Georgia Butterflies & Blooms in the Briar Patch habitat friend, Jeff Zablow and his happy sidekick, Petra taking a moment to enjoy the day. (photo by Virginia C. Linch)

We’re back from our 9 days in Spring 2016, in Georgia! Petra came along on this one. She loves long drives, and finds each and every rest station stop equally, exciting! That’s 685 or so miles to Eatonton and 685 miles home again to Pittsburgh. She travels well.

We found the Butterflies & Blooms Briar Patch electrifying, with thousands of butterfly attracting plants pushing up from the soil everywhere. Milkweeds, Paw Paw, Hercules Club, Wafer Ash, Passion Flowers, Fennels, Parsleys, Plantains . . . . all very serious, striving to get ready for the butterflies that they will beckon forward, sometimes from many miles away.

Petra watched appreciatively as volunteers from Ritz Carlton pitched in to to erect a handsome canopy for the April 23rd Earth Day events. From what I hear, it was a Big success.

I slipped away a few days before, to met Phil and his family at Panola Mountain State Park. Panola Mountain is just east of Atlanta. We set out to find Juniper Hairstreaks on rocky granite outcrops, and we did! A lifer for me, these tiny winged beauties are Oh! so pleasing to the eye. Add to that, a rare Lichen grasshopper, and a spider so rare that it lacks a name!

Images will (we hope) follow. Israel, Georgia, and planned trips to Maryland and New York. Virginia’s western mountains? Possibly. The Keys? A man (and his Black Russian pup) can/do dream . . .

Jeff