[To see photos and stories of this prairie in other years, go to the links on the main 3 Finger Valley page.]
7/11/2003 This is the prairie’s second summer – we started to see some prairie flowers growing among the weeds.
7/27/2003 Lots of Fleabane blooming, but also Black-eyed Susan and Wild Rye.
7/27/2003
By the end of the summer I found 26 prairie species growing – out of the 109 that we planted.
One of the weedy natives that is common in 3 Finger Valley is Stinging Nettle (Urtica dioica). In the middle of the summer I found hundreds of Milberts Tortoiseshell caterpillars all over the Stinging Nettle. They are one of several butterfly species whose caterpillars eat nettle leaves.
7/11/2003 Here are some of the caterpillars. They crawled all over the leaves and each other, and completely defoliated many of the plants.
Later in the summer we saw dozens of Milbert’s Tortoiseshell butterflies. Here’s one on the driveway.
10/10/2003 after mowing
10/10/2003
10/24/2003 We worked on clearing some brush and trees from Hidden Oaks Point
10/24/2003
10/27/2003 One of the brush piles
12/28/2003
