Eastern tailed-blue

This little Eastern tailed-blue found me in the garden today. He fluttered right in front my face for a moment as if to get my attention and then landed on our Basil plant. My attention was his completely and he was not shy.

I ran into the house to get my camera, all the while thinking he would be gone by the time I got back to where he had been. But, he wasn't, he was waiting for me. It seemed to me he knew how badly I wanted to take his picture and he patently waited.

It took me a few minutes to get my camera ready but, he was in no rush and waited for me still as I attached my macro lens. When my camera was ready, I leaned in close and took his picture. I think he liked the attention because he stayed a long time with me, the lady with the camera.

Eastern tailed-blue

Wingspan: 1 inch

Markings: Wings are pail gray underneath with multiple black markings, plus orange spots near the tail. Hind wings have short "tails."

Source: gardening for birds and butterflies magazine.

Red White and Blue food, tomatos, celebrity worship, and coffee mugs

Just wanted to take a few minutes to talk about our wonderful and way too short 4th of July weekend. We had a great time all weekend with our families and enjoyed way too many great meals, Olivia's parents swimming pool, and a few fireworks (thanks a lot burn ban). More importantly though, it was a really nice chance to unwind with people that we love and, of course, a chance to eat Red, White and Blue desserts...

YUMMO! Our garden celebrated the occasion with a few "fireworks" of its own and we are proud to announce that my terrorized tomato plants have begun producing at last.

We have already added them to a number of our family's meals and pick at least a handful, daily. Olivia and I are looking forward to putting them to good use along with our Serrano and jalapeno peppers in some salsa. Spicy! Madison thinks that it is pretty cool to be able to pick tomatoes and peppers in our yard but, this doesn't come close to convincing her that they are remotely good to eat.

We have had a heat wave here for the past couple of weeks. Imagine that, hot weather in Texas in July. We really need to get a soaker hose for the garden because things have begun to really look wilty in between watering's. I heard the other day that if you try to water plants and vegetables by hand with a regular garden hose, you can spend hours and then dig up the soil in the area that you watered and find that the water has only penetrated like 1/2 inch. That doesn't sound like it would get down deep to those roots does it? Plus this watering technique wastes a lot of money. Not a good idea in this economy but I guess maybe if I blame the weather on the Bush administration, someone will swoop in and bail me out of this recession of soaring temperatures! While I'm on a serious soapbox, I guess I have to talk about the whole Michael Jackson thing now. For me, it is a little surprising that there is so much tension about the whole thing. It is, more than anything, a sad commentary on the level of celebrity worship and resentment that exists in our society. Maybe its a race thing too but, I tell ya, maybe we should all take some time to turn off the t.v., read a book, and worry about something else like, who's using your kids profile photos from facebook for some online singles website. Sometimes, this can be a really interesting world, we live in. Maybe the "he changed the world" guys, and the "he was a perverted freak-show" guys, and Bubbles the chimp and I should all worry more about whether or not we remembered to put our coffee cup in the sink this morning before we left for work? Well maybe not Bubbles, he probably shouldn't be drinking coffee.

We'll end with a few of the hundreds (yes, hundreds) of pictures of pretty things that Olivia took over the weekend. These are a few favorites....