Even more babies!

Last week I noticed a Yellow-striped Armyworm moth laying eggs on the blacklight sheet. I knew it would damage the eggs if I tried to remove them, so I decided to just watch and see what happened. About 5 or 6 days later I noticed that the tops of the eggs looked black, the caterpillars were just about ready to hatch. Within an hour or so I began to see tiny caterpillars wiggling around! The first thing caterpillars do after they hatch is to eat their eggshell, it is good protein that should not go to waste.


If you have ever watched a brown and black Wooly Bear caterpillar scurry across a road and wondered what it would turn into, here is the answer! It becomes an Isabella Tiger Moth! I finally got one to settle down long enough on the sheet that I could photograph it. I liked the bright orange legs!


The past couple of weeks I have also noticed a pair of Cardinals hanging around one of the big boxwood shrubs by the carport. Today I got up on my stepstool and peered into the nest. I was happy to see 2 bluish-green eggs with brown splotches in it! So the birds are starting on round 2 for babies! It will be fun to watch them hatch and grow. :)

Babies, weird "wildlife" in Nashville and ANOTHER Car Show!

Gosh, I'm really behind in my posts! It isn't that I haven't been doing anything, it's because I've been doing TOO much! We enjoyed going to Bristol, TN to see Kenny's family over the July 4th weekend. We were delighted to welcome a new little Light into the family, our nephew's wife had a baby girl, Mikaya Jade Light, on July 1. I had fun trying out my Photoshop techniques on these photos.

Today I went to Maryville to teach at an elementary school. After the classes, I went to visit my niece, Kendra. It was fun seeing my 2 great-nephews, Cash and Riley. It was the first time I had seen them in a couple of months, so Riley had grown quite a bit. He was 2 weeks old the last time I was at their house, he will be 3 months in 2 weeks! Cash is 4-1/2 years old and is so much fun, there's never a dull moment with him around! Riley just had heart surgery a few weeks ago for a condition called "coarctation of the aorta". It was a scary time for the whole family. We hope it took care of the problem!

Last weekend we went to Nashville to see our daughter, Lydia. We could not believe our eyes when we drove to the hotel on Friday night... there was ANOTHER car show! I don't know what it is with us picking hotels that are having car shows, that was the second one in a month that we have come across! This one was 1955, '56, and '57 Classic Chevy cars and the owners were a in a bit different category than the Dodge Challenger / Charger folks in Gatlinburg last month! The cars were beautiful, but it was frustrating having such a hard time finding a parking place each night!

On Saturday we went to Cheekwood Gardens. I had not been there since I was a Girl Scout MANY years ago. There was a Dale Chihuly glass art show going on, we enjoyed it very much. The glass sculptures were located all over the gardens, including the ponds! I liked this photo of Lydia with the pink hibiscus and the orange glass sculpture.

Cheekwood was once owned by the Cheek family, the founders of the Maxwell House Coffee Company. They were fabulously rich and had some amazing collections of art and beautiful gardens. They obviously liked unusual art too, as this weird lady/lion sculpture will attest! :)