Warms my heart

A special bond sure unfolds when you have a dog. Lily, our now 5 month old golden retriever, finds a way to snag a little more of my heart every day. This gentle big bear, a nickname we have given her, has become my butterfly sidekick.

I am a huge dog person, and well a butterfly enthusiast, as well.

The last few days we have released butterflies from our butterfly house, the first, an orange barred sulphur, and the second a male monarch butterfly. As soon as I say, we have butterflies, Lily jumps up on the ledge of our butterfly house to see and then walks outside and sits down so she can further inspect.

I fell in love with the “pure” sweetness of these captured moments.

The sulphur, both cloudless and orange barred, butterflies, lately, are my most visited butterfly species. They are fast bursts of sunshine fluttering about the garden! They love laying eggs on both of my bahama cassia and candlestick cassia trees.

Sulphur galore

The temperatures have been a little cooler, by that I meam a few degrees – still 90s/80s, and a nice, a bit cooler wind, so I’ve gravitated back into the garden after apparently ignoring it for way too long. All of the rain has made everything double, if not triple in size, including the weeds.

So, I’ve decided to tackle the farthest point of the garden and move backward. This area includes a section near my candlestick cassia. The tree is growing in every direction and is crawling with sulphur caterpillars, both orange barred and cloudless sulphur caterpillars.

When cutting back my scorpion tail, I found quite a few chrysalis, which have been moved to my butterfly house.

Busy beauty

The orange barred sulphur butterflies have been super busy in the garden the last few days. This one continuously stopped and deposited eggs on my bahama cassia tree, which will soon be crawling with caterpillars.

A favorite

The orange barred sulphur caterpillars are so hard to spot in the Bahama Cassia tree. They really blend in with the leaves, so often times I don’t see them until they have reached the last instar.

Absolute love

The sulphur caterpillars are excellent at camouflaging themselves among the Bahama Cassia tree, especially now with the beautiful yellow flowers opening all over the tree.

The orange barred sulphurs have been frequent visitors of the garden, which I truly love due to their magnificent yellow fluttering about.