Little Skipper!

Ahhhh...The rains continue!  Dark clouds covered us the entire day making it a wonderfully inspiring day!  By that I mean..I was inclined to sort through a mounds of stuff!  Although it is one of the hardest things in the world for a crafter to do, I parted with a number of potential craft items today...arrgh!  Any crafter will tell you that you just do not throw things in the garbage!  Most any item can become some marvelous recycled creation if you are given the inspiration, the ingenuity and the time to make it so.  But I tossed..it was like ripping off my right arm..but I tossed.  Believe it or not...I feel freer!  Now my craft room (aka sewing room) is at least in some semblance of order!  I can find things!  Wow...I never thought that would happen!  With all this rain though, I did become a tad stir-crazy and have to slip outside if even for a moment.  Once Ms. Ez and I meandered around a bit, we both felt a tad better.  The cool rain felt good as did the stretching of our legs!  She even got in a few romps after a couple of adventurous squirrels that were in search of supper.  While she was on one such chase, I deadheaded a few of the zinnias before deciding that soggy, mushy, slimy flowers were not exactly fun to touch.

While in the zinnia patch, I spied a lone butterfly trying to catch a nip before the raindrops made it impossible to fly.  The high winds caused the poor little thing to nearly be blown from the flower head but it kept trying.  I wish I could have caught a clear photograph of the upper side of the insect.  With the wings open flat, the body was the most beautiful blue but the underside was dark. This brave little butterfly is none other than a Long-tailed Skipper!  As butterflies go, it is rather smallish but what it lacks in size it makes up for with spunk!  I did not see one other butterfly out and about in this inclement weather!  Most others sought some sort of shelter from the winds and rains but Skipper braced himself against the odds and got supper!

The Long-tailed Skipper butterfly, as pretty as it may be, can be quite a pest or at least the caterpillar can be!  The Skipper female will lay her eggs on any legume plant that is handy.  The caterpillars will hatch and munch away on the leaves of these plants.  Consequently, if there is a handy-dandy bean or pea garden around near, those leaves will become meals for the little critters.  I know that the Crowder peas that are left in the garden have now been adorned with the tiny yellowish white eggs.  Soon..if not already..those pea plants will be riddled by the army of little caterpillars!  Their fat little bodies will then be encased in a leaf to prepare for transformation into adult Long-tailed Skippers!  It will be "Goodbye, pea plants...Hello, pretty little Skippers!"   Oh well, sometimes a sacrifice must be made in the name of beauty!   The little Skipper sitting on a zinnia really was a thing of beauty!