Bees, a butterfly, and working cats

We have had at least a week of unusually beautiful weather, mostly wasted by me working inside on an art project. The weather might be wasted, but I am totally enjoying my "big collage" project. 

I'll share when I have something to share.

Summer ended this week with a good frost killing off what was left of the tomatoes and flowers, except for a few in protected areas in the backyard. But now the sun and some warmth are back.

This goldenrod was populated by 4 bumblebees, 1 honey bee, 1 wasp of some sort, and a fly all at the same time. It is growing up in the middle of the firepit that I intended to weed and fire up today, but all the bugs were so happy. And so was I, just watching them.

The monarchs used to come around all the time and enjoy our very weedy acres. Lately I have seen very few, although I did steal some more milkweed seeds from my neighbor and start spreading them for next year.

Today was my first monarch sighting in quite awhile.

And the last pic is Martin and Monkey playing upstairs in my recently repainted "studio". the ladder was set up for the electrician to install some new light fixtures to replace the Ikea versions that I quickly purchased when the builder needed things I did not have.

Light fixtures and paint colors were very quickly chosen. Most were OK. I am just getting around to changing some of the ones I was never happy with.