Four Friday Fragments

I told myself I wouldn't do this...after about 60 hours in front of computer screens this week, I told myself I would go home, pet the dog, and get to bed early.

But there's so much I've been wanting to share, I just couldn't resist. I did take Rosie Toes out on a walk, though, if that makes it any better.

First Fragment: Anybody remember Herb? He is, I'm sure, long since gone, but a second generation of Jamaican-striped caterpillars showed up on our volunteer dill patch several weeks ago. I watched as a dozen tiny ones turned into 9 medium ones, turned into 3 big ones, into one gigundo one. And then, last weekend, I had a few minutes' visit from this:


A cousin, perhaps? I'm pretty sure this is a Tiger Swallowtail; I'm positive it's (sing-song) GOR-geous! I sure hope Herb de-chrysalised successfully and had a chance to be this beautiful! (Do yourself a favor and click on the pic to biggerize it...wow, my camera picked up a lot of detail.)

Second Fragment: A garden first for us: harvesting brussels sprouts! In spite of serious predation by cabbage moths (frown face, hand on hips: bad moths!), and my lack of consistency in spraying with BT (which I learned about during the New Town Farms tour in May), they're still growing. We cut two plants at the beginning of the month, and I painstakingly cut each little sprout from the stalks.

Miss Chef shredded them up in the Cuisinart, and sautéed them with some brown butter. Yum, yum! There was more than we could eat, unfortunately. Next time, I'll know to share with neighbors or co-workers. We still have 6 more plants out there, bug-eaten as ever, but still growing sprouts.

Fragment Three: general garden news. I've hardly seen the garden the last three weeks; I generally get home between 7 and 9 pm, and stagger outside to see if the rabbits have left us anything. Our tomatoes are a bit scraggly, many are splitting, but the several cherry plants are trouping along. This pic is from last month.

Rosie, after turning her nose up at tomatoes all last summer, suddenly came around after tasting these sweet beauties. Now whenever we go to the garden, she comes along to beg, and when we try walking back to the house with our hands (or shirtfronts) full of little 'maters, she literally sits on our feet, as we're walking, with that "Where's mine?" look that all dog owners recognize.

Fragment Four: Beautiful flower picture I took of one of our black-eyed Susans, after finally discovering the close-up function on my camera.

Well, I thought it was beautiful, anyway. Looks better bigger, of course.

Happy weekend, everyone!