Yard dragons

I've developed quite a nerdy interest in dragonflies since planting our garden. I'd never really spent much time noticing them before, but because they seem to love our garden, I spend entirely too much time watching them fly around the yard and land on our tomato cages. I have started to really enjoy photographing them too. Their wings look just like I imagined fairy wings when I was a kid with all the fine lines and shimmery color. In fact I learned that people have historically mistaken dragonflies for fairies. Fairy tales have been told of little people fluttering about worldwide that turned out to be dragonflies.

I never realized how brightly colored they are either. We seem to have bright pink, blue and brown ones as our regular visitors. I've already mentioned here how great dragonflies are for gardens and the environment, with their mosquito-eating appetite, so I'm always happy to see them.

The boys are quite fascinated with the dragonfly trivia we've uncovered - especially the fact that dragonflies were around during the time of dinosaurs over 300 million years ago. They really like the fact that there is a type of dragonfly in Costa Rica with a 7 1/2 inch wingspan. They're desperate to see that one.

I found a really cool dragonfly craft that I'll do with the boys on our next free day. It's a fun dragonfly mobile from Highlights Kids. They love hanging stuff they make from sticks they find in the yard - this is right up their alley.