Thursday's Tidbits

My usual Thursday post is actually on Friday today, but fate played a part becuase I snapped these fantasic photos this morning in what I call my "Irish Garden".  You see, I have fennel and rue planted in here among other plants, and these two plants are the most favorite feast of a very ugly green and black caterpillar.  They will eat my huge fennel plant clean in about 3 days.  However, despite the fact that they are so ugly and destroy my fennel and rue, I know that soon they will turn into a beautiful Swallowtail butterfly.  So I let them eat and eat, after all, I really don't need all those fennel seeds and most certainly not the rue.  Today when I went to check the mail, I noticed something fluttering about in the "Irish Garden" and upon investigating I found a few newly emerged Swallowtails.  I ran in to grab my camera and got these pictures to share.

A pupae on the fennel.

This one was on the back of my planter on the front porch.