mellielong said:Glen, that's awesome! The Common Eggfly (what a horrible name!) reminds me of something in our Admiral family, like a Viceroy or Red-Spotted Purple. I also have faith that something will find your pipevine sooner or later. It's important we at least try and have the host plants available because you never know when the butterfly is going to find you. Especially if they are vulnerable, like you said. Is that like threatened or endangered in the U.S.? Does it have some kind of official status or were you using the word literally? Just curious.

I'm off to the great state of Kentucky. We'll stay somewhere in the Carolinas tonight and then drive into Kentucky tomorrow. I should have internet access through the weekend since we'll be at a hotel so I'll try and check in. Once I get to West Virginia, technology nearly ceases to exist. Although, they finally built a McDonalds with Wi-Fi about six miles from Grandma's house few years back. That was a major development in that county! But hopefully the remoteness means I will see lots of butterflies lurking in the woods. I've got my camera with me!

Are you visiting family or vacationing in KY? I've been here since the Summer of 1996 and I love it.

Marilyn, I'm at the Eastern KY Genealogy Conference in Louisa, KY. My ancestors fled Virginia during the Civil War and came here to fight on the Union side. Then, the next generation moved to Lincoln County, WV where my father is from. After the conference is over, we're going to WV to visit Grandma for a week.

Glen, those caterpillars have been all over the news here. People at the museum kept asking me about them. I've never seen one but a lady pulled out her smartphone and showed me a picture of one on her garbage can lid. I think some neighborhoods have it worse than others.

All right, Dad is bugging me so I have to go eat breakfast (biscuits and gravy, duh, because it's KY and I'm on vacation). Calories don't count on vacation, I hear. Today there is a speaker giving a talk on my 5th great-grandmother, Jenny Wiley, who is a local legend because she was kidnapped by Indians and managed to escape months later and make it back to her husband (the Indians killed all her children but Jenny had more after she escaped thankfully, so I exist).

Jack, awesome picture! I just keep snapping and sometimes I get lucky.

flaflwrgrl said:

Beautiful wilds Jack. I love the wilds & the wild look.

Jack, which cultivars do you have? I'm always looking to improve my own pollinator magnet holdings!

Mellie, nice pics of the Comma/Question Mark puddling (hey, grammatical butterflies! ) Glad to have you in our neighborhood for a while (I'm in Maryland DC area).

yum, Jack, now you have me wanting to plant a paw paw tree! Love that sulphur on the aster!

Gleni, you're right that is quite a caterpillar! You'd think it was an old-fashioned ladies' muff, and not a highly toxic cat!

Jenny Wiley State Park

http://parks.ky.gov/parks/reso...

How neat!

The best pollinator attractant in my back yard is the wild New England Aster - (Symphyotrichum novae-angliae)- New England Aster (Symphyotrichum novae-angliae)
Tall Goldenrod complements the aster.
Both are wild and would like to take over, every spring I have to pull out a lot of sdlgs attempting to colonize. The same goes w/ the Paw Paw trees, they colonize by sending up underground runners. It takes 2 trees to produce fruit (7 yrs to fruiting).
Pawpaw (Asimina triloba) (see the comments).

thanks for the info, Jack. Sounds like the PawPaw trees are a long-term project! I'll definitely keep them in mind.

Well, you have certainly been patient waiting for them Jack. Good job! I would love to have the asters but I know they would not thrive here.

The Goldenrod yes. I will just have to find something else to compliment the Goldenrod.

Planted several milkweed, and WOW, catapiller's galore, loving watching all of this take place.....

Photos if you can, Kitty!

Today -
Skipper and Painted Lady

Painted Lady -

Skipper -

Sulphur - alba form

Cabbage White -

Beautiful! What is the yellow flower Jack?

I had a couple Fritillaries in my yard this afternoon. I managed to get 3 good photos of one of them, a not so good photo of the other, and a good photo of a Hairstreak. I also saw one of my Monarchs flutter around again, but no chance for a photo. :-(

yes, that yellow flower is very pretty!

I'm going to take a stab and say it reminds me of a dahlia. Not the big dinner plate kind but the little guys.

I just got back to the hotel and am uploading photos. I'll post back on a bit and share. It's going to be epic! (But isn't it always?)

Dahlia is correct.

Nice dahlia, Jack! :-)

Those are great shots of the sulphurs. They dart around so quickly--I've never been able to get a good pic of one!

Woo hoo! Do I win a prize? I admit, I've been feeling pretty clueless looking at all the plants up here and only knowing some of them. I guess that's better than none, but I'm out of my element. I think I'm going to start a thread in the native plant forum (don't we have one of those?) and just post the pictures and people can tell me what I'm looking at.

Okay, I'm going to post my best picture from today to tease you guys before I post everything. Seriously, this is going to break the internet - it's that fabulous. In fact, it's loading so slowly, I think I did break the internet. Oh, I miss my high-speed connection but I'll miss it even more when I'm at Grandma's with no connection.



A Monarch and a (I think) a Great Spangled Fritillary on thistle. We have thistle in Florida and it's a butterfly magnet there, too. BOOYAH! That was the sound of me winning the internet today. (Drops the mic. Walks away.)