sneaky little Devil

 

My butter yellow iris

The sneaky little butter yellow crab spider who lives there and snatches unsuspecting flies and bees who visit.

 He/she was very aware of me trying to take pictures, and scooted over, under and around the petals to avoid the paparazza.

the Flappita Moth

Although a field guide would identify this as the wing of a white-lined sphinx moth, at our house it is one of the "Flappita moths". Those creatures that are attracted to your reading lamp and go flappita, flappita all around the light and make you crazy. This visitor chose to rest on the bricks of the fireplace before finding his way back outside. He started off in the computer room, we lured him to the open door on the deck by making a light path for him to follow. By turning on lights in the next room and turning off the one in the room we and he were in, we lead him through the house and out, with the needed portrait shoot in the middle.  Neat creature.

dissimulation

beehives with a View

Some honeybees have apple, peach or almond orchards as the view out their front door. This group of hives looks either west over the Black Hills of South Dakota or east over an artsy arrangement of newly mown hay. Not a bad neighborhood.