Caterpillars!

The passion fruit vine is supposed to be a heat tolerant, fast grower hear in the desert. It does grow quickly, which is good, because the vine has been attacked twice by voracious caterpillars. A type of fritillary butterfly lays eggs on the leaves and before long...

The vine looks like this - or worse!

This is what the flower looks like when its not being eaten by hungry caterpillars.

Crazy Hair Day

Almost forgot I had this one on the camera. Erik's last day of school was crazy hair day.

Venus Flytrap

Probably one of the coolest plants around. Jakob insisted on getting this even though I told him they are hard to keep alive. We did some checking and found some interesting tidbits. They occur naturally only in a small area in North Carolina and are now endangered. They are commercially grown from rhyzomes so they are not harvested from nature. They tend to grow in poor soils so they 'eat' bugs to get needed nutrients. They go dormant from mid-November to mid-February.

We already 'fed' this one a tiny caterpillar and it should take from 5 - 12 days to digest and reopen. The exoskeleton should be all that's left.

Here's Looking At You

I couldn't pass this one up. I've done numerous cats in pencil - this is my first one in pen & ink.

Red-Naped Sapsucker

I thought at first it might be a ladder-backed woodpecker, but upon looking it up, it turns out it was a red-naped sapsucker. I hadn't seen a ladder-backed for many years now, but in retrospect I'm not sure I'd ever seen a red-naped sapsucker before. I would have added it to my life list if I kept one. I'm not much for anything that organized.

Car Wash

The boys were bored and decided they should wash the car. Not too bad for their first attempt. With temps at 100 starting now and probably going for the next 100 days or so, trying to keep cool tops our list of things to do.

Things start out semi-serious, and the boys try their best to do a good job.

It didn't take long for things to get a little crazy....

And of course, a LOT crazy.

So - know anyone with a dirty car? Lower prices than a car wash and lower quality, too!

How Stuff Works (Travel)

I've hit the 'Big Time' with my photo as one (number 11) of 143 shots depicting Phoenix. Not one of my photos, which would be nice, but one of me in my ranger garb. It was a set up shot back before our environmental education center went up. And NO, I'm not touching the petroglyphs - that would not be good!

OK, the first few photos were actually Phoenix, but as you go further, the photos are of cars, Harry Potter (Order of the Phoenix), and who knows what else. So not really very big-time. At least I'm toward the first few.