Our learning never stops,or should I say it shouldn't!

Funny thing how even when we're not inside doing book work for school that we end up digging out books and learning something new anyway. Yesterday while we cleaned out flowerbeds we found a pupa( see third picture below, I still can't get them in order)
The photo in one of our Butterfly and Moth books tells us this pupa, which we uncovered from the soil, will be a Moth. Then we investigated into trying to determine which type of Moth. BTW, we think our pupa will look like the middle picture in the book; they are called Elephant Hawk moths. Of course I am having Cortney read all about moths and what their life cycles are, all about metamorphosis, what they feed on, who are their predators, etc... She's enthralled and doesn't even know this counts as Science/ Biology, LOL!

I wish this picture wasn't so blurry, but my battery was running low. It shows how we found this pupa, in the ground and the picture to the right is what a Hawk moth looks like. We see them often around our flowers. They flit about like a Hummingbird, from one flower to the next. The book states they are nocturnal, thus the reason we see them mainly in late afternoon and into the evening hours while sitting out on our back patio.

Here is the photo of the pupa( click the photo to enlarge), kinda looks like a piece of poo! It's alive because it moved in Cortney's hand, she thought it was so neat, didn't scream like a girl or anything, LOL! We've placed it in a container, in the same soil we found it in and Cortney will watch for it to blossom/ hatch/ spring forth.

Well, only one flowerbed left to clean out and we saved the worst for last. The rose bed, it's always such a pain, literally. It's amazing just how wicked those thorn bushes can be. Well it's done for another year and I guess you'd say we're gluttons for punishment, because we transplanted two smaller offshoots to our front walkway beds. BTW This rose was the only flower here when we moved in 6 yrs ago. It's a beautiful pink tea rose and the ONLY rose I've not killed. The window behind the rose bush is our bedroom window and when in bloom the smell wafts in through that window and makes the whole house smell wonderful.

Here is a pile of the dead canes as well as some I thinned out, it was getting to thick and out of control. I tried to get a close up of the canes, so you could see the nasty thorns, but it was blurred. Just take it from me, they are my worst nightmare, good thing the Lord made them so beautiful and smell so heavenly.

Today's list included:

Mowing orchard areas

Cleaning up leaves from the fence across front of garden in the yard side

Get clothes in off the line, folded and put away

Play in the greenhouse

Possibly rototill across the front( right of way) so we can get wildflower seed sown, provided I can get the tiller started

Reg. chores

I wish some of you were closer, we could share/exchange flowers, we thinned sun chokes, day lilies, mountain bluebells and still need to thin our Maximilian sunflower. I also have extra strawberries and Egyptian walking onions I hope to find a home for.

Share a little about what you all have been up to this Spring.