Stinging Caterpillars!

I found 5 of these saddleback caterpillars, Sibine stimulea on my Zebrine Banana on Sunday. They will sting you real good, just ask Meg. Meg sat on one once and another time touched one on Eastern Redbud by mistake. I have found them here on redbud several times, it grows like a weed here. Those horns have a venom and the pain can last for days so please stay clear of them when ever possible. These are about 3/4 inches long BTY.

This Saddleback Caterpillar is covered in wasp larva! Doubt it will live long enough to become a moth.

Below is an Gray Hairstreak butterfly on cantaloupe blossoms from our garden. I had the tiny camera one half inch from it for 3-4 minutes to get this photo, sometimes they do pose for you, it never flew off either.

Black Swallowtail news from Meg's Classroom. The 19 Black Swallowtail cats taken in are now 16 chrysalises and two of the eggs that hatched are still cats. She has 16 children in the class so one butterfly for each child to release back into nature.

Durham Farmers Market

Over the years the Durham Farmers Market has grown quite a bit. Every year seems better and busier than the last. I visited it today at 10am a bit late but still a lot of goodies to be had.  Anyway I wanted to share some photos I took at the market today.

Above is Bluebird Meadows. That is Stuart in the front and Alice in the back. I read their blog and it is in my side bar. They had as usual an amazing display. I see them fairly often as they are living at the bottom of our road while the house on their farm is being built. Below is a close up of some of the produce at the Bluebird Meadows Booth.

Another local farm we buy from is Tim and Hilga's Four Leaf Farm which is down the street only a 1/3 mile from here. Some of those peppers are right now in our fridge!

Here is a display from another booth of squash, okra, beans and cherry tomatoes. Will be eating some of those squash and cucumbers not shown in this photo.

Just when you think tomatoes are about gone!

Getting as photo of this corn from Brinkley Farms was dangerous. The corn was moving quick. One of the main reasons I like going to the farmers markets is you just can not get fresh corn like this at the grocery store.

Good old North Carolina peaches! No Georgia or South Carolina peaches here, the market requires all produce to be local produce.

Now from our garden

We now have gourds! There are 4 of these 4 inch (so far) gourds and 4 more of the small ones like in the lower center of the photo.

Our Zebrine Banana tree is still growing strong, now nearly as tall as me with leaves over 3 foot long (one meter).

Black Swallowtail news! Megs classroom as of Thursday had 12 chrysalis from Wednesday and Thursday and continues to have more babies from the fennel cutting she is bringing in. Needless to say the second graders all of them are watching with both eyes open.

We are running out of fennel. Usually around here a good part of the caterpillars get eaten by wildlife such as Praying Mantises. I tend to not interfere as part of being a wildlife photographer is letting nature take its own course.