I love that color blue. It was popular 100 years ago I think, but you never see any glass items today made in that shade. I have a pressed glass crescent-shaped dish that is supposed to be a canoe, just like one my Grandma had that I always hoped to have one day. I found mine on ebay. Also I have a beautiful blown glass pitcher in the same shade of blue that my grandma gave to me. They're both treasures to me. I love your whole collection. Very pretty.

When I lived in suburbia, I felt incredible pressure to have a "good lawn" and zero "conventional weeds" anywhere, especially since I always had a lot less lawn, and many more flowers, than most houses. In neighborhoods where a good lawn is a priority, the paltry amount it costs for a service might be worthwhile in terms of the property not being labeled as "needs new sod" at the point one might want to sell later, especially if it is a very large lawn. When we lived in a golf course community, of course you're supposed to have a good lawn. I mean it's in the HOA. I'm sure there are a lot of plants I don't want about which others would rhapsodize, with much more traditionally pretty flowers. Just trying to encourage people to think for themselves and make their own decisions if they've found themselves at some point wondering why they're paying or spending time to get rid of plants they do like, or why it's "necessary" to only have grass in the mowed areas. There may be an objectively valid reason, there may not. I became so curious about the whole thing a few years back, I bought a couple books to satisfy my curiosity about why we even have lawns, where the idea came from, and how to be a property owner/tender without devoting so much of my life tending something about which I'm ambivalent. As long as there's enough room to play with the kids and grill some burgers, the way I see it, the rest of the area being mowed is wasting my time, my money in gas to run and maintain the mower, and doing virtually nothing beneficial to nature. At one house, I had the lawn down to 20 minutes of mowing. But if it makes someone happy to look over 5 acres of freshly mowed lawn, more power to ya! If the HOA says no weeds allowed, not much option there. Admit, it's a lot easier to be non-chem when the property is so much smaller, a lot easier indeed.

I can't tell if that's smaller lawn grass or a taller something. Are the flowers miniscule, or just regular-small? Can't see the little blooms clearly but made me think of Trichostema.

Black Swallowtail. Was it laying eggs? Or did it just eclose? Looks like it's on some parsely, which is a host plant.