Okra and Weirdness

The weather has turned cooler, which I'm not too thrilled about. For a while, though, our garden plants liked it. But a couple of days ago, the Marglobe tomatoes (which had really perked up when we had a "cold" snap a few weeks ago and temps went into the 80s) decided they were done and promptly kicked the bucket. The grasshoppers took care of any delusions of grandeur the Rutgers tomato plant may have had. The butterbeans gave up the ghost long ago and the jalapeño and banana peppers are the only peppers still alive (though the jalapeño looks unhappy about it). The Romas are still riding high from last month's cooler weather though I'm not sure if anything will come of all those blooms.

But the okra? Is a champ. In fact, I just got four okra from it this morning - the most it has put off at once all year! And there are still three or four baby okra on it, a few blooms and two okra that I'm leaving in an attempt to save some seeds for next year. It's the only plant that hasn't been totally disheartened by the broiling Texas summer and I hope it keeps on kicking for a while!

In other news, we had a strange visitor today. Well, we had a couple. First off, our neighbors have a new-ish kitten and puppy, both of which decided to frolic in our back yard today. Honestly, it was pretty cute but really drives home the fact that we desperately need to fix our fence. The gate has a huge hole in it. Why, it's big enough to allow a puppy in! (For the record, it's about a fifteen pound puppy, so not like a four-pound baby. Which means, yeah, the hole in the fence is not tiny, either.)

But after returning said puppy to her owner's arms, I noticed another little uninvited guest.

Quite the funny looking caterpillar, isn't it? I think it looks like Sanrio's Keroppi. Just spikier.

I know that this guy and his friends might love to nibble on my okra and other assorted growing things, but I can't find it within myself to kill caterpillars when I see them. Too many fond memories of playing with them as a child. (Well, that and they make a horrible squish - I can't kill things that you feel crunch or squish when you stomp them. Yuck!) He was on the brick of the porch so I just left him there. After taking many photos of him. Such an odd creature!