This and That

This little guy has been visiting our yard lately. He likes to explore the area under our bird feeder.

Here are my tomato plants. There are only 2 plants here! They are looking a little droopy now because the weather has turned cooler, but they were so big. I can't believe how many tomatoes we've had this year! Counting the ones I have sitting in my windowsill and the ones I used just this week, I've picked almost 50 tomatoes just this week and there are still lots of tomatoes on the plants! This is by far the best our tomato plants have ever done. Next year I'm going to plant some basil, too.

All 10 of our butterflies eclosed while we were in DC. We expected that, but it was still a little disappointing. Before we left, we had a couple small caterpillars on our plants. When we got home, we found 10 empty chrysalises and 1 fat caterpillar. The caterpillar was on a potted milkweed plant, so we brought him in the house to watch. He made his chrysalis within a day of bringing him in. We couldn't find any other caterpillars, though. Yesterday Danielle was looking out the window and noticed a chrysalis on the back of one of our patio chairs. After further inspection, we found an empty chrysalis and a beautiful jade green one underneath the playset. I can't believe how far they crawled! We brought both of them inside to watch. Since the weather has now turned cooler, I'm pretty sure these will be our last butterflies of the season. One of our metroparks tags monarchs. If we have time, I'd like to take Danielle there to tag these three before we release them.

My poor husband has had a rough week. After getting back from our trip on Monday, he started to feel achy. He was sick with flu-like symptoms on Tuesday. When he woke up on Wednesday, he felt better, but his eye was irritated. As the day went on, it became swollen. By Thursday morning, it looked like this. Not only was it swollen, but it was weepy and very sore. He went to our family doctor on Thursday, but by Friday it was even worse. He saw an ophthalmologist on Friday and got a different prescription. They think it's an eye infection, but they aren't really sure, and they're not sure how he got it. Thankfully his vision is fine, assuming he can get the eye open! The new prescription is helping, and the swelling is going down. I don't think it's as painful now, either. He had to cancel a business trip, so he was a little disappointed about that. (Glad to be home, disappointed he couldn't do something he really needed to do for his job...and a job is a good thing.) Thankfully he seems to be on the mend.

Our sunflowers are finally going to seed. The gold finches especially seem to like them.