Butterflies!

 4 american lady butterflies visit echinacea.

close-up

 pollinators on the watermelons... cabbage white above, checkered fritillary below.

And a gulf fritillary...

 Pipevine Swallowtail nectaring at the lantana.

A pair of long-winged skippers....

 The orange cosmos is a big draw.... buckey and checkered frit.

I spent hours trying to get a photograph of one of the zebra longwings... don't get many..... they are as rare as the monarchs....

Speaking of which... Finally a monarch... nectared at the zinnia patch, but I didn't see it find any of the milkweeds.

These gray tree frogs are simply too cute for words!

meteorological summer...

The goldfinches have cleaned out the poppy seeds.

American painted lady visiting smallanthus.

Rattle snake hunting.

The cats showed me this dude.... otherwise... how would anybody ever have seen him?

In case you're wonderin.... I left it alone, fed the cats at the house, so they would leave it alone too.

Zebra swallowtail visits butterfly weed.

A couple days ago, the zebra left eggs on the paw paw. 

Unfortunately, the camera was in the house, and I was in the middle of planting.

3 sisters.

Close up of the zucchini.

zebrina (Malva sylvestris)

Critters again, and some Spring flowers

 Tortoise foreplay

Preparing to mount...

The male spent several minutes bobbing his head, I recorded 4 seconds, and then the batteries quit in the camera... and... those 4 seconds aren't in focus... 

But... here's those 4 seconds..... for those who have never seen a tortoise bob his head....

Rat snake... I also saw a big king snake... and didn't have the camera with me.

Romantic butterflies

Honeybee

Poppy colour

The Matelea are starting to bloom.... I've seen an occasional lonley monarch butterfly this spring, but still no babies.

Scutellaria integrifolia

Penstemon australis

Passiflora... I had a pic of a couple of fritillary caterpillars... and forgot to add them to the thumb drive before heading to the library...

Carduus nutans

Not sure what the name of these rambling roses is.... they're everywhere... up and down the highway... and at my house.

Rose campion (Silene coronaria) Or is it lychnis?

Mock orange (Philadelphus lewisii)

Chinaberry tree

This exotic invasive produces an interesting yellow coloured firewood....

Blunt leafed milkweed (Asclepias amplexicaulis)

Flower on the poplar tree.

Good critters and... bad.

Spring 'vegetable' garden...

Tomatoes and melons last summer, poppies and turnips over the winter.... soon, beans n stuff.

Beans and stuff....

Kitties eatin' rutabagas....

Any more rutabagas?

Swallowtail visits coral honeysuckle

nother swallowtail visits mock orange.

And.... hot lips salvia with swallowtail.

Gray treefrog on rain barrel.

Towhee in the branches....

Scarab beetle found a possum turd...

Kudzu bugs are infesting my buckeye bushes.

Leaf foot bugs in the thistles...
Did you ever try to catch leaf foot bugs in the thistles?

WARNING!

Next photo not for the faint of heart!

7 possum kittens from one mother possum... splains how they can strip a pear tree over-night!

They come for the earthworms in the Spring, and stick around for the pears and melons...