"Flying" and Still Flowers and a Surprise

I had some training at work today, and will tomorrow, then will have 8 more days until I'm back full time.  I hope we have some cooler days to get lots of gardening done.  Today, we tied for a record high for the whole summer.  I think it was 104 or something like that.  I decided to show some photos I have taken the last few days so I could join in on Jean's Bloomin' Tuesday.

I was tickled when I saw this butterfly, which is different from what I normally see.  It flew around, landing on a few different blooms, but spent the most time on the hibiscus blooms.  I don't know if it was drinking from the side of the blooms or what.  I haven't had a chance to look it up to see if I can figure out what it is.  Do you know what it is?

Here it is on some coneflowers.

I'm not sure what kind of swallowtail this is, but I like its pose on the butterfly bush.

I've seen several Eastern Tiger Swallowtails on the butterfly bush at one time, but didn't get out to photograph them.  I'm actually seeing more butterflies the few times I'm out, and enjoying them without going back in for my camera.  I love the way they fly over to check me out, then flit from bloom to bloom.  Sometimes, they fly in pairs, too.

I am seeing more than one monarch every time I go out during the day. 

This photo was actually taken a few days before the previous ones.  I frequently walk out early in the morning, when I first get up and am not fully awake.  I did go back in the house for my camera when I saw this bee sleeping on a Joe Pye weed bloom.  I've seen bees sleeping on flowers before, but they were on top of them, and not hanging from them.  Recently, someone said that when bees sleep on flowers, it's because they are kicked out of the hive.  Larry didn't think bumble bees live in hives, but I'm not sure.

I went out after supper to see if I had anything blooming that I hadn't shown yet, and found this perennial statice that I bought from the farmer's market without a label.  It's different from any I've grown.

I've been spraying a couple different rabbit repellants, but there are new hungry bunnies, and I have been chasing them out of the yard, using a bar of rebar to poke into the areas of the flower beds they try to hide in.  Since I had my camera in my hand, I took this one's photo before chasing it.

I chased it to this end of the flower bed, and look what I found in my yard! Our next door neighbor had told me a few weeks ago, that she nominated our yard for our neighborhood association's yard of the month.  I told her she should have waited until next year, when the plants in the new area will be bigger.  Since I hadn't heard anything, I assumed they didn't like my milkweed or busyness of all the different plants, and had chosen a more landscaped yard, like they have in the past.  They put the sign where a sidewalk would go, but I guess that's OK.

When I first went out, there were a couple boys on bikes, and I heard one that looked to be around 10 or 11 say to another that "That lady must work hard to get her yard to look like that."  I had looked up and told him thank you, but hadn't seen the sign yet.  He smiled and told me I was welcome.  That was so sweet.  I think he was impressed that the sign was there.