Painted Lady

A couple of weeks ago at school, we had some free time to harvest nettle if we chose to.  We harvested some nettle and then realized that it had little caterpillars on it.  Since I knew what their host food was, I decided to take the caterpillars home and raise them.  After lots of munching and a week and a half long metamorphosis period, out came a Painted Lady butterfly!

Yarn Loot

Aside from being able to attend a wicked awesome Radiohead show in Auburn Hills, I was also fortunate enough to find some time to check out a LYS in Ann Arbor called "Busy Hands".  There was Malabrigo everywhere and I thought that I was going to go crazy (aka spend all of my money) but I was good and only bought two skeins. One Malabrigo Rios in colorway "Teal Feather" and one Malabrigo Worsted in colorway "Molly".  They are both sooo lovely and I can barely wait to knit with them! I've only knitted with the worsted weight before, so I'm looking forward to seeing how Rios is on my needles.

River Hike

I was fortunate enough to find some time to relax with some friends the other day and go for a hike down the river. In most parts the river is not very deep, so we were able to hike through it pretty easily.  I will say though that walking through water for a couple of hours will definitely make your muscles sore! Here is a picture of a young snapping turtle that we found during the excursion:

...and an amazing and beautiful, super large spider! Her legs were nearly 3 inches long!

Plants and Caterpillars

Work is in full swing already -- hello, busy season at the restaurant! Though it has taken away a bit from what I'd really like to be doing, I still, of course, have found time for gardening and knitting.

Unfortunately, with all of the wonky weather we had earlier with the ups and downs in temperature, all of my cool weather plants have gone to seed as a result.  We are planning on tearing down the rows of arugula, bok choy, and mizuna and then replant them now that the weather is fluctuating less. This was a bit of a bummer to say the least, but I'd rather replant and have a successful harvest rather than be eating bitter, woody greens.

monarch larva

nearly ripe strawberry (...I ate all of the ripe ones without thinking to take a picture...)

red core chantenay carrots

BEETS!

I watched as a female black swallowtail butterfly laid two eggs on my flat-leaf parsley.

 the cayenne pepper is growing!

 the bees

 early broccoli

 borage

seed carrot from last year

 lemon balm that I found and transplanted

jasmine-scented nicotiana -- it's getting bigger!

 an unknown species (to me, anyway) of chrysalis.  The larva was feeding on stinging nettle.

 these two were also found on the stinging nettle.
larva of the black chrysalis two photos above.