1. We found a whole dollar in the creek! So we gave it a rinse and hung it out to dry.
2. My parsley is a pot of stalks today, because there were five Eastern Black Swallowtail caterpillars munching away at it all week, there are only two caterpillars left today, I wonder if they will turn into butterflies? I hope so.
3. Mushroom! I love spotting the mushrooms starting to pop up in our woods and this one has a little hole in the roof, I assume so the fairies can let the smoke out from their fireplace!
4. I have been trying to sketch objects more so that I get better at drawing. I watched a repeating pattern class on Skillshare, so I made a little pattern tile which repeats lemons!
5. I spotted this jumping little fella on the Hosta plant this week, I was happy that he sat still while I grabbed my phone and snapped a picture.
6. This weekend we went to the St Louis Swap Meet and snagged a few bargains! I got a wooden box for my recipe cards and recycled my daggy old plastic box! I didn’t buy the M or the bike though.
A fun week of photos! The weather was lovely last week, we had cool nights and mornings and not too hot days, this week sees a return to reality and the humidity which goes with late August/early September. Oh well, it was nice to have a little break and see a few cool nights. Autumn will soon be here with pumpkin coffee and apple pies!
Here is looking forward to a successful and creative week ahead, whatever you are up to, make it good!
Clare Davis Etheridge 
I love your photos, Clare. That caterpillar is so pretty, even if a little destructive. The weather is cooling down in Nanjing too, which is a great relief. Bring on autumn! Is pumpkin coffee a real thing? What is it?
A hole in the roof of a mushroom so the fairies can let out the smoke from their fireplace. Ah! SO cool. I like to think so too! When I was a little girl I did believe there were fairies in the garden. Did you ever hear the poem by the English poet, Rose Fyleman? I will post it here because it’s so sweet. I used to know it off by heart and try to find the fairies some evenings down in Mum’s secret dark corner of the garden.
THERE are fairies at the bottom of our garden!
It’s not so very, very far away;
You pass the gardener’s shed and you just keep straight ahead
I do so hope they’ve really come to stay.
There’s a little wood, with moss in it and beetles,
And a little stream that quietly runs through;
You wouldn’t think they’d dare to come merrymaking there–
Well, they do.
There are fairies at the bottom of our garden!
They often have a dance on summer nights;
The butterflies and bees make a lovely little breeze,
And the rabbits stand about and hold the lights.
Did you know that they could sit upon the moonbeams
And pick a little star to make a fan,
And dance away up there in the middle of the air?
Well, they can.
There are fairies at the bottom of our garden!
You cannot think how beautiful they are;
They all stand up and sing when the Fairy Queen and King
Come gently floating down upon their car.
The King is very proud and very handsome;
The Queen–now you can quess who that could be
(She’s a little girl all day, but at night she steals away)?
Well — it’s Me!
Love that poem, I used to believe in fairies too. The images of rabbits holding the lights and the king and queen arriving in a car to the fairy dance are so great! Thanks for sharing.
Pumpkin lattes are a thing in the autumn here, most likely started by Starbucks. I make my own pumpkin flavor as Starbucks is not my favorite.