Gardening, computers, electronics and sailing (not necessarily in that order)
A quick picture of a monarch chrysalis taken three or four hours before the butterfly emerged. Was trying to get a timelapse video of it with a Raspberry Pi and 5 megapixel Pi camera but the time between frames was too short and the lighting wasn’t really adequate either. Looking into either getting the new 8 megapixel Pi cam or trying to set up my Pentax K-01 next time.
First monarch caterpillar of 2016 spotted on March 15th! Note the frass on the leaf pointing away from the camera, as well as the damage to the leaf pointing towards the camera and one of the flower buds. If you’re looking for caterpillars both are good indicators that at least one is nearby.
Was running late to brunch one day and came across a juvenile black racer hanging out around three feet up a stalk of goldenrod.
Wasn’t sure what type of snake it was until I looked it up because the coloration is so different from an adult. Guess he was just trying to grab some brunch as well. Click on the image for the full size version.
It turns out the two scraggly types of vines hanging on the fence in the back yard are actually Florida natives.
The other plant in the mini butterfly garden out front is some type of goldenrod. Nailing down the exact species is proving difficult as the various identification guides are inconclusive. For instance, if you click on the photo for a larger version you’ll notice it already has buds but the leaves don’t match early goldenrod (S. juncea.) On the other hand, it seems like it’s blooming too early to be a downy or downy ragged goldenrod (S. petiolaris). To make things even more confusing, goldenrods hybridize readily. Hopefully as it matures the blooming period and height should make identification possible.
So what do I do after working on computers all day? Upgrade the one at home of course. Went from an AMD Phenom II 920 CPU to an FX-6300, upgraded the RAM from 6Gb of DDR2 to 8Gb of DDR3 and swapped the Biostar TA790GX3 A2+ motherboard for a TA990FXE. Gained .2-.4 points in the Windows Experience Index categories; not a huge bump but the extra RAM and CPU cores should help. Plus who could resist a $60 990FX chipset motherboard on eBay? Anyway, not top of the line by any stretch but should give several years of good service.
Continue reading “Hardware refresh”
The beds in front of the house have needed a redo for a while now. Initially planted with exotics in some very poor soil, the goal is to replace everything with a mostly native garden to attract some wildlife. Thanks to the helpful people at Sweet Bay Nursery in Parrish the garden has a few more new plants.
Starting in the front, the two plants to the right are spotted bee balm or horsemint, Monarda punctata. It provides nectar and pollen for bees, nectar for butterflies and it’s also a larval host plant for a few species of sphinx moths. There’s mention of some butterflies using it as a larval host plant as well but I couldn’t find anything definite.
Continue reading “Going native”
