Pipevine Swallowtail...

...otherwise known as Battus Philenor Hirsuta. I was very excited to look out the window this morning to see several of these somewhat drab black butterflies  enjoying the lantana which is still inexplicably blooming...inexplicable because it never stopped. The other half of this planting has been going dormant for a few weeks, but this lot stuck around long enough to host some of the first butterflies we've seen this year.

There was also a battle royale going on amongst the hummingbirds. There must have been five or six of them buzzing the feeder, each other and ME. If they are still active tomorrow I'll try to get some pictures of them. 

Dana and Jim came by this morning to pick up Blake who spent the night with us because they went to the Bottle Rock music festival yesterday. It was 95 degrees in Napa and nobody seemed to be wearing masks, but theoretically they were asking for proof of vaccination for entry. Not sure how that works when you have 40,000 people but they sent a selfie (in extras) and brought back a video they made with a phone of Jon Baptiste who always makes me smile. I didn't ask for that, but Here is a link to a video with his amazing energy.

It's mind boggling to think what one can do with a phone besides watch music videos or send pictures. The fever for clearing out stuff is apparently contagious because John has been unearthing old tax records, piles of papers that no longer have any relevance and a pair of giant headphones still in their original box. Now we listen to music on our phone which is wirelessly connected to a very small speaker or to airbuds. We added the headphones to the pile on the table in the garage. We also found several large Maglite flashlights which were added to the pile because we have an excellent flashlight on our phones. We check on the weather and the air quality. We Google the name of the star of  some obscure movie. We order food, or a hose, or a dog collar. The list goes on and on and I panic just thinking about what I would do if I lost this little device. I imagine most of the information on it is safely stored in the cloud, but whether I would ever be able to access it is another story....