Butterfly Garden

I would love to have a butterfly garden in my own backyard, but that’s not realistic since it’s so costly to have one, and space is an issue for me.  When I heard that Catawba Science Center were bringing the butterfly garden back this year I was so happy.  They have several local businesses that sponsored them, one being McDonald, and I think it was $10k to open this butterfly garden from May through September. Lee and I visited the garden in the middle of July, and I hope that we will have time to go back this month or September.

This one landed on Lee’s foot.

Photos were taken with 5DMkIII, Canon 24-105mm f/4L lens, and EF70-200mm f/4L USM lens.

Nesting Season

I’m not as discipline  in posting as I used to be, and it seems like I’m catching up in posting my photos.  Some of these photos were taken almost three weeks ago,  but I guess posting it late is better than never.

It’s nesting season for the birds in our area, this mother Robin built her nest in my Ivy patch on the lower right hand side.

The Ivy is beautiful, but it’s a nightmare when it does take off.  It’s also climbing the big tree in back of the garden.  I do want to save this big tree, and will have to remove the Ivy vines after the robin eggs hatched.

It’s a perfect spot for the nest, I just hope the mother Robin will get used to me gardening every evening.

My bok choy is flowering, I still have a few to harvest.

My blueberry bushes are flowering, this one I only see a few flowers.

And they are beautiful.

Another nest is in my front porch, and this one is a Dove. The mother Dove is not used to us going in and out of the house and she is easily scared.

I don’t know if it’s in the water, Bo’s Jack Dempsey laid another batch of eggs.  Bo had to rush about 40 mature Jack Dempsey to the pet shop before they eat all the eggs.

My sister’s lovebird also laid 3 tiny eggs, but we are not sure which one is the mother since she doesn’t sit on her eggs. As I was writing this post it darned on me that I didn’t take a picture of the eggs.

The Cherry blossoms were taken at my dad’s house about 2-3 weeks ago.

Crab apple blossoms

Pear blossom

I do miss Biltmore Estate tulips, and need to plant some in my garden.  My sister planted hers 2 years ago, and they come up every year.

Photos were taken with 5DMkIII, Canon 24-105mm f/4L lens , and EF70-200mm f/4L USM lens.

Visiting Linville Caverns

Since we were camping near Linville Caverns we decided to visit the cave on Saturday. It was a winding road heading up the mountain, and my 4wd Rav4 did very well for a small SUV.

My dad and I have visited a cave called Tum Jung in Vang Vieng Laos before, but this is our first time visiting a cave in the US.

Linville Caverns was opened for public touring in 1937. It was cold and dark inside the caverns. I didn’t have flash and had to shoot with high ISO 12800 inside the caverns.

This was once used as a fireplace.

We were not allowed to touch the rocks.  This is one of a few remaining active caverns, and the oil from our skin may cause damage to the rocks and prevent future growth.

The formation of the rocks look like a bride and groom.  It took me awhile to spot them, the groom was resting his head on the bride’s shoulder, hint lower right hand corner.

This part of the cave has a river underneath, and my dad was standing right on top of it.

We were allowed to touch this part of the cavern since they do not want the rocks to form anymore, and it’s very narrowed.  My dad touched the rock, and it was kind of slippery to the touch.  Also notice that the rocks turn grayish looking, the oil from our fingers must have changed the color.

This part is still active, and the rocks look quiet interesting.

The water drippings wet my camera, and I’m glad it’s waterproofing to some extend.

We saw 3 bats hanging at the cavern’s ceiling near the entrance.

I was surprised to see a big gift shop, my dad and sister were looking for souvenir items.

The homemade soaps were from my hometown, and I didn’t expect to see them in this part of town.

Outside my dad was admiring the mountain view, there’s no wolf in sight.

This is the reason why I don’t have many pictures of me.  Bo took this picture of Lee and I, and I had it set to auto focus for him. The background was focus, but not us.

I didn’t have my tripod and did the best I could to capture the slow moving of the water.

Lee was the only one that jumped for me, hopefully next time I’ll get all of them to jump.

All photos were taken with 5DMkIII, Canon 24-105mm f/4L lens.