Thematic Photographic 325 (plus royalty)

Carmi Levy, at Written.Inc, has suggested Rubbery as this week's theme for TP 325

I live near the town which boasts this country's only open-cast mine, so I went to visit two of the giant decommissioned mine vehicles which are on display near the pit.

Both the dump truck and digger have enormous amounts of rubber in their tyres!

When I got home found that two monarchs had emerged from their
chrysalises (there are about 30 still to hatch).

One was under the window-ledge:

And one in a lavender plant:

The first one gradually dried out -

then crawled down into the sunshine -

onto the grass -

and eventually flew away. 

Meanwhile, this bumblebee was enjoying the marigolds:

Manu wasn't terribly excited about the whole business -