Frost flowers!

When people mention frost flowers, they usually mean verbesina virginica (pictured above).
This is as profound an ice bloom as I can remember... I theorize that the recent rain may have something to do with the amount of ice squeezed out of the plant this morning...

At my house the salvia coccinea Also produces frost blooms... Unfortunately... I can't say for sure whether it's also represented in this group of pics...

December critters and other pretties.

Eastern towhees in the brush pile

Mocking bird in same brush pile...

 Grey ratsnake

 

Close-up of colour.

Surprising to see one of these guys at Christmas...

Honey bees in camellia flower

Cat in redbud tree.... 

is this how she's catching the birds?

Goldfish... Hunting mosquito larvae, and apparently for frog eggs...

The frogs have been visiting my ponds, but there's never eggs left here... when I moved some over... they never had a chance to hatch.

Deciduous holly berries

Other holly berries.

New paths through the brush...

There's a winter rainbow through the middle of this picture... Usually rainbows at my house are in the garden in the west... this one was over my house in the north... Unfortunately it never got very bright, fading almost as quickly as it formed.

October

 Monarch butterfly!

Last year... no monarchs... Just viceroys...

 Got some new iris... and after the voles ate my previous ones... figured I'd try growing them in a pond... Lowes was running a close-out on this 45 ml "medium"... felt like a roll of inner tube...

Camphor weed (Heterotheca subaxillaris)

Was going to post on my golden asters, but Ellen Honneycutt beat me to it... (this year). 

Mums are blooming... I have some that threaded themselves through a tomato cage... and they're a spectacular 4 foot high! 

ageratina altissima 

Another golden aster (Chrysopsis mariana)

As many natural golden asters as I have out here.... I wild collected this one from a pasture in town...

turnips

Helianthus angustifolius

Aster (Symphyotrichum sp.) This baby is like 5 ft in height! Had to put a tomato cage around it so that I could walk past...

Bugs n stuff

Seems like everybody enjoys the agalinis...

Honeybee

Bumble bee

Sulphur yellow butterfly

Long tailed skipper

 Could be necessary to click the pic to see the buckeye caterpillar...

2 more buckeye caterpillars...

Gulf fritillary visiting golden aster

 Looks like an army worm...

 another armyworm eating the crotalaria

 Sulfur caterpillar

Caterpillar on conyza (horseweed)

Vitex caterpillar (Rustic Sphinx)

Blue curls

Ok, I had to include this picture of the bean vines that pulled the limbs off the tree... I visit a garden forum where there is a discussion going about growing beans up cornstalks... Kinda ridiculous... I've had beans kill decent sized oaks...

 The blue stems are blooming...