What's for dinner?

  Once again, I spent the day pushing a lawnmower about the hillside.  It seems that once spring made its appearance it is determined to make everything grow with a vengeance.  It is all I can do to keep ahead of the weeds.  Which brought me to my next chore...weeding.  The weeding of the gardens has gotten a lot easier since Mark made me planter boxes. While the idea behind the boxes was to outsmart the tunneling voles, it has made gardening simpler.  The main challenge now is to find space for all of the plants.  But, back to weeding.  While I was pulling vetch from around the blueberry bushes which are not in boxes and prone to have a few (a lot) of weeds.   Then a black blob caught my attention over in the fennel patch.  Well now!  Someone came for dinner!

   The fennel plants were the site of a dinner party being held by some caterpillars.  The Black Swallowtail butterfly had been busy already this spring!  A number of the hungry caterpillars were munching away on my herbs.  They looked like they had been there a while judging by the size of them.  

  My problem comes since I am hesitant to destroy something that is so very beautiful..now and later.  Do I just let the critters eat my fennel and go on to become butterflies?  The problem with that is the fact that the cycle will start anew with each adult butterfly.  My herbs shall never be safe!  Still, I do love the butterflies and even the caterpillars.  So with that thinking...What's for dinner?  It seems to be fennel leaves for some.