Rounding out July

I hate licorice. When I got out of my car one day and caught a whiff of overwhelming licorice smells, I went off in search of the offending plant. Apparently my fennel in the back yard was invaded with caterpillars and the munched ends was giving off the licorice smell. I have never seen so many caterpillars in my life! There were at least 50 of them on this one plant. I initially thought they were monarchs, but they are actually swallowtail caterpillars. I scooped up a few in a mason jar so Wyatt could watch them cocoon and morph into butterflies.

 

***Spoiler alert- apparently my black thumb also applies to insects. I couldn’t manage to keep our caterpillars alive. We do have several outside that have formed their cocoons and I even spotted a swallowtail butterfly that already made its transition in the garden the other day.

In other random happenings, Wyatt and his cousins rigged up our unused fertilizer spreader to his little battery powered tractor. Even though it came with a trailer already, he prefers this and wants to haul stuff all over the yard for us.

I have been dying to make some homemade cannoli for a while. I finally gathered up the ingredients and made some pizzelle/cannoli hybrids and made the world’s best filling…if only it hadn’t been runny. I doubted the recipe that called for milk after the consistency was seemingly perfect. I should have gone with my gut and left it out. It was still good though, just messier.

I’ve been practicing with getting lighting and focus better on my iPhone since it’s obviously my main mode of capture for this blog. I love how this one turned out. I also love that it is making me pay more attention to the details in life. Little things like raindrops on big green leaves out the back door capture my attention now.

Finally, Justin and I managed to remember to get some of my old tennis stuff from Mama and Daddy’s house. We have been in this house for eight months and this is the first time it’s seen any tennis…if you can call it that. We were barefooted, Wyatt didn’t have any pants and was our ball chaser, and the court was wet from the recent rain but we had fun nonetheless. It looks pretty neglected but I think a coat of paint would make it look brand new.