BUTTERFLIES, DRAGONFLIES, AND BEETLES (PUTTING THE BUG IN BARNBUG)

I'm so excited to show you some of today's pics. First of all, we puttered around with barn chores. Abby likes to peek in and make sure we're doing it right...

Then we moseyed down to Oxford for lunch at the Masthead. Needed to sit by the water and watch boats with a lobster grilled cheese.
Moseyed home to arrange the flowers I bought yesterday. Zinnias are one of my favorite flowers.  If there's a more festive summer bloomer, I don't know what it is...

Enough about flowers, let's move on to bugs, and butterflies, and dragonflies. 
One of this morning's barn chores, was to knock down the new wasp nests in the wash stall. 

These mud wasps can be very destructive. Had to replace the controls on our gas grill a few years ago because of  them.

The inside of a mud nest.

Beetle on the gate.

Beetles destroying a Knockout rose. To add insult to injury, they appear to be making "beetle whoopie" in there. 

Butterfly on a black-eyed susan.

Found it interesting that the plain little mousy butterfly chose the spent, mousy flower. Camouflage, I suppose, unless butterflies have self-esteem issues.

It's very difficult to get a good shot of a dragonfly. Can't tell you how many fuzzy shots I deleted. It's okay though, you're worth it.

This was the biggest bee I've ever seen, much larger than the ones that have been buzzing around my lavender.

Found this huge beetle in the water trough.

Butterfly on the butterfly bush.

So, that's what was flying around BarnBug today. Hope you got up close and personal with nature at your house. If anyone has a good, environmentally friendly solution to the beetle  problem, I sure would love to hear it. XO