Moving Into Blue

Oh how swiftly recent memories become ancient history, especially in fall, when everything changes so fast from hour to hour. The common milkweed that was blooming like mad on September 1 has now dropped all its yellowed leaves, and I'm nursing along the very last chrysalis of summer, which should eclose any day now. Yes, those are the Three Graces in the background (thinking about how cool it would be to make a book of my photos of those trees over the years!) I like this one!

On September 1, I was pleased to find the American dittany blooming in the gasline cut t the back of the property. It's a dainty little thing with a wonderful sharp turpentiney smell when you rub the leaves. 

It won't be long before this plant will be making another kind of flower! After the first hard frost, when the tops are killed back, the plant's root's will continue pumping water through the shattered stems, making frostflowers!

Out in the meadow, the tall coreopsis was putting on an amazing show. It came up in places where I'd never seen it before, perhaps thanks to the abundant wet summer. I love how this meadow changes year to year. This year it was off the hook spectacular.

As I write on Oct. 26, it hasn't really frozen yet, which is amazing, considering how cold it got in the second week of October. I'm going to jump in the wayback machine now to show you the Hickory Horned Devil from September 1-4. 

Changes are its gargantuan size

and a notable increase in the intensity of turquoise blue in its anterior parts.

The devil is pretty implacable at this point. I'm trying to get it to open up its "eyes" by curling its head down, but fail to make it feel threatened enough to do that. It truly is a fearsome looking but utterly harmless creature, my own personal Beast.

On Sept. 2, I measured it with my hand. That's a 6.5" caterpillar, folks!

Shila came to see and photograph the beast. It dwarfs her largeish iPhone. 

                                        

Sept. 3 saw it still eating like there was no tomorrow. Still, it didn't make an appreciable dent on the young persimmon tree. I knew how big they could get, and was a bit worried, but I never had to move the nylon netting once it was installed. I probably could have raised a bunch on that same tree without compromising the tree. 

 I had fun looking at its legs, wrapped securely around the twig. 

Sept. 4: My hand for scale. 

Gripperdoodle/potholder clamped, check!

And look at those wonderfully ooky two-toned prolegs, all wrapped around the twig! 

Sept. 4--the turquoise is blooming! And we know what that means. The bluer it gets, the closer it is to its next phase of development--walkabout! 

I couldn't get enough of this otherworldly shade, especially in contrast to the orange horns.

Neither could Liam. We visited it daily. 

I'll leave you with a video that mesmerizes me: the caterpillar, turning on a twig. Look how careful it is. See how the gripperdoodle is its best insurance against falling; how it doesn't release the orange potholders until it has a firm grip with the true legs by its head. I had been wondering where the poop chute is: it's between the gripperdoodle potholders. So it must have to release the mechanism to poop. I wish I'd seen that. 

Enjoy the amazing coordination of its many legs, the surety of its movements. I sure did.