Bad News/Good News Tuesday

The bad news: A thunderstorm broke loose while I was halfway through my run this morning, and the sky lit up with lightning when I was just as far from home as my route takes me.

The good news: I ran my last mile in record time.

The bad news: Our third monarch caterpillar, like the others, made its chrysalis while I was at school, so I didn’t get to see it.

The good news: Awesome husband, who works nights, saw the caterpillar shedding its skin and ran for his camera to shoot video for me.
"I thought you might want to put it on your blog thing," he said. He caught the last minute; you’ll see the caterpillar wiggling out of its old skin and then getting comfortable in the chrysalis where it will be for the next couple weeks.

The bad news: Three caterpillars have now grown from tiny babies, eaten many times their body weight in milkweed, and formed chrysalides, and my line edits still aren’t done.

The good news: Just 44 pages to go.

August Visitors

We’ve had some colorful visitors stop by the house lately…

The monarch butterflies are loving my Echinacea.

And this little guy has made appearances on our beach twice this week…

It’s a mink, we think, a member of the weasel family.  Some of you may have read

‘s entries about the weaselly creature that showed up at her house a few weeks ago and looked a lot like a wolverine.  I think this may be a smaller, cuter, distant cousin.  He spent the afternoon frolicking up and down the shore, climbing into drainage pipes, and then playing peek-a-boo before jumping out again.  We’re trying to think of a name for him (or her).  Any suggestions?