Well, my excursion into my neighbor's yard has produced an interesting rash on my right hand. Yesterday, it was just a red patch and I wasn't really sure what it was. But when I woke up this afternoon it had the added feature of little bumps on it. So hydrocortisone has been applied and I've found it works great on almost everything. You see, one time I got some kind of fungal infection on my wrist. It was super itchy and the hydrocortisone wasn't working so I went to the doctor. She told me it was a fungal thing and talked about how you can get it and I heard her mention soil. I said, "Well, I'm a gardener." She paused for a moment and said, "I'll prescribe the big tube." I thought that was so funny! But it came in handy as I had to use the cream a few more times over the years. I used to compost before I got sick so I'm sure that didn't help - well, it didn't help my fungal infection rate, it helps the environment and your garden and I wish I could still do it. It also didn't help that my bromeliads were constantly leaving little scratches on me for bacteria and fungi to enter. Now I wear rose gloves!
Just a couple of Polydamas caterpillar shots today. I did my usual wake-up check on the cats because I knew they would need food but I like to see how everyone is doing, too. And the Polydamas are molting. When I saw this, I thought they were too close to the top and I don't like them being so close to where I put the lid on, but what can you do? Then I thought, "The family that molts together, stays together?" I don't know why some caterpillars stick together while others go their own way. Polydamas will hang out together until they're pretty much in their last instar. It's weird. I wonder what kind of advantage it gives them over other species?
So then I went outside to get caterpillar food for the Pipevine ST, Polydamas ST, Spicebush ST, and the Long-Tailed Skippers. Whew! By the way, the lone survivor Spicebush from the original batch that all died seems to be okay. He's still not growing as fast as he should but he is eating and pooping so that's good. While I was outside picking pipevine and swatting mosquitoes, I found some more Polydamas cats. Because like I told Mom, "There are always more Polydamas." I forgot to count them but I think there were about six of them all together. Here you can see one on the left of the pic with the main group on the right side.
