Edibles

This summer I’ve been surprised by parts of veggies that I had not realized were edible previously ---- and I’m sure that are probably more surprises to come. Here’s the list to date.

Garlic scapes. These were in one of the early CSA shares. They are cut from the top of the plant in the spring so that the garlic bulbs will form better. There is a small window when they are available but are a short term seasonal treat.  Their general curling form appeals to me too!

Sweet potato leaves and stems. It had never occurred to me that the sweet potato leaves were edible when I made my small harvest in the past. They are good in salads and stir fries (and probably soups too). I even chop up the stems. At first I thought the stems would be too tough for salads but they are no tougher that fresh green beans. Again - the CSA share was my first exposure to the ‘new food.’

Carrot tops. Most of the carrots I buy are already sliced or peeled…their tops long gone. This year I have a few carrots in my own deck garden and the CSA share has provided carrots with their green tops. I had no idea that the fresh tops tasted like parsley (probably with similar nutrition)….until I went to a lecture on food preservation. Now I manage to use some of the tops fresh in salads and then put the rest in the smoothie maker with water to create slurry to freeze in an ice cube tray; they’ll add a fresh green to soups this winter!

Now I’m wondering what else I am putting in the compost pile that should really be part of dinner instead….

3 Free eBooks - September 2014

It’s time again for the monthly post about eBooks that are freely available on the Internet. The three below are my favorites for September 2014.

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Calvert, Albert Frederick. Southern Spain - Painted by Trevor Haddon. London: A&C Black. 1908. Available from the Internet Archive here. I particularly liked the images of courtyards….beautiful outdoor spaces.

Moore, Frederic. The Lepidoptera of Ceylon. London: L. Reeve & Co. 1890. Three volumes from the Internet Archive: one, two, three.  The author was very active in India as well. I’ve looked at all the volumes for Ceylon and have started the ones for India. I wonder how many of the species still exist?

Brown, Leanne. Good and Cheap: Eat Well on $4/Day. New York. 2014. Available from the author’s website. You’ll get hungry just looking at recipes in this book!  I got caught on the first one (tomato scrambled eggs)…made it for lunch before I finished the rest of the book!

Enjoy some wonderful images (and some good food ideas)!

Gleanings of the Week Ending September 20, 2014

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Comprehensive recommendations on care of women at menopause, beyond - From The North American Menopause Society (NAMS). The recommendations are available on the web here; it is well organized and in clear language. What a good reference!

What to Do in Shenandoah National Park Now: Take a Hike into the Landscape - Maybe we should take a day trip!  Shenandoah is the closest national park to where we live in Maryland.

Some great statistics - From Richard Watson…about some worldwide trends - presented as an infographic.

Fracking: Gas leaks from faulty wells linked to contamination in some groundwater - Highlighting the need to improve well integrity, the study showed that where contamination has occurred it was caused by poor casing and cementing in the wells.  Does that mean that the company responsible for the casing and cementing is liable for damages?

NASA Mars spacecraft ready for Sept. 21 orbit insertion - We were in Florida last fall for the MAVEN spacecraft launch…and now is about to enter into Martian orbit!

Top 25 Wild Bird Photographs of the Week #72 - I always enjoy the wild bird photograph posts from The Wild Bird Trust. In other bird-related news - there is new research just published: Bird Diversity Drops from Forests to Farms.

U.N. Predicts New Global Population Boom - The human population on Earth could hit 12 billon by 2100 (not taking into account the effects of climate change, food shortages, disease or conflict). Previously it had been widely assumed that the population would flatten around 2050.

How salt causes buildings to crumble - There are so many ways!

Tree rings used to determine history of geological features, arroyos - This blurb caught my eye because of a recent volunteer naturalist training about using tree rings for looking at climate change from 1400 to now. This is a detailed study of the arroyos in northern New Mexico using burial dates in tree rings of salt cedar and willow.

Jaime Lerner’s Urban Acupuncture - A thought provoking book review. What makes good urban life? 24 hour groceries and delicatessens? Open air markets? Music? What kind of parks, plazas, and square work best? The book is available from Amazon.

Favorite Snacks

Favorite snacks come and go. I took stock this week of what I am eating as ‘mini-meals’ between the three majors. These are all very easy prep and not too high in calories…generally high in nutrition too.

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Carrot chips and hummus. At one time I thought I would make my own hummus, but my grocery story has their own brand of hummus that is reasonably priced. My favorite seasonings are roasted garlic, roasted red pepper, and lemon/dill. My grocery also stocks carrot chips so I buy them when I don’t have a big supply of carrots from the CSA. This snack works very well as a component of a picnic lunch as well!

Smoothie. As the weather gets cooler this one might come off my list but on warm days it is a favorite. This morning it included some frozen watermelon, frozen lemon wedges and sweet potato leaves.

Fruit. I always try to have seasonal fresh fruit on hand. Earlier this month peaches were at the top of the list. Now I have some nectarines and oranges….and lots of apples.

Popcorn. Since I bought the Nordic Ware bowl for popping corn in the microwave, this is again on the ‘healthy’ snack list. I use pumpkinseed oil or lemon infused olive oil on it rather than butter.

Kale chips. This snack is the one that requires the most prep. I cook a lot at one time and store the chips in a plastic container. I keep thinking that they will last a week or so but I always eat them faster than I anticipate. My favorite seasoning is salt….somehow it just seems right for ‘chips.’

How will things change for when it is colder? I’ll have to decide and then stock the ingredients. Snacking wisely requires some planning ahead!

CSA Week 15

Week 15 of the Gorman Produce Farm CSA - it’s another week of great food!

There is a little bow wave of garlic, potatoes, and winter squash from previous weeks - but those foods keep for weeks and months. I did make a fabulous custard with leftover baked butternut squash this past week; mixed up in the smoothie maker with just a little honey, baked into a light consistency custard, and then drizzled with maple syrup just before being eaten. Yum! I’ve also enjoyed the small purple potatoes in stir fries (only 2 at a time to not get too overwhelmed with calories. We made a bit batch of spaghetti sauce to have made good use of some frozen tomato sauce I’d cooked when I was overwhelmed with tomatoes a few weeks ago.

The big surprise to me this week is that sweet potato leaves are edible!  Evidently they can be used raw or cooked.  I’ve going to try them both ways and, if I like them, go ahead and cut the leaves from the sweet potato on my deck to enjoy; supposedly it is a good thing to do a few weeks before the sweet potato harvest.

I traded the poblano pepper for an additional bundle of Dinosaur Kale since I enjoy kale chips so much.

Notice that I got all yellow tomatoes too!  They’ll look beautiful with the red leafed lettuce.

Note that I’m using my own bags rather than bringing any plastic produce bags into the house. It feels good to avoid items that will become trash (or recycle if they stay clean).

Chaos Garden in September 2014

The chaos garden has onions in bloom (I am letting them go to seed so there will be more next summer),

Cone flowers going to seed (more flowers for next year’s garden), the new rosemary growing tall, lemon balm coming back from old roots, and so many other plants that have found their way to the patch.

But I spent the most time photographing a red spotted purple butterfly posing near the hydrangea. It posed on a leave near the hydrangea for several minutes - tired from an afternoon of cool breezes, opening and closing its wings, moving its proboscis.

After it fluttered away I noticed how much the news leaves on the hydrangea had been browsed by the deer even at this time of year when there should be plenty of other food for them.

Rhythm of Days

School and then my career set the rhythm for most of my days for almost 60 years! The clock was a driver for when I got up in the morning…when I left home…when I did things all during the day…when I got home. It was quite an adjustment when that ended. What would the new anchors be? Did I want to rejoice in wild variety every day? It took me over a year to settle into the rhythm that fits me best (for now). The ‘anchors’ are very basic: sleeping and eating!  I re-discovered very quickly that sleeping and eating at about the same times every day made is easier for me to feel healthy and ready for just about anything I wanted to do for the other times of the day.

Waking up. I don’t use an alarm clock any more (unless I have to get to the airport really early) but I am definitely a morning person. My rule is that if I wake up and it’s after 5 AM - I get up. Usually that happens between 5 and 6. I am dressed and going down for breakfast within about 30 minutes. The house is generally very quiet while I eat my breakfast and read…another 30 minutes.

Morning activity 1. There is a lot of variety in the activities during the day….but not so much the first one. Usually it is at the computer - meal planning, starting online coursework, checking news headlines, responding to email. Groceries stores open early enough that sometimes the weekly grocery shopping gets done in this time….or I may leave for a volunteer gig.

Snack. Since I don’t eat a big breakfast, I almost always have a snack between 9 and 10….a piece of fruit is probably my favorite.

Morning activity 2. The activity times before and after lunch seem to be the most variable of the day - house cleaning, gardening, volunteer gig, course work, reading or writing, or exercise.  I do a lot at the computer but it is not sedentary time - I bounce and lean on my Swopper chair all the time I am in front of the computer.

Lunch is always around 11:30. I am realizing that I rarely cook involved meals. A big salad, stir fry or soup are all quick meals if all the ingredients are already in the kitchen!

Afternoon activity 1. Add to the list of morning activities the possibility of a nap. This is the time slot if I take a nap…not a frequent occurrence but it does happen.

Snack. Hummus and carrot chips about 3PM - yummy and it fuels my afternoon.

Afternoon activity 2. In the winter time this may be the best time for outdoors exercise to catch the best warmth of the day.

Dinner. I like dinner between 5:30 and 6. It’s early enough that most of the year we have sunlight to see food we are cooking on the gas grill.

Evening activity 1. I am always trying to finish the blog for the next day or the videos for a course during this activity period….so it is usually in front of the computer again.

Reading/going to sleep.  Reading is my way of winding down for the day. Sometimes I can tell my metabolism is slowing down and I wrap myself in a small blanket to be warm and comfy in the easy chair…and then about 10 I am sleepy enough to go to bed.

One of things I’ve gotten better about over the past few years is preserving the basic “wakeup --> snack --> lunch --> snack --> dinner --> sleep” rhythm even when I am traveling. It takes planning but is well worth the effort to sustain the good way I feel physically at home when I am away.

Zooming - September 2014

Late summer and early fall is a time of transition…lots of changes to capture in photos. There are seed pods

And seeds.

Insects going about the business of feeding,

Mating and growing large enough to move to the phase of their life to overwinter.

The birds are through their nesting and getting ready for migration. There was a bright yellow mold that emerged from a knot in our deck railing after a rain.

And - last but not least in this collection of zoomed images - the bright colors of flowers and chard stems.

HC Conservancy - September 2014

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I took a walk around the Howard County Conservancy’s Mt. Pleasant farm before a volunteer naturalist training session last week. The walk around the meadow started out cloudy and the temperature was near perfect. I took a picture of the dogwood just beginning to turn to fall colors along the drive to the farm house as I walked from the parking lot.

The sculpture of the owl in the natural play area for children is taking on a darker patina as is weathers.

I took lots of milkweed pictures; the pods are maturing and beginning to split…and lots of milkweed bugs.

The meadow has some fall blooms. Purple is a popular color (thistles and ironweeds and poke weed)

But yellow of goldenrods are overwhelming.

There was a cut up tree trunk along the stone fence that had quite an assortment of shelf fungus.

Along that same stone fence were two snake skins - one hanging from a tree that seemed to be growing roots into its own trunk and another along a tree branch.

A tidy nest was visible in the very young tree - probably fresh from this summer but now abandoned.

And last but not least - a huge caterpillar of a cecropia moth! I’m glad one of my fellow hikers spotted it!

Gleanings of the Week Ending September 13, 2014

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

The Chemicals behind the Colors of Autumn Leaves - I couldn’t resist including the link to this post about the colors of fall - from a chemistry perspective.

Smithsonian’s Wilderness Forever Photo Contest - A collection of photographs celebrating 50 years of the Wilderness Act.

Doctors Discover a Woman with No Cerebellum - Wow! Evidently there are some other documented cases of this…but not well studied in a living person.

Scientists discover how to 'switch off' autoimmune diseases - Another step forward in systems biology to understand and then treat the root cause of a disease rather than treatment based on symptom relief.. Until recently it was not even possible to gain the understanding. Is this type of treatment going to become the future of medicine?

New Database of Food Policy Resources - From the Johns Hopkins Center for Livable Future.

New digital map reveals stunning hidden archaeology of Stonehenge - And we thought we knew everything that was there….what a difference applying new technology makes!

This Animated Field Guide to North American Butterflies Is Mesmerizing - Expand the graphic and just look at it! How many do your recognize?

It's the pits: Ancient peach stones offer clues to fruit's origins - Using pits to track the domestication of peaches in China….7,500 years ago.

Who Really Declared War on Coal - It turns out that China’s GDP decoupled from coal consumption in the 2008-2010 time frame. It’s a very good thing for China that it can continue to grow even while improving their air quality by moving to other kinds of energy production.

Bacteria from bees possible alternative to antibiotics - 13 lactic acid bacteria are found in fresh honey and they produce many antimicrobial compounds.

Great Falls of the Potomac - Part 2

Day before yesterday I posted about our visit to the Maryland side of Great Falls with a focus primarily on the water. Today my focus shifts to plants.

There are rocks on both sides of the boardwalk out to the viewing area for the falls. These rocks may have been scoured by the river at some point but it has been quite some time. Lichens are quite thick in many places and tiny leaves have found enough decayed rock and dust in some cracks to support their roots.

Mosses carpet some areas - usually a lower place in the rocks that holds water.

Taking a broader view of a side channel of the river that is still enough to reflect the rocks and small trees - the size of the trees tells the tale of how long it has been since the last big flood along this stretch of the river.

The water of the C&O Canal bed is placid and it is late enough in the season that some of the grasses are heavy with seeds. Do you see the moth resting on the top of this one?

Jewel weed is still blooming. It is interesting that the plant was used to sooth poison ivy but often grows in the midst of the itch producing bane of summer for many.

CSA Week 14

On the morning before the pickup of the week 14 share, I had a few things left.

  • I made a slurry of carrot tops and poured it into an ice cubes tray. The cubes will go into soup makings this fall.
  • The butternut squash was something I completely forgot about. I decided to cook it for dinner; I’m sure I’ll have left overs to use in soup…or maybe I’ll make a small honey laced custard.

The week 14 share was very colorful: 2 pounds of tomatoes (I got yellow ones!), 2 snack peppers, 2 Japanese eggplant, 1 bunch of Swiss chard, 1 bunch parsley, 1 head Napa cabbage, 1 head lettuce, 1 pound of green beans and an acorn squash.

What a wonderful amount of color! The stems of the Swiss chard are my favorite.

The oranges and yellows of the peppers and tomatoes say ‘summer’ - maybe even more than the traditional red tomatoes (that I have from my own plants on my deck).

And the purple of the eggplant nestled in the greens of beans, lettuce, cabbage and chard leaves - the deepness of the color always surprises me.

I’m thinking stir fry (chard, green beans, cabbage…garlic and onions from earlier weeks), salad (tomatoes, lettuce, cabbage, peppers, green beans, a little parsley). I am already planning for the parsley to be processed into a slurry and frozen like the carrot tops; I don’t want to go over the top on vitamin K!

Great Falls of the Potomac - Part 1

The Maryland side of the Great Falls of the Potomac are part of the C&O Canal National Historic Park. It was our Labor Day outing this year. Quite a lot of people had the same idea. The parking lot was already half full of cars and there were joggers and walkers - people on their own, couples, groups, families. Starting out the path between the canal and river shows the slower, shallow edge of the river through rocks.

I noticed a tree growing on what looked like solid rock.

The roots cling to each nook and cranny in the rock. Even in the zoomed view below it does not appear that there is much soil.

And then we get to the end of the boardwalk that lifts us over the side channel and over the last rocky ridge to the make falls. The rocks here are scoured bare by water.

To give you a sense of scale - the picture below shows the platform for visitors to view the falls from the Virginia side of the river.

Even with the scouring of the water, there is an algae film visible on some rocks.

When I looked more carefully at one of them I noticed a large pothole had formed. The water level on Labor Day was not high enough to scour it….but the water must get high frequently enough to form it. I’ll look for it every time I go from now on!

The Cat Massage

Cats sometimes hold themselves aloof - walking away when someone calls their name, refusing to make eye contact. They often decide that they are suddenly tired of what had previously been their favorite cat food or treat. But our cats love a good massage!  They lose all dignity and simply enjoy being pampered.  At other times I often wonder what they are thinking. Their reaction to the massage makes their thoughts of the moment obvious.

Then the interlude is over. They decide to end it all by extended their claws - taking a swipe - and walking away.

My Nvidia Shield Tablet - Part 2

I’m continuing today with my initial experiences with my Nvidia Shield Tablet (part 1 was posted yesterday)

The first two apps I used were the Kindle and OurGroceries. There were a couple of library eBooks I had checked out and I downloaded them from the cloud along with eBooks I had purchased. The OurGroceries required authorization from the owner email (which is mine) so that was quickly done and the current grocery list appeared. I didn’t have a case yet for the tablet so I would not be actually shopping with it until the case arrived (as you can see from yesterday’s picture I has arrived now so I am totally weaned from the Kindle at this point).

My next experiment was the camera. It won’t replace my camera - but it did reasonably well with the zinnia at dusk!

iNaturalist was the most substantial learning curve so far. The app is being used for a BioBlitz the Howard County Conservancy is doing in a few weeks at Belmont. We had a training session last week complete with some field time. I learned:

Glare is a problem

How to zoom effectively with the camera

The nuances of the app itself (collecting observations and getting them connected to a project)

Realizing that I was going to be busy assisting the 10 students I’ll have in my group rather than making observations myself!

My most recent app loaded was Cronometer. I’ve use the web site on my PC for the past year or so when I want to take off a few pounds (it was about 10 pounds in summer 2013, right now it is about 3 pounds). Now that it is loaded on my tablet I can tweak the food list for the day from the tablet or the PC!

I’m very pleased with the tablet so far. I’ll plan another post in October since I’ll have some travel experience with the tablet by then.

My Nvidia Shield Tablet - Part 1

My Nvidia Shield Tablet arrived just two weeks ago. It is replacing my Kindle Fire which I have used for the past three years: reading eBooks and recording my grocery list….checking email when traveling. The tablet will be used for those same things plus more. So - what convinced me that it was time to replace the Kindle? Here’s my list of the advantages of the tablet that convinced me:

  • Larger, higher resolution screen - less weight
  • Complete version of Android rather than a subset
  • Ability to look at pictures recorded on my camera (via external cable)

The weight difference is not much - 1 ounce less for the tablet - but that, in conjunction with the larger screen was important to me. If it had been heavier, I probably would not have made the decision to replace the Kindle.

Loading Android apps onto the Kindle was always problematic because it did not have a complete implementation of Android. I’m glad the Our Groceries app worked but several apps designed for conferences did not. So - the tablet’s complete version of Android is important to me.

The ability to look at pictures recorded on my camera means that I might be able to forego taking my laptop with me when I travel. In the past I’ve always taken the laptop so that I could review all the images I captured at the end of each day rather than wait until I got home. The tablet screen is not as large as my laptop but it is certainly larger than the camera’s display….and it may be enough for the initial review.

I’ll post my initial set up experiences for the Nvidia Shield Tablet tomorrow.

If you want to look back at my experiences when I first got the Kindle Fire follow these links: week 1, week 2, week 3, 8 months. My Kindle is going to another person that will use it for eBooks only!

Gleanings of the Week Ending September 6, 2014

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Training your brain to prefer healthy foods - Research on people that participated in a weight loss program. It appears that the program changes what foods are tempting to people (based on MRI analysis)…toward healthier diet. Of course, even if this is true there is an uphill battle with all the media pushing food that is not healthy (low nutritional value). Has our culture (the media, social interactions, vending machines, etc.) been training our brains to eat poorly?

Who Should Rule These Scottish Islands? - The intricacies of politics in Orkney….desiring greater autonomy.

Growing mushrooms in diapers - Mexican scientists are designing technology (and running small scale proof-of-concept trials) to degrade disposable diapers. Mexico is the third largest consumer of disposable diapers globally but worldwide there must be a huge number of diapers going to landfills. They will not be a simple to recycle as glass or plastic jugs or milk cartons….but anything that is still a major component going to landfills needs to be considered for re-processing rather than burying. Making it economically feasible is a challenge.

Why Doesn’t Honey Spoil? – The Chemistry of Honey - An infographic and article. It’s antibiotic properties are due to its low water content and pH….details in the article.

Brown marmorated stink bug biology, management options - It seems like there are a few of them around all the time now and sometimes there is a marked increase in their numbers…even inside the house.  The full article is available from here.

Humiliation tops list of mistreatment toward med students - It is not just med students….this happens to other grad students too. There is a significant amount of institutional hazing of students if they choose to continue beyond their undergraduate studies in academia.

Exposure of pregnant women to certain phenols may disrupt growth of boys during fetal development and first years of life - Scary result. Are OB/GYNs educating their patients about these results? There are still some products with parabens and triclosan which could be avoided. Even though more research needs to be done, most women would err on the side of caution during their pregnancy and after the child is born too…if they were provided the information.

Housing America’s Older Adults - From the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University and AARP Foundation.  The housing needs of the US population are changing faster than the available housing can change.

Top 10 Solar Energy States per Capita (US) - The full report (downloadable via a link at the bottom of this article) has data for other states. The top 10 have a lot higher

Exceptionally well preserved insect fossils from the Rhône Valley found - An aquatic bug that would have thrived in brackish water.

Coursera Experience - September 2014

September is going to be a lull in terms of Coursera courses. For most of the weeks I will only have one or two courses. That is probably a good thing since I am attending classroom-based volunteer naturalist training during the month as well.  There is no shortage of learning opportunities!

The Globalization and Social Psychology courses are ended…although there is still some reading to do. Both of them were among the more thought provoking classes I’ve taken.

The Camera Never Lies is providing another insight into history and historians. I’ve appreciated the lectures which have included interviews with history grad students. I have considerable reading and video to view for this course as well.

The Symmetry course has been enlightening on several levels. I particularly enjoyed the references to tiling. The segment of the course that focuses on crystals is just starting and I expect it will be as challenging as the Systems Biology or Volcano courses earlier this year.

I am looking forward to the American Poetry course starting soon and am anticipating that I’ll be celebrating how different it is than courses I have been taking recently.

October is going to be overwhelming. There are 4 courses I added to my list….and now that I am looking at the list again, I still want to take all of them!

CSA - Week 13

Wow - the warm days are flying by! We are in in week 13 of our CSA’s season. I don’t have much left from week 12: half a jalapeno pepper (which I will use in a stir fry tonight), garlic, and potatoes. The last two will last for a long time so I’m not worked about any waist.

I discovered that I like carrot tops both as an added green in salads and in stir fries. They are not as strong tasting as parsley more a bit more than spinach. Since carrots were included in the share again this week, I checked the tops as much as the carrots!

The small purple potatoes are being savors two or three at a time - diced and used in stir fry. It’s a great color addition to already colorful food.

I managed to get to the CSA pick up early enough to get some yellow tomatoes! Four pounds is a lot of tomatoes and I ended up getting red ones too. And then there were the roma and mountain magic tomatoes too. My plan is to eat the yellows ones sliced for a snack (maybe with dabs of garlic hummus), the mountain magic in salads, and the rest as tomato soup or sauce that I may end up freezing.

Hurray for the inclusion of pac choi again! It was in a share early on but it’s been too long. I like it it both stir fry and salads. The kale will work well in the same things….and I can’t resist making kale chips again.

Butternut squash is one of my favorites too. I usually just prick the skin and put it in the over for an hour….then cut it after it is already cooked (i.e. soft) and scoop out the seeds. If I have enough left over, I might make butternut squash custard (using the pumpkin custard recipe).

This is going to be another great week of good eating.

Tiger Swallowtail - 2014

There have not been as many butterflies in our area this summer so I was delighted to photography two enjoying my deck garden in August and this week. In August, the butterfly weed and marigolds were the big attraction. Note how battered the edges of the wings look in this view of the feeding insect (with the butterfly pot decoration overhead).

I’m always surprised at how hairy the area where the winds and body overlap looks…at the powdery blue…at the delicacy of the whole wing.

From the side, the body looks robust compared to the legs and the proboscis. This insect spent quite a lot of time with the marigolds - so maybe the flowers will produce a lot of seeds.

This week the draw for the tiger swallowtail was the zinnias. When the wings are held vertically they are folded a little as well. Their ribs show more.

It was a breezy day so the insect would flatten itself to maintain its stance on the flower. The wings look very symmetrical when they are fully extended.

Notice that the edges of the wing are battered in this one too. This butterfly spent quite a long time at with the zinnia - flying away for a few seconds and then returning - and I’ll keep the seeds that develop over the next few weeks.