I've Caved to My Cravings

And it was good!

Autumn has sparked a brilliant swath of color over the Valley this week. With the air cool and crisp and the sky... well, it's bluer than blue (I'm not kidding). It is just the sort of weather to throw an appetite into overdrive. Mother nature is determined to chub us up with a little (or a lot of) extra padding to keep us warm this winter.

Who are we to argue, my best friend and I are more than happy to oblige. A hop, skip and a jump through the covered bridge into Waitsfield Village is a new little establishment we've heard is brimming with goodness, The Sweet Spot.

Housing both, ice cream crafter extraordinaire, John Vitko's Scout's Honor scoop shop and

pastry passionista, Lisa Curtis's Sweet Simone's bakeshop.

Today, I went for the Salted Caramel ice cream... oh, yeah!

And tomorrow, I'm thinking one of these coconut beauties will do.

Then again, the chocolate chocolate look mighty chocolaty. Maybe, I'll have both.

How sweet it is at The Sweet Spot. And that's a good thing.

Summer?

I'm going to miss you...

really miss you!

There's A Caterpillar In The Crabapple Tree

And not just any old caterpillar, there's one big a$$ caterpillar in our crabapple tree.

I received a call from my daughter late Wednesday afternoon. She'd been at our pond with her kids when someone spotted a most extraordinary critter. She was exited to share the news.

"Mom you've got to get out to the pond! There's a Robin moth caterpillar in the crab apple tree and he's huge! Mom, the Robin moth is the largest moth in North America! Take your camera, you'll want to share this on the blog."

So I did.

And I searched; high and low, near and far, glasses on, glasses off, every branch of that crab apple tree (at least I thought I did). All I found was this cute, fuzzy little larva. Barely an inch long, he is not "huge".

Spotted Tussock Moth

Ready to call it quits, I duck out from the under the tree when out of nowhere I am startled by this.

Isn't he the greatest, the most exotic, humongous, caterpillar you've ever laid eyes on? Over 4 inches long and bigger around than my thumb... yowzer!

We'd never seen or heard of this caterpillar before. My best friend does a little investigating and comes across this fun web site wormspit.com. I think we'll keep our crisper drawer bug free and let this caterpillar spend the winter in our crab tree.

The next morning I couldn't find him. I was sure he'd turned into a feast for the birds. I was wrong...whew. He's just settling down for a long winter's nap.

Sweet dreams Cecropia Silkmoth. Can't wait to see you when.

Source

Stay tuned for future updates on life in the crab apple tree by the pond.

Thanks, Erin. By the way, who discovered this colossal find?