This week I found a honkin' caterpillar hanging out on some grapevine in one of my forsythia bushes. It is a beautiful eumorpha pandorus sphinx. Here it has scrunched it's head up because it is rather annoyed. I think the third instar is kind of like caterpillar PMS, something is going on in it's body and it doesn't totally get it, but it's all moody and slightly pissed off in general. I've never had a caterpillar try and bite me, but this one did. I was out of fresh grapevine in the house and it wandered in the night. After almost a full day of looking for it, I found it on the underside of the tablecloth (I looked under the table at least six times already, how I missed it I have no idea) and as I was trying to put it on some fresh leaves it came after my finger with some pretty fierce mandibles. It got my fingernail and I could hear the scraping. So glad that wasn't my skin.
On a more gentle and predictible note, here is a very lovely monarch. I thought I remembered hearing a few years ago that they were harder to see these days (probably due to pesticides) so when I first saw it I thought it was one of those almost-monarch-looking butterflies. Nope, it's the real deal.
And, in the world of knitting... I've finally started the chevron scarf from the Purl knitting book. It is supposed to be 78" long, so maybe I'll be done by Christmas. It's made of the very lovely Koigu Premium Painter's Pallette Merino (KPPPM) in a blue and green. I am really liking the color changes.
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