Taken this morning…

The Crape Myrtle trees are looking lovely as of late!

The Bent Creek River Park is a teeny, tiny park on the side of a busy road. It boasts a sandy starting point for many kayakers and canoeists and also happens to have a few shady picnic tables that are popular around lunchtime.

We like to have picnics and hang out in the shade, balancing on lopsided benches, watching for thirsty butterflies, and pretending to fish with fallen tree branches. There’s also a short, narrow path that leads from under the traffic-heavy bridge (my least favorite part of the walk) to the entrance to the NC Arboretum.

It’s typically an uneventful little trek but this past time I was delighted to discover bunches of wild phlox in bloom on both sides of the path…

…while being led by a little girl who is curious, as always, about everything. What a gooseberry she is (she turns 5 next Tuesday!)

You just never know when you’re going to stumble on a pretty sight!

We have seen so many swallowtail butterflies this past week. A group of eight of them swirled around Harper after we startled them at their community drinking trough one day…of course I didn’t have a camera with me then.

(I love the smattering of blue on their wings!)

A dainty butterfly shadow for you…

Almost a rainbow of color…

I can’t recall what these tiny flowers are named but they have a nice little presence in the garden.

Our daylilies are on their way out now but they’ve added such a beautiful burst of color to the front garden these past few weeks.

The glads are still in full bloom, though – I love this combination of reds.

Our butterfly bush is very tall this year, which presents a problem for me since I’m *not* tall but the butterflies I want to photograph tend to settle on the top portion of the bush. By the way, have you ever really inspected the blooms on a butterfly bush before?

See what I mean? So many pretty colored petals all wrapped into one – and I love how it almost looks like they have a few crystals of sugar on them.

Speaking of inspecting, this little guy was sunning on the leaves of a lily when I interrupted him.

Finally, our milkweed has returned! This is good news for our Fall friends who will fluttering through the area in late August/early September.