Daily Archives: June 30, 2014

Mother Nature Knows Best

Yesterday afternoon I discovered two large, bright-green-and-black banded caterpillars munching on my fennel.  I pulled them off, and they spread a stinky smell that stuck to my fingers.  I put them both into an empty watering can, looked them up on the web, and discovered that they were black swallowtail larvae — nearly as striking in their adult butterfly form as they were in the caterpillar stage.  Too pretty to kill, but not pretty enough to sacrifice my fennel.

I placed them in the parsley and basil at the other end of the garden.  When I checked later, they were in pretty much the same spots I’d left them in, but I started to worry that maybe they weren’t eating, so I put one of the caterpillars back on the fennel and left the other on the Thai basil.

Today the caterpillar on the fennel is doing fine.  The one that I left on the basil is nowhere to be seen.

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Progrep 20: Twitch and Chat

Sometimes it seems as if my characters are just one big mass of body language and dialogue, twitching and chatting their way from scene to scene.  Things happen, and they flock together to talk about it.  More things happen, and they talk about that, too.  And they twitch.

Nod, smile, laugh, cough, hem, haw, choke.  Clear throat, raise brow, lift leg, slap. Throw glance, toss  head, push bangs, wail.  Flush face, cry tears, bend back, pull.

Lord almighty, stop!