J, the museum got 8 inches of rain in 45 minutes! Tampa was even on the NBC Nightly News that night. It was pretty bad. And then it rained on Saturday, too but not as much. Luckily, today was bright and sunny so hopefully everyone can dry out now. This is supposed to be our dry season, too! Seriously, it normally doesn't rain in the spring. As a kid I never understood the whole "April showers" saying because even I knew it didn't rain in April.
We get most of our rain in the summer from our afternoon thunderstorms (and the hurricanes). Tampa is actually the lightning capital of this hemisphere; some place in Africa has up beat for the world record.
I had never seen a Great Southern White in my yard until last year. It really surprised me! I'm pretty sure the museum orders them from a butterfly farm because we never get them there, either. I only live a few miles away so we tend to get the same butterflies. I used to think they were one of those butterflies in my books that "technically" live in my area but I never see them. But then Dad and I went hiking last year in the south part of the county (I live two miles from the northern border of the county so we're talkin some miles, here) and there were tons of Great Southern Whites in the preserve! We tend to get Checkered Whites up here where I live. And I've never seen a Cabbage White where I live. I've seen maps before that show their spread and I don't think they come this far south into Florida. Maybe it's too hot for them!
