I should rename this "Betsy's Bugs" or something!

Ants carrying away a dead beetle

One of these things

Yay! I spotted this guy by chance! He's a cousin to the white one I saw at the old Stone House!
That is pretty much a life size picture, maybe he is a little bigger. Very beautiful markings!

This little guy was making quite a racket! I had to hunt for him as he was in a tiny cave in a rock wall. He is not a cricket, not sure what exactly!

More Bugs!

I've been looking for these guys for years! I never find them! Unfortunately I dropped him onto the sidewalk and I think he might have been injured. A bunch of green wet stuff came out...might have been pee though. He was still crawling around pretty good when I picked him back up!!

A simple ladybug. I'm trying to get my daughter to like bugs so we took a "nature walk" which consisted of me stopping beside the sidewalk whenever we came to a field with milkweed and goldenrod! Amazing how many cool bugs you can find if you look!

I took this because there is a crazy looking flying insect towards the upper left part of the picture. It is colored like a yellow jacket and looks like it will sting you but I think it is harmless. I have heard of flies that look like bees but I'd never seen one! I was going to grab it until I saw a ton of what you can see in the lower right hand corner! Nah!!
Ugh. Aphids all over the milkweed everywhere!! And ants farming them too! I was going to pick a stalk of milkweed for the monarch but I do NOT want to bring aphids home!!!

More Bugs!

Another Monarch! I haven't seen so many in so long! Nice to know they are still around.

I love this picture!!!

If you look close at the center you can see a red dragonfly!

Some kind of Swallowtail I believe...It was very pretty in person!

Some Bugs I Have Seen!

These were at the Whitehill Homestead in Ryegate, VT.

This Monarch did not want to get out of the driveway!

I don't know what the hell this is!! Its pretty cool looking though!

Update: I believe this is a Crane Fly

My favorite creepy spider...An Eriophora Orb Weaver. About 2 inches long and very fat belly! Harmless though. There were probably 6 of them up on the front porch ceiling!

An explosion of dead baby Orb Weavers. Not sure what happened to them...

Bye Bye Banana

My banana is no more. It was being overcome by the mites and I was going to have to bring it in for the winter *sob*. So I decided to hack it down with a butcher knife and clean the root ball and repot it. What I didn't bargain for was that there would be 3 new growths already shooting up from the rhizome! I trimmed the massive roots to about 6-8 inches long and then scrubbed and blasted them with a hose. Then I divided the ball into 3 sections and repotted each one. Hopefully at least one will grow!!

The root ball before I divided it. To the left of the freshly cut stalk is a hard brown mass that is left from last time I hacked it. Scar tissue I guess you would call it!

The most promising shoot

The underside of the root ball before I divided it

Potted and ready to grow!! I will keep updates about these three if they make any kind of progress!!