Nature's tiny surprises

I poked my lens into one of the blooming yuccas and learned all sorts of new things,

with the assistance of Professor Google, of course.

At first I thought these ladybugs must have faded from the desert sun.

Wrong. Apparently, when the adult ladybug emerges from the pupa stage,

it's rather pale, then turns bright red as it gets older.

So the little red patches on this teenaged ladybug are not acne –
she's simply aging.
Click on the photo to enlarge.

I'd always heard that ladybugs were good for gardens because they eat aphids.

I guess these must be aphids.

The garden in fall

I call it my garden, but don't confuse it with an area where bountiful vegetables

and/or fragrant flowers are intentionally grown.

My garden is simply an area that is off limits to all the animals except the cat...

where wildflowers grow...

...and interesting bugs show up to be photographed.

The one intentional plant thriving in my garden is this silver lace vine.

It attracts butterflies and bees, mostly bees.

This pretty butterfly – an Adelpha eulalia /Arizona Sister, I think –

probably would have hung around longer...

but, like me, was afraid of getting stung.

The vine blooms all summer long and grows at a phenomenal rate.

I pruned it back so far in the spring that I thought I might have killed it.

No such luck. Now it's trying to strangle me and any visitors

who dare to walk through the gate.

Marching ants

I've had my share of ant adventures living here but never with a marching army.

As I write this post Tuesday night, it has been about 60 hours since this batallion 

disappeared to who-knows-where. They can go wherever they want for all I care, 

as long as they don't set up camp inside the house, at which point I will declare war.

Front porch oddities

I was out on the front porch in the dark taking pictures of Itsy, who isn't really bitsy

unless compared with a tarantula. I haven't seen any tarantulas on the front porch this year ... yet ...

but it's only a matter of time, this being tarantula season and all.

I did see this creature near the ceiling, though, and climbed on a chair to get a closer look.

Who knew bats have such cute feet, or hands, or whatevers?

Then I amost fell off the chair because something began rattling very loudly down on the ground.

It wasn't a rattlesnake but it was this crazy vine with these weird paper-lantern-like pods 

that make very scary noises when blowing against the concrete. 

Perhaps I wouldn't have been so rattled had I not just been photographing spiders and bats.

 Johnny was of no use in protecting me, as he was in the house on the other side of the dirty window.

It turns out that I had no reason to be afraid of the rattling pods. 

Danni knew right away what they were: ground cherries. 

How is it that this stuff just shows up out of nowhere? 

I swear this vine never made an appearance until this summer. 

Professor Google tells me it's edible and "...tastes like a cherry tomato injected with mango

and pineapple juice and looks like an orange pearl encased in a miniature paper lantern."

I've found several recipes featuring them, including this one for ... you guessed it ... Ground Cherry Pie.

It's never too early to start thinking about next year's pie festival.

Things that go hum

The Russian sage in my garden (the purple stuff) is thriving this year and attracting all sorts of things that hum...

 ...like hummingbirds...

 ...and hummingbird moths. 

 These moths are so named because they fly, look, act and sound just like hummingbirds.

 I'm not a big fan of moths in general...

 ...but you have to admit, these guys are kind of cute.