipment that I would not have got the good photos that I did today.

I went on a mission this morn to take more photos and came home after taken 107 in about 2 hours. I ended up heading to one of my two favorite places to skywatch; I almost did not make it to those places...the road pictured could have been name Butterfly Boulevard just as easily as Insect Alley...or even Bee Street. I chose Insect Alley to cover them all. Today was one of the best shooting days I have ever had for butterflies...I did see a Buckeye that I could not get to capture. However, I did get lots of monarchs and another that I do not know the name of...as well as this one little one I will show you sometime in the next week that I have never seen before.

I do plan to do Sky Watch so it will probably be Saturday when I start back with the butterflies. I hope you enjoy this little preview.

FYI: I have to tell this on myself: I know how to spell mystery...have known how since childhood. But I did spell check and in that first paragraph I had spelled it mistery! What is more I had to click on it because I could not think how to spell it. I am tired...I need to go get a snack and sit down and watch some mindless television.

A stroll through the orchard

I had opportunity to go through the orchard that I spent so many years at; so many happy hours. I was asked to give my former boss's spouse a ride to the doctor, so soon as we got back to the orchard, I took off to see what I could see.

The first thing I saw was a deer taking off at the other end of a row of trees. So quick I did not see if it had antlers or not. And when I got to that end of the orchard, I saw a flock of turkeys. I actually wondered was it a mom and her almost grown babies. I was too far away to take good pictures, and by the time I got closer, they were long gone.

It was the middle of the day--sure not a good time for taking pictures but I snapped a few anyway. The orchard has been sprayed not too long back--you can see it clearly on the apples. I hope I can make it out there at a more opportune time before the fall is over.

Visiting out there sure made me miss the good old days. The original boss I had was so much fun to work for and with. The song that I have playing sure makes me think of when I first worked there. We didn't eat out under a maple, but we did sit around the dinner table and he would tell us tales of their childhood. As well as tales of when he was an insurance man.

I bet it is one of the only jobs where anyone would ever come home sick from laughing so hard. When I first started working there is when his youngest son got married. The girl he married and I have been friends from the moment we seen each other. Even though they lived in another state, she used to come home in the fall and spend it helping them grade apples. And later it got till she would come for different periods of time at different times of the year.

Well, he would have us as an audience when we were working around the grading room, or greenhouse, etc....jobs where you could carry on a conversation. And he would get us laughing till we could not do much work...and there was a time or two where I became physically sick from laughing so hard: headache and stomach ache. And yes I remember the stories but I just cannot tell them the way he could. And his wife would add comments to the tales to elaborate on some of the details.

This is just part of what I miss...he is gone now. Passed away after I quit, but he had had a stroke in 2001 and not been able to talk since. There are times though that I can just hear him making one of his witty comments...he would always say, "You could be more like me if you tried" or some such nonsense. Oh, and if I or anyone mentioned having a headache he would always tell us that if he had a head like ours his would hurt, too.

I will close now...the song that is playing just always makes me think of him and his wife....and the old John Deere tractor.

Better days

I also got this fellow last night...my husband spotted him. Looks like he has had a pretty rough life.

From the ditch...

We went out to my usual place to watch the sun set tonight...There is a drainage ditch on one side that is dry so I got down in it walking along to see what I could see. I seen a very small frog, but it hopped into the weeds and disappeared with one jump. However, I did find some luck, at least according to superstitions. I think the luck is in finding a four-leaf clover. I used to always find them when walking through the orchard, but these are the first I have found in a long time. And I found the 5 leafed ones in the same clump of clover.

A hunting story....

(This is my second post for today--the other one has pictures.)

Abraham Lincoln of the Brookville Daily Photo wrote a story about one of his hunting excursions. Being the wife of a hunter and sister to hunters before that, I could identify with a lot he said. About 5:00 being the witching hour for hunters, or for my husband when he is meeting fellow hunters it is sometimes even earlier. Also, unlike rotten apples to disguise the human smell, hunters now have doe urine. I wouldn't want to mistake that for my perfume, now would I, but that is besides the point.

This is a story of one of my husband's hunting trips. A few years ago he decided to hunt out on property near the orchard where I worked. It actually belonged to the brother of my boss. A day or two before the planned hunting trip, he and his buddy went out to decide where they were going to put their tree stands, and in so doing had to hack out a path through some of the undergrowth.

On the morning of the hunt, they met here before going out there...it is at the most 10 minutes from here. They get out of the truck out there and the farm cat greets them. It is young, not even a year old. Roger pets it just a second and he and his buddy proceed down the path...they get to the 'y' in the path and his buddy goes one way while he goes they other. The cat follows my husband.

He is hunting with bow and arrows, and hunting from a climbing tree stand. So he gets to the tree he has chosen to use, and gets his tree stand situated on it and climbs up the tree. I am not familiar enough with the process to paint a good picture, but it is a tree stand that he does the physical climbing with. It has two parts....one part is the actual seat and the other is the part he stands on....THIS is a video from you tube and does show how his works.

When climbing up to a tree stand, he always ties his bow to a long rope and once he gets up as high as he is going to go, he pulls the bow up with the rope. He gets up and gets situated...he hears this meow. It is still practically dark, so he kind of looks but doesn't see anything. He sits back, and he hears it again! And he can hear it so plain...he does not have the best of hearing. So he gets his flashlight out and bends way over the tree stand while shining it all around and still doesn't see anything.

He sits back again and hears it again! And he felt something on his legs...he looks down at his feet and there sits the kitty! It had sat by his feet as he climbed up the tree. It proceeded to climb up into his arms, purring all the while, and doing the rubbing thing that cats do when they are happy to see you. He held it out at arm's length and dropped it!

Did it run for home you might ask. The answer would be no. It played around the bottom of the tree my husband was in, chasing leaves or anything else that caught it's imagination. After a while of playing, it climbed out onto a dead log and went to sleep!

This is an honest tale; I don't have the imagination to make something like this up. And this is only the tip of the iceberg--things like this continually happen to my husband, my older daughter, and my husband's cousin.

No longer kittens, but still my babies

I tried to get some new photos of the cats the other day, but needless to say they did not cooperate. I do sort of like these....they were out having fun. The collage is from when they were young, followed by Bubbie who is my daughter's cat. He is all about having fun--he likes to play tag/chase through the house. We beat his bottom and take off running and he chase after us. We try to tag him when he sees us but he takes off like a streak of lightening. And so we go till one of us is breathless.

The next in photos is my baby, Cougar, jr. I do not know why, unless it is that he reminds me of my first Cougar but he just totally owns my heart. I am not even sure what it is about him that reminds me of Cougar unless it is the fact that he likes tomatoes, and the first time or two I fixed chili or vegetable soup, he came running. My original Cougar loved anything with tomato flavor.

In the next two comes little sister, PussPuss. She and Cougar are still best of buddies. They don't sleep together as much as they used to, but I think that might be due to it being summer. My husband is still probably her favorite person.

Unlike any other cats I have ever had, these come only when I call and they think it involves food! I still have trouble getting used to this part. My original Cougar came from anywhere when I called his name...he knew the meaning of 'no' and 'get down' to name a few. These cats all look at me as if to say, 'you can't be talking to me' if they even bother to look my way.

Babies and blooms

Click to enlarge each photo.

A few more from our Illinois drive...we laughed at all the babies (calves) and birds in the one picture. And the donkeys were not about to hold still close to me. this image is cropped from one to make them appear closer.

From Illinois

Click to enlarge photos.

We went for a drive over in Illinois--this barn was one of my treasured finds. Though I really don't think I could find it again. There is just something about it that I really, really like. And I wish I could find it again. I would love to see it in the snow. I would also like to know if this was a cattle farm at one time; if you look at the weather vane you will see that it has a cow on top of it.

I don't think it was this barn, not even sure it was this day, but I think it was...I was out taking a picture and Roger told me to watch out for the dog. It was a huge Great Dane...and he would have gotten in the car with us. So far in my adventures I have only had friendly meetings with dogs. Last winter, I was out and didn't even think the house I was near was lived in. I was not paying attention and suddenly realized I had a dog at my side at which time I started talking to him only to have two or three more surround me and all were wanting to be petted.

Oh, this reminds me of one day at work a few years ago. For some reason I had to leave early. I went to get in my truck and there is this strange dog there...I spoke to it and went on. Soon as I opened my door, up in the truck he hopped! I went over to the other side to get him out....he jumped back behind the seats. (We had an extended cap with the little jump seats behind the seat.) I had to go get help to be able to get him out and keep him out till I could get in and leave. I always swear I am going to start carrying dog treats with me. One of our Fed Ex men carries treats with him for the dogs he meets on his rounds. I used to always carry some in the car when I worked cause I always took something to the dog out there...I had known him from a pup and always liked to spoil him a little.

SWF again!

It is that time again and I get to participate this time....if you want to join the fun go HERE. I always find so much of interest by visiting the people that join. It isn't a contest, it is just for fun. And beauty! Even if you don't want to join, visit a few of the links just to see what it is all about.