I have been bad. I haven’t been taking care of the yard lately. I will say I have been too busy, but maybe it’s been being too lazy. I enjoy working on the yard, so I was glad to get out there this weekend and pull some weeds. When I started I came across a baby grasshopper, but had forgot to have my camera ready for that encounter. Luckily though a Praying Mantis also made an appearance. Winter is approaching, so not sure how many insects will stick around, but I will have my camera ready if they decide to visit.

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Every time we go into the garden store I see the praying mantis egg sacs in the refrigerator and I think that would be fun to do. Well then I finally did it. We bought two praying mantis egg sacs and I hung one in the front yard and one in the backyard. Last weekend while gardening I came across this Praying Mantis. Is it one of the hatched babies? I don’t know, she or he was definitely different then the mantis’ I have seen before, so maybe it is!

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Was out last week weeding the yard. Best way to see insect and I lucked out and had a Plume Moth visit me and a Katydid.

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This post is a couple months late. At the start of April, I started to see the insects coming out and the best time for me to really find insects is when I start to weed and trim the plants. Mid April, I did just that and came across two beautiful grasshoppers. It’s nice to have the warm weather back and it’s nice to have the insects back!

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One day I started to notice that one of our plants had a ton of Ladybugs. I was so excited, each day I would think “I need to get out there with my camera.” And then one day I did. It was a beautiful sunny day and I found a wonderful Ladybug to take a picture of. Then as I was taking the picture I noticed something move next to it. I looked closer and then noticed that there were hundreds of bugs all of the planet. I hadn’t even noticed them. They were Aphids and the Ladybug was having a feast. So instead of a nice portrait of a Ladybug, I ended up getting a Ladybug feasting on Aphids. I also included a Ladybug larvae and a fly that landed by me that day.

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This summer I took a road trip to Massachusetts. One of the stops was the Bridge of Flowers in Shelburne Falls. It was beautiful out that day and the insects were loving it.

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Our Kangaroo Paws seem to be the best plants we could have ever planted to attract a wide variety of insects. I usually can go out and just start looking through them and come across someone hanging out. Well on this day I got a treat of the cutest little baby Grasshopper and in the neighboring Kangaroo Paw an older Grasshopper, too.

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I love our yard. I especially enjoy our Kangaroo Paws. They seem to attract lots of insects and hummingbirds. It is most fun when it is time to cut off the dying paws, because then that’s when I end up finding lots of hidden visitors. This time I came across two Katydids, which is the first time I have seen them in our yard and one Praying Mantis.

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I have to post this, because it’s just too cool. Zoo York is releasing a line of skateboards that NYC artists have done their renditions of cockroaches on. They look really great. Check them out at Zoo York.

Luckily on this day I had brought my camera to work, because a beautiful Praying Mantis decided to hang out by our back door. She was quite interested in what I was doing and was a bit feisty. Here are some photos from that day.

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