Billbergia nutans
Gulf Fritillary Caterpillars
The courtyard garden needs cleaning and clearing. The drought offers loads of dropped oak leaves and pine needles.
Passiflora and Pandorea vines growing on the trellises need some care.
When I started to clean and clear the dead bits and the dropped oak leaves and pine needles, I saw a Gulf Fritillary caterpillar.
This morning I found another one.
Late for them to be hanging around the garden. Good that there is plenty fo food for them.
If they make it through the chrysalis process, this is how the will emerge.
The chrysalis of the Gulf Fritillary looks a bit like a dead leaf.
Plan to put the cleaning on hold to give the caterpillars a chance of becoming butterflies.
Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas
Dashiell Greeting
Elliot Greeting
Photo Illusion
I made some macrame ornament gifts for our niece who recently moved to New Zealand.
I used yarn from her grandmother’s stash to make the tree. Even the large green bead was from her grandmother’s craft stash. Her grandmother died in 2011. I thought it would be a nice connection.
I documented the ornaments on a piece of canvas. When I shot detail images of the snowflake an odd thing happened.
This is the same image rotated 180º.
Converted Egyptian Paste Piece
While reorganizing my garage studio space I found one of my Egyptian Paste test pieces had apparently been used as a hotel for mice.
The mice managed to get in the garage and found all of the dried and drying plant materials sustaining.
When I was cleaning the space after the mice were relocated, it didn’t occur to me that I should look through the boxes of pieces stored in the space.
The box was constructed of hardware cloth and Egyptian paste. After firing the box, it was lined with black nylon and bound closed with strips of the same fabric. The fabric was dipped in diluted wood glue and hit with a heat gun, for a shrink wrap effect. I like that nylon can look like a skin, exposing the structure under it.
I have posted about this piece in the past. Pleased that the pieces have not developed a light coating of sodium.
The pieces were constructed of hardware cloth, some had the addition of nails.
The Egyptian paste was used like spackle and the lot fired to cone 015.
What to do with the mouse house? I am leaning toward popping it someplace, out of the way, in the garden.
Happy Thanksgiving
Dash enjoying a piece of my first sweet potato pie.
Acacia Seed Pods
The interior of the pod is beautiful!
Ladybug Visitor
Ladybug Found Roaming around the Kitchen
Placed it on a potted Brugmansia that is infested with spider mites.
The concave area appears to be a malformation or some type of damage. The ladybug probably came to be in the kitchen after involuntarily hitching a ride on dandelions or kale that was purchased at the Farmers’ Market.
I sharpened the image to show the damaged area a bit better.
Datura Pod
