I love it when something really interesting and unusual comes to me.  I just received a couple of photos taken by Joyce Rogers on West Shore Road.   

Joyce is expert at a lot of things, including growing flowers, but who knew she'd be a magnet for these lovely critters?  She found them in her garden across the road from their house, and she identified them as Swallowtail butterflies. 


It seems to me there are more butterflies around than usual this year, but I have never seen this many of any species all in one place.  Looks like some exotic flowering ground cover . . . !

We are expecting another round of electrical storms - I can hear thunder in the distance.  This morning our power was off and on half a dozen times, and we had a few minutes of pea-sized hail; and overnight we got 1.31 in. of rain.  At noon there were tornado watch alerts saying conditions will be right for tornado formation during the late afternoon into the evening, with dangerous electrical storms.


I've had the scanner on, and a house on Liberty Street in Barre was reported hit by lightning.  I haven't heard anything further, but I finally turned off the scanner because the power was so erratic I gave up working on the computer and left my office to do other things.  I'm about to leave again - I don't like thunder storms, and don't want to be on my computer, near a window, or on the phone during a storm.  Here are a few tips about staying safe in electrical storms.