Praying Mantis

While harvesting green beans today, I had a little company -- in the form of a brown praying mantis.

We've had Cabbage Whites, Yellow Swallow Tails, Great Spangled Fritillaries, and Giant Swallow Tails -- but today we saw our first Monarch of this season.  [Love hearing the Cicada on this audio.]

Skunk

Last night as I got home around 9 pm we had a surprise visitor in the back yard.  I snapped on the flood-light and shot this video (Sorry it's shaky -- there were obstacles to step over.)  

We haven't seen a skunk in over a year, and it was nice to see it clearing some grubs out of the lawn.  About 2 hours later you could tell the skunk had sprayed -- guess someone else got a surprise too.