Rain

Last night it began thundering loudly and woke me up at around 1:30 AM. I got up and after unplugging all the electronics, went outside to watch the lightning show. It rained nicely and really cooled things off. Felt really good. After watching for awhile I went back to bed, Roy never stirred throughout the whole noisy storm.
This afternoon there are more clouds and they are forecasting thunderstorms again. Most of the time when they are forecast we get nothing; but who knows.
I thought this flat top cloud was kind of interesting.

Below is the newest animal being fed here. He/she has been coming up and sleeping in the shade for awhile now. It also drinks from the water basin that we have out for the birds and animals to use. Today I broke down and gave him some food. He didn't eat much and he is very skinny, so I am not sure if he is sick or just not hungry at the moment. I guess we will see. It reminds me of a cat my older brother used to have years ago. It was a motley colored thing also and he named it affectionately, "Barf". The cat didn't seem to care. Anyway we will see if he continues to stick around or not.

What Are You Gonna Be When You Grow Up?

Last evening when I was heading downstairs to feed the dog I saw something on one of the lime tree leaves. It looked like bird poop but it was moving, it was a caterpillar. I have to say that this fellow was pretty homely (read ugly) as far as caterpillars go. I did a search online (I am not going to say what I typed into the search box) to see if I could find out something about him. I found out he is called an "Orange Dog" caterpillar and that he would "grow up" to be an Asian?? Swallowtail Butterfly. They eat the leaves of citrus trees, hence his presence on the lime tree. Apparently when the caterpillars are this age they have a "juvenile" hormone that makes them look like bird poop and protects them from becoming bird food. Once they get too big to pass for bird poo, they turn green and make like a leaf. Isn't nature amazing?

Below is a picture of an Asian Swallowtail Butterfly (swiped from the web); but I am not sure if it is this type of Swallowtail that the caterpiller turns into. We have never seen butterflies like that around here.

This type below, we have seen here. I don't know, but he will survive to turn into something I am sure, as nothing would eat anything that looks the way he does. Blech!