Last week I was tending to my roses - my very first rose garden to be exact. Taking off all of the dead leaves and deadheading the spent flowers, and giving them their last meal of the growing season. As I was pulling off a yellow leaf on the inside of the plant something next to my hand moved - not a little something but a rather large something.
Can you see what made me jump?
This is Katy ...... short for Katydid. She was picked off of that rosebush and placed inside one of the girls insect houses that hadn't ben used since last years mantis raid. Katy stayed with us for 4 days - sleeping and eating in her pink, plastic monstrosity. I chose to hold on to her because in all of my life living in the Denver Metro Area I had never seen a katydid - or at least a True Katydid. I had to do some investigation on her and make sure that she wasn't the culprit that had been munching on my roses.
Lucky for her she is not known to be a "pest" as she is a predatory insect related to the cricket, is active only at night, will only eat leaves if other "food" is not found. And they tend to remain on the same bush or tree their entire life. I shouldn't say she was lucky, only because I can not kill anything. I would have had to drive her out to one of the agro fields and let her go.
So after 4 days of her visit to the humanoids world - oh yea, she was show and tell at our last class at the Botanical Gardens - we set her back out on the same rose that I found her on. She was nice enough to stick around for a bit to have her photo taken. The girls were really attached to this big, green bug.
I couldn't be prouder!
We learned all about giant grasses and got to walk through many areas in the gardens that were full of these beauties.
I did not know that bamboo and corn are members of the grass family.
After exploring all the wonderful grasses that the gardens had to offer we went back in to the classroom and planted our own pots with 3 types of grass. Prairie grass, wheat, and corn.
After class the girls wanted to do a little water coloring of the grasses that they learned about. This Summer they have been obsessed with painting.
Of course we had to have our weekly 
Isn't this display of Mexican Feather Grass incredible? Makes me want to go home and rip out the darn lawn that just eats up water and takes energy to mow. Wonder if the 
I'm pretty sure that I got a lot more out of this class than the girls did. But the important part was that we spent the day together and got to be outside. Before we know it the snow will return and we will be doing inside things.
You have to get the rocks wet to see a whole different beauty in them.
Climbing around the many granite boulders - hey what's that tent over there? 
Whoa - time to get out the rain coats. 70 degrees and rain - we hit the jackpot! It was 101 degrees back down in the Denver area.
Let's go waddle over to the tent.
The retreat is built around this little 
Lorelei
This was the first piece that I bought from her - an incredible necklace made from brass, Czech glass, green jade and abalone shell. 
I get compliments on it every time I wear it. It's one of those feel good things that make me feel special. I just love this piece.
Than I bought this beauty.
And she made these for me to go with it.
I had to have these - I wish that you could feel them. Ahhh.....
She has quite a few pretties listed right now. The best thing about her jewelry is that she uses quite a lot of natural materials and supports other artists by incorporating their art into her own art.
