Garden Life, or a little a walk on the wild side

(...here's XXing fingers blogger is back on form and I can get back up to speed again.)
 Over the Memorial Day Holiday we went to Niagara Falls. (We had a great time and I will post pix soon)

When we left it was kinda chilly & wet here in NYC and summer was looking real far off.  Needless to say, when we got back it was 84° and super humid.  The garden on my weekend terrace had really taken off, the roses were full blown, the tomatoes blooming,  & the pumpkin (aka Audrey II) was threatening to strangle a cat or two...

And now, things are getting interesting.  2 new crops appeared. (Yay! pictures work again!!!)

 

 I've counted 4 teeny tiny little grasshoppers- who I can only assume are the progeny of these guys:

from last year- (at 2 different stages):

Monster Grasshopper!  Or maybe, the grasshopper that ate Manhattan...unfortunately shortly after this photo was taken,  the cat won...it was very upsetting.  I missed them and I am so glad the cycle wasn't cut short.

Then 2 or three days ago I say some scary looking black blotches on my big (& not so happy) dill plant, I did not get too close.  Now this is what we have:

 Swallowtail?  Maybe Monarch? The dill is about gone now (Overnight!) so guess who will be feeding them with store bought... thank god for Google,  otherwise I probably would have tossed the plant - and the caterpillars- now it's - move it away from the parsley and buy them carrot tops - (If I am wrong,   I hope somebody will please inform me here, now, & soon)

 (these caterpillars show little horns (lowest caterpillar) when they are aggravated!)

I really do hope to be nurturing these to be butterflies soon!  The dill sure worked a lot better than the so called "Butterfly Bush"

I don't think I'd ever be able to observe this closely in the real wild and I am so thrilled to be able to see it now.  I was a kid who grew up in suburbia  & considered "home" the Winnebago we traveled in  4 months a year.  We never got to stop to just watch things, since Dad had the "driving" gene (still does) so we just went.  I love having a garden!  Unbelievably, I am actually getting into bugs!

Wonderful....

Garden Life, or a little a walk on the wild side