The poppy and the bee

I feel much better today after some good food and a lot of sleep. I got up this morning did some chores and then went back to bed.

I was afraid I would miss these poppy blooms all together as the plants had blossoms before I left three weeks ago. I was so happy to see buds still hanging around. These are a variety of edible poppy seed plants and the blossoms are so pretty. This particular flower still had it's little green cap on this morning. I plucked the little green cover off and a beautiful wrinkle poppy awoke. When I came by next a honey bee had discovered it and was thoroughly  enjoying the pollen. I got my camera and got a number of nice photos of it. One is in the extra.
The other extra, clearly is of a couple monarch caterpillars. We have had almost no butterflies this year. My echinacea is usually covered with a variety of butterflies but none have been around. I will see what next week is like when it's sunnier.
Anyway, I decided to check out the big stand of milkweed out front and discovered these two big ones. They should be just about ready to head out and form their chrysalis. I did see a number of plants that had some big caterpillar poop on the leaves which leads me to believe there were a few more that hopefully have transitioned. So I couldn't pass up putting them in the extra.