We were gone for a few weeks (Paris and Geneva – I’ll post a story as soon as I get my photos organized) and now the prairies and the butterflies are into their summer glory.

My moths are beginning to hatch – a little later than they have in other years. The Polphemus moths all hatched last week. I’m taking care of Margot’s moths too, so for 3 of the days I had 9 moths emerge each day!

It’s really summer now – the leaves are thick and deep green. The weather has changed suddenly to warm and humid with big thunder clouds. We got almost 2 ½ inches of rain from the thunderstorms a few days ago.

I got a new camera this week – the new version of my old camera – a Lumix DMC-FZ50.   I like it a lot. I can get clearer, more detailed photos, and I think I’ll be able to get better pictures of butterflies without having to be as close to them.

We’ve been having lots of beautiful Indian summer days, but today winter has finally arrived. The temperature dropped steadily all day; there was a brisk northwest wind and periodic snow showers, alternating with sun shining through the clouds.

I finally took some photos of the main view of the farm – the one you see from the road. It’s too wide to take with one photo so I combined three photos into a panorama.

I’m getting behind in writing the blog again – there’s just too much going on.

There are so many things going on right now that I’m having trouble keeping up with the blog.

This weekend Emmet Judziewicz from the botany department at UW Stevens Point came to visit with two of his students. They were interested in seeing our bluff prairies and collecting plants for the herbarium. It was great fun – they loved the prairies and the scenery, and they collected lots of plants.

The flowers and birds are coming so fast that it’s hard to keep up. Every day there are new flowers in bloom and new birds returned. And there are endless projects.