August 16, 2026
On August 12, I got up early and took a look at the vegetable garden. I noticed two butterflies in the garden.
This butterfly was on a pepper plant. I often see it flitting about. It seems to be the only one right now. I know butterflies can stay in the same area during their lifetime. Surprisingly, there are several species that migrate besides the monarch butterflies.
Here is other butterfly that I saw.
I finished looking around the vegetable garden and making mental notes of what needed to be done. I was ready to conquer the last weeds in the blueberry ring. I carried a shovel and the wagon loaded with a dandelion weeder, gloves, and the kneeler.
I spent two and a half hours weeding the blueberry ring and I was finished!
The next step is to try and kill the fire ant nest at the edge of the blueberry ring. Once the fire ants are gone, I’ll put more cardboard around the outer edge of the ring. Bruce will use the tractor to cover the cardboard with a thick layer of chips from the pile o’ chips chipped from Pine Tree 3,
While weeding, I had several Hackberry Emperor butterflies land on me. They are known to be very friendly butterflies.
While weeding, I found myself under attack by no see ums. Bruce also found himself under attack. He put on mosquito spray and it stopped the attack. I followed suit and I won the attack.
While I was weeding, Bruce continued his hacking and slashing against the vegetation around the pig pen.
Here are some of the T-Post Bruce pulled out earlier.
A good days work in the cooler part of the day. Before we finished up, the temperature had started climbing. Hot and dripping with sweet, we were so grateful to have air conditioning waiting for us. The showers we took also helped us cool down.
Making lunch, I went to pick some herbs and found a skipper butterfly.
Looking out the window, I saw an Eastern Tiger Swallowtail. Please excuse the blurriness of the picture.
After lunch, I worked on my current art project, “Dorrie in Sunflowers.”
In the evening, it had somewhat cooled off, so we did our evening check of the orchard. On the way, to the orchard, Bruce showed off the removed tractor bucket.
Here’s the orchard picture. Not much had changed.
Bruce has been making various piles of vegetation from his reign of destruction.
I spotted a common buckeye.
I first thought this was a butterfly, but using Google it came back as a small moth. I was surprised by that, but looking at the pictures, I discovered it was a greater sweet potato webworm moth.
On the way back to the house, I stopped to pick cucumbers and tomatoes.
The sunset was beautiful. I loved the sun rays piercing through the clouds.
Blackberry Homestead 