Common Milkweed

An hour or two ago I realized we were about to be subjected to some violent thunderstorms - so I decided to pop outside and get a photo of something just in case. Here is that something. We have a lot of milkweed growing all around the place. I try to encourage it because of the monarch butterflies - it's the only thing their caterpillars eat. Encouraging it means mowing around it when it pops up in the "lawn." 

And now the storms have started. It's raining hard and there is at this point still fairly distant thunder. And a lot of wind. The power went out early on - but we have a whole house generator, so we're fine.