Tuesday - June 6, 2006

Bad dogs and Butterflies...

We took a walk down one of the roads that border Corps Of Engineers hunting lands. At one point, Echo spotted an armadillo up a small hill. I had her leash under my arm, but wasn't actually gripping it because I was taking photos of the butterflies. She took off up the hill and into the woods after the armadillo. In seconds she had disappeared from sight. For about 10 minutes, Pa and I beat the bushes. What terrified me was the fact she had a 20 foot metal-cord lead and her 6 foot leash attached to her choke collar. I had horrible visions of finding my strangled dog hanging from a snag in the forest...or not at all. I don't know how it happened really, but thank God I ran almost directly to where she was nosing her way back. Unharmed, but a lesson learned by me...get this dog trained.














The butterfly bushes attract the butterflies - all shapes and sizes! We kept trying to sneak up on this black and blue butterfly - Mom got this photo.













This butterfly is orange and black, not a monarch but similar markings.













We still didn't quite get a good photo of the black and blue butterfly - it was much more skittish than the others.













This yellow butterfly kept fluttering its wings really fast. Like the hummingbirds, it was rarely still enough to get a good photo. As you can see, the camera caught it fluttering.













Pa shakes a milk thistle plant and the parachute seeds fly...I'd never seen it happen, it was wonderful! Little flying miracles...













Mom and Pa walk a tired Flint back home...