These are photos from our front yard today.  The butterfly photo was taken first.  The butterfly is newly hatched.  I was asking my husband about the spots and he thinks it is like a signal to predators that it is a butterfly and not to eat it because it is poisonous.  They are like that because they feed on milkweed when they are catapillars.  I call it a Swan Plant.  Our last lot of catapillars stripped the whole plant of leaves as you can see.  The rose is called Renae.

The wood stack is temporary.  We have to do alot of site work in the place where we stacked wood last year.  We had an old "chook shed" that was a wood shed in the corner that blocked the view from the side street.  Sometimes we have 5" of rain and the corner is like a waterfall.  All this was conceled by things put behind the shed including half drums that we have since made into herb planters.  The woodchips hid the water.  It flooded the shed twice, the shed nearby that holds our tools etc. a garage, so we will attempt to fix that first.  In the meantime the little shed has been moved and it keeping our guineapigs dry and happy. 

The spikey purple flower, if anyone knows what it is I would love to know.  The thin tree is an ornamental pear.