Our vacation started on Tuesday September 3, 2019 when we arrived
at our friend's home in Boonville, NC for a two day visit.
Sally and I met when we were 12 years old...and thankfully our husbands, met at Sally and Gary's wedding in 1971, are also friends.
Both Sally and Gary are retired school teachers. Gary now has a second profession in his Scuppernog grape vineyard and he is an extraordinary gardener.
This year Gary's milkweed is home to so many monarch caterpillars I could not count them....
I don't recall every having seen them/or knew what I was seeing in all my life.
I would love to have been there to see all the Monarch caterpillars turn into butterflies.
If you have never seen a chrysalis up close, let me tell you it is amazing.
Beautiful shade of green and around the bottom of the acorn it is surrounded by what looks
like GOLD dots.
Monarch Caterpillar Chrysalis
Passion Flower pod and bloom. Gary bought passion flower seeds
Now the vine runs along at least 1/2 the length of his split rail fence
Again I have never in my life seen these
It is a most delicate flower and yet sturdy. It has several layers and dimensions.
pods bottom left...
Ohhhh an exciting (local) addition to today's Nature Friday from my friend Janice.
Tree frog spotted at her Mother-in-law's house..
Feline Friday with Charlie
My friends were owned by Yogi the Pembroke Corgi for about 11 years.
Yogi's Granddaddy was an award winning Corgi, named Sammy Sousa.
(somebuddy liked baseball)
After Yogi passed, they said no more pets at our age....
but lo and behold Charlie wandered onto their property at about
9 months old. He was friendly but DEFINITELY an out of doors panther.
After a few weeks of feeding him, they finally corralled him, got him to the vet,
got his shots and had him neutered. Charlie is polydactayl (extra toes) so he is quite handy
in the vineyard. He keeps the vole and mole population down.
Passion Flower pod and bloom. Gary bought passion flower seeds
Now the vine runs along at least 1/2 the length of his split rail fence
Again I have never in my life seen these
It is a most delicate flower and yet sturdy. It has several layers and dimensions.
pods bottom left...
Close up of this jewel!!!!!
Ohhhh an exciting (local) addition to today's Nature Friday from my friend Janice.
Tree frog spotted at her Mother-in-law's house..
Feline Friday with Charlie
My friends were owned by Yogi the Pembroke Corgi for about 11 years.
(somebuddy liked baseball)
but lo and behold Charlie wandered onto their property at about
9 months old. He was friendly but DEFINITELY an out of doors panther.
After a few weeks of feeding him, they finally corralled him, got him to the vet,
got his shots and had him neutered. Charlie is polydactayl (extra toes) so he is quite handy
in the vineyard. He keeps the vole and mole population down.
oh my we love the fabulous fall decoration... and we had to look twice to see if that frog is really real BOL
ReplyDeleteCharlie is a handsome boy.
ReplyDeleteI used to have passion flowers, but one year we came back from a 3 week holiday and only had leaf skeletons left. Caterpillars (probably cabbage whites) had completely devoured them! They never touched anything else.
Lovely Nature Friday pictures - the chrysalis is fascinating and the passion flower truly stunning.
ReplyDeleteBut it looks like Charlie has a mind of his own!
Mom used to get the monarch butterfly caterpillar on her dill plants but we have never seen the chrysalis. How cool is that! The Passion flower is just gorgeous and is one of our favorites.
ReplyDeleteHari OM
ReplyDeleteMy word this is a furbulush nature Friday post, Miss C!!! The chrysalis is definitely fascinating. Are your friends taking part in the great big monarch count? Link below. Charlie looks the business, I must say. YAM xx
https://monarchlab.org/mlmp
Happy Friday the 13th. We are glad Charlie came along. Age is no reason to not have a pet. Pets actually help humans stay active and give humans a purpose to get up and get going every day.
ReplyDeleteI have a passion flower vine at the corner of the fence that is making their fruit right now. I love them. An all time favorite because we had them around us when I was a kid.
ReplyDeleteI use to pick the flowers for the old lady neighbor next door because she said she loved them.
Charlie is a handsome dude. He reminds me of Ms. Priss. Looks like they have the same attitude.
Happy weekend.
Fun that Charlie is the vineyard panther. I am glad he has a home! The chrysalis of the butterfly are amazing. We have seen few butterflies here, not sure why.
ReplyDeleteYou sure have lots of cool stuff to show us today. We love all the different layers to the passion flower.
ReplyDeleteCharlie could be a feline cousin to our Big boy dog.. they both look like panthers.. so your friends were adopted by Charlie, not the other way around... my daddy had scuppernong grapes vines and I used to make myself sick eating them. fed them to our dog also.. every now and then I see those grapes in the store and pay a fortune to eat a few. what a wonderful place to visit with friends.
ReplyDeleteAw, what an adorable post. There are critters everywhere and that little frog can make a lot of noise. I'm glad the pup wander into their lives. It's a good thing. I love black cats and this one is so appropriate for Friday the 13th.
ReplyDeleteThank you for joining the Feline Friday Blog Hop.
Have a purrfect Feline Friday and weekend, Cecilia. Big hug. ♥
Such sweet critters and that caterpillar is pretty amazing!
ReplyDeleteCharlie is adorable, and I love the Monarch Caterpillar Chrysalis. We don't see too many Monarchs around here any more.
ReplyDeleteNo Monarch's stopped long enough in our milkweed patch to lay eggs, but we are hopeful for next year. I am in love with Charlie: he's a panther and polydactyl...what is not to love?
ReplyDeleteWhat a lot of great things you saw! We always have a few milkweeds growing in our garden just in case a wandering monarch butterfly comes along. But we haven't seen any caterpillars on them in a long time.
ReplyDeleteWow...what beautiful catapillars and chrysalis!!! Such much lovely nature today C...and Charlie is adorable!!
ReplyDeletecharlie; ewe izza most handsum houz/vineyard panther dood !! may bee sum day yur peepulz will let ya blog N share sum storeez bout how ya keep de vineyard rodentz free !! ya think ....
ReplyDeletedad haza awesum gardin bye de way ~~ ☺☺♥♥
Sounds like a wonderful garden. We don't see many butterflies....mostly moths. You'll have to make a return journey to watch the Monarchs emerge.
ReplyDeleteCharlie is a cutie. We have a lot of monarchs and caterpillars too from the milkweed we let grow ( even though I think it is hideous). XO
ReplyDeleteWhat a great trip and those flowers are so pretty. It must be amazing to see all those monarchs. We’re glad your friends decided to take Charlie in.
ReplyDeleteWhat a wonderful visit! would love to see monarch butterflies!
ReplyDeletehugs
Mabel & Hilda
OMD, HOW FABULOUS!!! I have never seen a chrysalis eithers! how cool is that?! Nows, the passion flowers, Ma has it growin' all across the back chain link fence in our back yardie! And that is where the Gulf Fritillary Buttie Pillars live, eats and breed! They are fast suckers too! Ma has yet to gets a really good pic with her pos camera! ☺
ReplyDeleteI loves Charlie! He is one handsome fella!!!!
Kisses,
Ruby ♥
It makes me kind of sad that I don't have any long term friends like that. Then again, it might be entirely my own fault!
ReplyDeleteBeautiful photos......never have seen a Monarch chrysalis - quite a nice "sleeping chamber" !!
ReplyDeleteHugs, Pam