Thursday in Our Garden

So we recently showed you the Black Swallowtail Mama Butterfly hanging out near our parsley.   They like parsley, carrot tops and dill.  

Behold the "babies":

(Dad brought the parsley plant onto the upper deck).  Here is the full plant.

Here is a BIG guy!

Not everybody hatched at the same time.  This fella is smaller.

Here is an even smaller one.

Dad's finger for comparison.

A year ago we had quite a few like this but they consumed the parsley before they were all fully grown. Then came the hurricane and ..................

We are sort of hoping the birds pick off just enough of them that the others have enough parsley to get to the chrysallis stage.   

AND,  our tomatoes are yielding real, edible fruits:  today Dad picked these:

Wordless Wednesday

Photo Hunt - Planter

When we saw the theme for this week's Phot Hunt we said "Oh, we can DEFINITELY do this one!"   Dad has 3 long window boxes of impatiens and also two round hanging pots.   Due to the painting project, they were all clustered together on the deck.      Simba inspects:  

Zooming out a bit you can see them all.   The ones in the window boxes have not grown as much as we think they usually do, but Dad has been protecting them from rain, hot sun, everything you can imagine, by keeping them close to the house, so maybe that is why.  

Wanting a REALLY nice picture with Simba in it, the humans moved the round pots to the top of the two small tables where Simba likes to rest (under them in the shade, on a towel).  

He did not cooperate.

Finally Friday

We have had a long almost two weeks.       The house has been being painted and although Dad is not doing it all himself, he has been very involved along with two other guys.  That measn we have not gotten the attention we have deserved.  Deck time has been very curtailed (though last week it was insanely hot and who wanted to be on the deck?)

A lot of napping going on around here in various places.    Here's Audrey on her favorite chair, but instead of her leg up on the arm of the chair, she adopted this position.   Now Mom knows she has gained weight on her thyroid medicine.  And whenever she picks her up she can feel the density of her bones and body - very compact!   But THIS picture exaggerates, my friends.  I am SURE it does!    F-tniss Everdine?

Friday Flutterby

We told you yesterday that Dad had seen a butterfly near the parsley.   Well, today he managed to get a picture.      Looks like she may be planning to lay eggs on the mint plant which is a bit confused, because what she really should do it lay them on the parsley, which is right adjacent to the mint.   We don't think these kind of caterpillars eat mint (they are black swallowtails.).  They do very well on parsley - a couple of years ago they completely stripped our parsley plant, unfortunately before they were fully grown.     But the year before we had several that formed the chrysalises and then hatched back into butterflies.   

Thursday in the Garden with Simba and Audrey

:::meow:::

So kitties, last Thursday I promised some pictures of our "gardening efforts".  

This first picture is what we WISH we could grow:   veggies and fruit the humans got at the Farmer's Market.   Yummy fresh stuff (for THEM!).

This is the Garden area of pots on our deck.     Tomatoes on the right, pepper plant in the middle and herbs on the left.

A closeup of a developing tomato - Dad says this plant is a "Better Boy" plant.  I thought I, Simba, was the Better Boy.

This plant is called Early Girl.  Like Audrey who wakes everybody up very early.

Here are the herbs:   basil and oregano on the left, mint and rosemary behind, parsley in front.  Dad grows the parsley for the butterflies - he saw a mama butterfly trying to lay eggs there yesterday so maybe we will see caterpillars soon.

Our Bee Balm plant is meant to attract hummingbirds but we still have not seen any.  One of Dad's freinds said he saw the first one in their garden a few days ago and they usually have more.     Something funny going on with the hummers this year it seems.

Audrey wanted to go out with Mom while she took the pictures.    The painter's tape on the door is because of painting going on outside this week.  

Random Thursday stuff

Kitties, Mom has not been good at getting pictures of us to do blog posts.     This one is new, but otherwise, not much

Since today is Thursday I will tell you  a little about our garden.  Dad has planted some tomatoes and some peppers and various herbs in pots on the deck.   He doesn't usually have a lot of luck with the tomatoes, but this year looks like it may be better.    His goal is for ripe ones by then end of July since they aren't in full sun.

He also planted a bee balm to help attract the hummingbirds, and it finally has flowers.  But we have seen ZERO hummingbirds at our feeders this year, which is very discouraging.  

We will try to have some real garden pictures for next Thursday.

AND..................DRUMROLL.......................

The Baby is walking!     And has been going to the swimming pool and is a real fish.  

Easy Sunday

Simba has two small plastic tables for shade out on the deck - Dad spoils him a lot, but it has been pretty hot here, so the extra shade is important. 

 We know you think you saw this photo before, but we promise it is a new picture!    Audrey's favorite position on that chair.

  

Have a great relaxing Sunday, furries and peeps!

Independence Day

To all the United States kittehs and their families, Happy 4th of July! (or July 4th as some call it   :-)  That's a true joke - a group of young children was asked what another name for the fourth of July is.  So one said "July 4th!")

But we don't get it with this holiday being called Independence Day.    WE sure don't get any greater independence!   Simba was unceremoniously IMPRISONED in the ptu yesterday and taken to the V-E-T for his shots and checkup.     Mom has never before seen a kitty try so hard to break out of a carrier.    Once there, he became meek and backed into the back of the carrier with big wide eyes.     He passively submitted to all the vet did to him (thankfully, no thermometers).     Very glad to come home and throw up a good big hairball on the rug.

The humans went to a concert and fireworks show last night and enjoyed it.     We hope all our readers can have an enjoyable day today.    We plan on naps and deck time.

Almost Wordless Wednesday

Helping Dad

Favourite Things

Nerissa came up with a new award to celebrate 50,000 page views on his blog.  It is called "My Favourite Things award" and he very kindly passed it on to me (note how he spells Favourite, because he lives in Nova Scotia).  Thank you, Nissy!   It is one of the prettiest awards ever!  Don't you just love those beautiful Nova Scotia flowers?

The awardee is to list 6 of their favorite things and then pass the award on to some other bloggers.

So here goes, hopefully in priority order.

1.   Party Mix treats!
2.   Going on the deck.
3.  Escaping into the garden from the deck.
4.  My "messy blankie" on the couch (that is more in the cold weather - Mom put it away now).
5.  Lying in front of the iMac, between the computer and the keyboard
6.  Playing chase with Audrey.

I am going to pass the award on to the following friends:

Ginger Jasper at Ginger Jasper
Angel and Isabella at Beaded Tail
The Island Cats Ernie, Wally and Zoey
Sparkle at Sparkle the Designer Cat
Cheysuli, Ichiro and Gemini at The Cat Post Intelligencer
Maxwell Allie and Faraday at A Tonk's Tail
Cathy Keisha of Stunning Keisha
Prancer, Princeton and Precious at Prancer Pie

Pass it on, friends!