We finally hit the triple digit temperatures here in central Oklahoma for the first time this year. For one day. Now, more rain is coming through and the temperature has dropped to the eighties. Last year, it was hotter and drier. I have been feeling good this week but had a lupus flare on Thursday with a swollen left eye. I went to the farm yesterday and I got a lot of great butterfly pictures. I also think this year’s butterfly population is higher than last year’s. Not sure why. The garden was quite overgrown since we haven’t been there to work all day since June. I planted morning glory vines on the sunny hill and they got a bit out of control. We had American hog peanut vines taking over the hill with the herb garden. So I spent most of the day clearing vines away. The blackberries and grapes are also getting longer. Due to the extremely hot weather last week, most of the flowers were not blooming. However, a few plants are still producing flowers. The zinnias and sunflowers are continuing to bloom. The knockout roses have bloomed again. Some of the coneflowers are still blooming but the Shasta daisies are done. I deadheaded them and hope they will bloom again. The dahlias and hydrangea are looking good. The elephant ears are doing good. The beautyberry looks a little yellow. The lantana is blooming a little and has lots of seeds. I planted a few plants yesterday as well but did not get to plant the two vitex.I did plant the lavender, basil, black eyed Susan, hardy fiber banana tree, snow queen hydrangea, moonflower, and butternut squash. The lavender and vitex have begun to flower. The lavender we planted last year didn’t survive the cold winter and never flowered. Of course, the moonflower and butternut squash are vines and I have had issues with vines getting out of control. I had also planted some cypress vines and two are growing. One is climbing one of the pawpaw trees and the other is on my birdhouse gourd plant. I have one birdhouse gourd that is growing now. I hope it gets big enough to make a birdhouse out of it. The cherry tomatoes were still doing great and producing a lot. We took about thirty tomatoes home as well as some herbs. The peppers didn’t survive and the tomatillos only made empty husks. The oregano was flowering so I could only get a little. The rosemary was a little brown in some spots from the heat. The dill, chamomile, cilantro, and chervil are done because of the heat. The fennel is looking good but the catnip didn’t make it. The sage is looking great. The thyme is getting yellow because it was covered by the comfrey. The comfrey grew a ton this year and so we cut it back and used the leaves as mulch. The peach and fig trees are growing well but don’t have any fruit. I saw my northern mockingbird friend from earlier in the summer. This bird doesn’t seem to mind if I approach quietly. I also saw a lot of other cool insects. I saw a lot of dragonflies and damselflies. I also saw a katydid with wings that look like leaves. I saw a mottled tortoise beetle that was metallic gold. I also saw two yellow garden spiders, one was on one of the elephant ears. The ironweed was blooming and it attracted lots of bees and butterflies. I saw several kinds of butterflies and moths, including,: hackberry emperor, eastern tiger swallowtail, black swallowtail, question mark, goat weed leafwing, chickweed geometer, pawpaw sphinx moth, gulf fritillary. As we have several hackberry trees, the hackberry emperors are the most abundant species I see. It is cool to see so many because when they interact with each other it looks like they are dancing in the sky. It is the first time I have seen the goatweed leafwing and I think it was the male summer form. They lay eggs on crotons, and we have a lot of crotons growing wild at the farm. The gulf fritillary needs the passionflower vine to survive and we have several of the purple passionflower vines growing wild at the farm. We even found two passion fruit or maypops, which I picked not realizing that they weren’t fully ripe yet. I picked them green, but I think they should be a little more yellow when ripe. I think the swallowtail butterflies prefer fennel, dill, carrots, parsley and other related plants. I saw the yellow and the dark form of the Eastern tiger swallowtail. Apparently, the dark form is a mimicry of the pipevine swallowtail, which is toxic to predators. I couldn’t get a close up photo of the yellow form because it mostly flew high in the trees. I did take an aerial shot. The chickweed geometer prefers chickweed but also likes clover 🍀. We have lots of red clover. The pawpaw sphinx moth likes the pawpaw trees, of course. It blends in with trees to protect itself from predators. I saw an elephant hawk moth caterpillar also. It was a pretty big caterpillar. There were so many butterflies I was even able to take photos of them in flight. The question mark butterfly likes elms and hackberry trees. In my balcony garden this week, I also photographed a gray hairstreak. It has many host plants, including those in the pea and mallow families. I saw it on one of my zinnias. I am interested in learning more about the host plants of different species of butterflies and will try to find a book on the subject. I want to attract even more butterfly species to photograph and draw. I also saw a little snail and a bee fly on my balcony. In my city this week, I saw many trumpet vines blooming. I think these are so gorgeous although I think they are invasive. We also have a lot of Canadian geese around town and I see them every week when I go grocery shopping. My boyfriend’s birthday was this week so we got food from Dave’s Hot Chicken to celebrate. I tried the reaper chicken, the hottest one, because I love spicy food. This was the spiciest chicken I have tried and the heat really lingered. The Dave’s Hot Chicken building in OKC is covered with a huge trumpet vine. There are also a few others near my home. I want to plant one of my own some day but I think I need to plan well because of the massive size. I should have learned last year after planting pumpkins the huge amount of space required for vines. We have plenty of space at the farm for vines. However, they really need space from other plants so they don’t crowd out less aggressive growers. I really need to put more time into planning before I plant next year so I don’t end up with a jungle every year. Of course, it will be easier to maintain once we move there full time. My cat is hunting a lot and I saw her catch a lizard and a frog. I finished the book I was reading last week and started a new one. I am now reading Drawing and Painting Expressive Animals by Marjolein Krujit. Recently, I have been primarily focused on learning the human figure and portraiture. I find people to be the most challenging thing to draw because getting a likeness is tricky. But, I love a challenge as it keeps the boredom away. This week, I have been working on the anatomy of the back again. However, in the future I want to be able to draw anything I want. Including buildings, landscapes, animals, flowers, cartoons, and insects. My passion for photography came from my love of drawing and need to have references. However, I tend to be drawn to photograph insects, plants, animals and the sky rather than people. This is one reason I think that taking online classes is beneficial for me, because the lessons provide great reference photos of people to draw from. I certainly did take lots of pictures this week and I think I need to delete some again so I can have more storage space.
Lisa Ledbetter 