Butterflies with torn wings...

[leene_chan]

Butterfly count on the buddleia this morning: one Monarch butterfly, three Swallowtails with torn wings (all at the same time), one Cabbage White butterfly, one Compton Tortoiseshell and a Hummingbird Moth. There were also some honeybees and gigantic bumblebees. None of them wanted to have their picture taken. XD

It's sad to see all these swallowtails missing huge chunks of their lower wings. The monarchs are always perfectly intact, because they're distasteful/poisonous to predators. Rather than feeling like I'm witnessing a glorious show of nature, I feel like a kindly matron in a Dickensian novel, gathering up and feeding all the battered, starving orphans. Why can't the birds leave the poor swallowtails alone?

That is why they're called "swallowtails," after all.

In a few weeks, my tomatoes are going to be all gone. All in all I've been able to pick a dinner-sized bowl of tomatoes every day for a month. Not too bad, huh? I still have no idea what I'm going to do with all my jalapeno peppers, though. I had originally wanted to do those instead of bell peppers because you can use them green, and you only need one at a time. I'm going to have to make some spicy food soon!

Speaking of spicy food, one of my favorite convenience/home-cooked fusion meals is Trader Joe's Chimichurri rice sprinkled with shredded Manchego cheese (also found at Trader Joe's) and topped with a fried, sunny-side-up egg that was done in olive oil instead of butter, and served with a garnish of diced cherry tomatoes. I've got to get a few more bags of that rice...:D

If I don't drink a glass of milk with that meal, I always end up with heartburn.

Comments

[leene-chan.livejournal.com]

I love spicy food. My favorite condiment of all time is Chipotle Tabasco sauce. I think there's such thing as overdoing it, though. I'm not the kind of person to eat hot peppers raw just for fun.

That being said, I'd rather eat a bowl of jalapeno peppers than a single spoonful of mayonnaise...O_o

[tsubasahome.livejournal.com]

You know all about my mayonnaise trauma. Whenever anybody opens a jar of mayonnaise in the kitchen, you have to yell at me to stay back...