We had an interesting visitor in our laundry room last week. Actually, I guess that would be TWO interesting visitors.
First, Rich found this giant, fleshy worm crawling across the floor. We took him outside to look at him better, and took pictures of him. He looked like a tomato horn-worm, only not that horrific bright green color that tomato worms are. Here he is next to Rich’s pinky finger, on his own, and with a hungry praying mantis eyeballing him. We put him in a tomato plant outside, in case he was some off-colored tomato worm after all, and forgot about him.
Just a little over a week later, we found the most amazing moth (could be a butterfly…) in the laundry room. This was by far the biggest moth I have ever seen – much larger than a sphinx moth (which we have lots of here). I didn’t ever measure him, but he was definitely in excess of 6 inches across. He hung around in the laundry room for several days, greeting (and scaring) us when we turned on the lights. I tried leaving the door open to the outside one day for a while, in hopes that he would go out, but he didn’t. He chose to make his final landing on a stack of clean washcloths that were on the dryer. He died there during the night. I was actually really sad that he died. It’s hard to see something beautiful die. You can see him on the top of the lefthand pile, on the green washcloth.
After he died, I placed him on an unknown Mammillaria, and took some more photos. He was iridescent in some places, and was very furry. I should have taken photos of him next to a ruler, but I didn’t think to.
I really couldn’t tell you whether or not the worm was one of this beautiful moth’s siblings, but it seems too much of a coincidence that 2 foreign animals turned up in the laundry room within a week of each other – animals that are directly related in such a way.
Just for fun, here is a video of the worm (caterpillar) crawling. I just loved the way he moved! He kind of ripples along. I WILL say that he was totally uncooperative when it came to trying to photograph his legs. He wouldn’t even let us get a LOOK at them!
Do any of you know what this caterpillar and/or moth are?
August 1 & 2, I took a short trip east to Paonia, Colorado to visit my friend Lynn on the farm where she has been working since April. Yes, it has taken me this long to get there, even though it’s only a 3 hour drive.
I had a great time, and got to see lots of new things, harvest lots of vegetables, watch goats being milked (by Lynn!), sleep in the lovely cool Paonia air, etc.
Lynn took me into Paonia, and we went to Revolution Brewery. The beer was good, but the highlight of the brewery for me was the lamb bratwurst I had. Lynn said everyone raves about them, so I had to try one. They are made with organically and humanely-raised local lamb, and it was AMAZING. They had a live musician, and the back porch was pretty cool. There were hops growing on a back fence. We sat on the back porch and had a beer or two. There was a friend of Lynn’s who was already there. Sorry Lynn’s friend…I am not great with names…Aaron?
Zephyros Farm is a certified organic farm, and it was interesting to learn about that, too. They water the plants with different mixtures of things (compost tea, fish meal, etc) none of which smell very good, apparently. The compost tea sure didn’t. The vegetables and flowers they are producing are some of the most beautiful I have seen, however.
Lynn told me that the flowers are one of the big cash crops for the farm. They sell them (and the vegetables, too) at various farmer’s markets around their region. These include markets in Aspen, Telluride, Durango, and more.
Being on the farm was a new experience for me. I have always been a gardener and grower of plants, but there is a HUGE difference between a small family garden, and a farm. I harvested a whole row of green beans (haricots verts), and yellow wax beans, and my legs where SORE. That’s actually pretty sad, considering it wasn’t that much work…but I have been pretty physically inactive.
I spent most of the time there following Lynn around, taking pictures, and wishing the light were better for said pictures. It was overcast, and it would drop some rain periodically. I am not sure the sun came out at all while I was there. I also spent a good deal of time eating delicious veggies. MMMMMM!
There were also some amazing bugs amongst the greenery. I think the red guy is a borer of some sort, but I don’t know what the yellow guy with the branches is.
There are goats, sheep, and some chickens around. I can’t remember the name of the chickens (Lynn, comment, please!!), but they are the chickens that lay blue eggs, and I got to try blue eggs for breakfast. They actually taste like fresh EGGS, not like grocery store eggs. They were great! I also got to watch Lynn milking the goats. That was interesting.
Lynn, thanks for everything! I hope that the photos will be usable for Donny and Daphne!
P.S. I am pretty sure goats are aliens.