New Caterpillar

Cindy found a beautiful new Asclepia plant growing in her tomato bed the other day and then noticed two caterpillars nearby with coloring very similar to that of the Monarch caterpillar, but with a few differences.

The colors were the same dark blue, yellow-green and light green or white, but the Monarch caterpillar has solid stripes, where these had yellow dots on the dark blue instead of solid stripes of color.

Monarch Caterpillar on Asclepia

So we dug out the butterfly identification guide we had just bought, and identified them as the caterpillars of the Anise Swallowtail butterfly.

Anise Swallowtail Caterpillar

We've seen the yellow Swallowtail butterflies flittering through our veggie garden, so we know they're around.

The clincher, though, was that these caterpillars were completely ignoring the very handsome Asclepia nearby that Monarchs would be devouring, and instead were chowing down heartily on the parsley and dill, which, according to the guide, is what they prefer to eat.  

Eating That Parsley

These caterpillars should be ready to form their chrysalises soon; if we can find them, we may be able to follow their hatching as we did the Monarchs last year.

Rain!

Well, in San Diego we call just about any moisture at this time of year "rain".

Anywhere else what we had this morning would probably be called a light mist, but since any precipitation between May and November is extremely rare in San Diego, we'll call it rain.  

Any moisture is welcome in helping keep the fire danger down, but Cindy sighed that now her plants would be developing rust as well as the powdery mildew they're already getting.

If it's not one thing, it's another in the garden world.

A New Bird

Cindy spotted a new bird, or a bird that's at least new to us, in the shrubbery yesterday.  It had a similar coloring to the Lesser Goldfinches we see regularly, but this bird was much larger than the Goldfinches.

It had a yellow underside, from its throat to the underside of its long tail feathers.  We watched it for several minutes, frantically thumbing through the field guide to western birds at the same time.  It stayed in the shrubs for a while, then finally left.

I finally checked the Tropical Kingbird, a member of the flycatcher family, on the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's All About Birds search guide.  The description of the Tropical Kingbird sounded a lot like the bird we saw, but its normal habitat is mostly South America.  But the "Cool Facts" listed under the bird's life history indicates that "the Tropical Kingbird has become a regular fall visitor to the Pacific Coast of the United States.  Nearly every year a few wandering kingbirds are discovered there."

That made sense to us; the monsoonal flow must bring them up from the Gulf of Mexico and a few apparently go sightseeing.

The Guide also says that the Tropical Kingbird likes to go after large flying insects; we're hoping this one will take on the huge Junebug that has been chomping its way through our Avocado tree leaves.   And maybe a few of those bothersome Black Flies for dessert.

The Corn Is As High As... What??

Indiana Corn

Well, the corn in Indiana was definitely not as high as an elephant's eye in late July.  Far from it, in fact.

It looked to us to be about 2 to 3 feet high in most places and was already tasseling.  The leaves at the top of the stalks was reaching up like the leaves of agave plants.

The soybeans weren't looking much better to our eyes, but we couldn't tell much about them.

It was a different story in fields where there was irrigation; that corn was looking pretty good, tall and green and looking like corn should in July.

Irrigated Corn

There wasn't a lot of it available for purchase.  Cindy loves sweet corn but she had to hunt to find some for dinner.  The Amish farm near her sister's house usually has some for sale, but none while we were there this year.

She finally found some at a roadside produce stand; the ears had been cut in half because the birds had apparently gotten the seeds on the top of the ears.

Is this year's heat and lack of rain an aberration or will it continue?

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)'s Drought Monitor website indicates that there are already both short and long term effects in most of the areas affected most severely by the current drought.

My parents both grew up in Kansas during the Dust Bowl years of the Great Depression, an experience nobody wants to repeat.

Signs of Drought In The Midwest

Dad's Lawn

We recently returned from a trip to visit Cindy's dad in Fort Wayne, Indiana.  Weather records have now confirmed that this past July was the hottest ever recorded, hotter even than July of the Dust Bowl year of 1936 according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

We knew before we got there that it was hot in Indiana, but we were stunned by how brown and dried up everything was.  Flying into Indianapolis looked like we were flying into a California city because it was so brown.

They had had no rain for weeks.  We had never seen Dad's lawn so brown in the summer, it looked like it does in winter when they've had no snow.

There were still trees down from the huge wind storm several weeks before, and the surviving trees looked stressed and some appeared to be dying.

Later, Signs of Green

The day we arrived they had a small amount of rain and got a little more a few days later.  By the time we left, the grass was showing signs of green, but it was still a long way from the normal lushness that used to require mowing twice a week.

That was the lawn; the corn was another story.

Coming Back a Little

Happy Birthday, Julia Child

In honor of Julia Child's 100th birthday today, Cindy made a quiche with leeks from our garden, bacon, cheese and eggs, with some of our Riesenstraube Cherry tomatoes on the side.  Yum!

"Diet food is what you eat while you're waiting for your steak to cook."   Julia Child.

Bon Appetit!

Still Around

What Are YOU Looking At?

We were having lunch out on our patio today when Cindy drew my attention to a California Ground Squirrel who had screeched to a halt and plopped down to chew on some seeds on the garden wall about ten feet from our table.

I couldn't believe how bold this guy was, but he seemed right at home, eating his snack and taking a very short nap on the cool stone wall.

Then he was off again, scampering up the driveway to find more seeds, I guess.

Nap Time

So there are still a few squirrels around; the fox and the hawk haven't taken all of them out.  However, they now seem to be much more cautious, staying under cover or at least out of exposed positions.

Anyway, he wasn't afraid of us, since he obviously knew he could be long gone if we made a move toward him.

Another Reason For The Squirrels To Be Nervous

Red Shouldered Hawk

This isn't the greatest picture of it, but this Red Shouldered Hawk has been working the canyon behind our house for a while now.

We had been seeing and hearing the hawk for a while as it circled over the canyon, but we weren't sure whether it was a Red Shouldered Hawk, a Red Tail or a Cooper's Hawk.  We finally made the identification as a Red Shouldered Hawk after we viewed Bert Kersey's excellent video Bring On The Birds.  Bert's video has very clear photography and very entertaining commentary on many of the birds found in the San Diego area.

The section of that video on hawks included audio of the territorial "Kee-aah"cry of the Red Shouldered Hawk.  Just after we shot this picture, this hawk launched itself off the wire into the canyon with the same cry, which you can hear at http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/red-shouldered_hawk/sounds.

Since Red Shouldered Hawks mostly eat small mammals, as well as lizards, snakes and amphibians, the  remaining California Ground Squirrels have yet another reason to be nervous, in addition to the Gray Fox lurking in the shrubbery.

Okey Dokey, Artichokey

Artichoke

We've been watching a huge thistle develop on our next-door neighbor's property.  The plant has spiky leaves with magnificent bluish purple flowers.

Cindy has identified the plant as an artichoke.

Apparently they're good to eat until they flower, so this one is past its prime as food, but it's beautiful to look at.

I'm not real sure how you would go about harvesting one, anyway.