Sorry for the Delay - and a Culprit Has Been Found!

It's been a crazy week here on the ol' homestead (or you know, wannabe homestead - ha!) 

To make up for it, here are some pictures of one of my babies, Lilith Dade, aka Lily. 

Here are a couple of when she first came home from the shelter:

She was a skinny thing, but completely happy and loving. And sick. For real - she had to have a nebulizer and had to be treated twice a day with it, as well as antibiotics. Though she has the most *amazing* blue eyes

Here she is now:

With Phil, of course, a couple years ago, her best bud until Sophie came along. But since Sophie joined the household, there has been no more digging under the fence, so one problem solved, ha ha! 

And you know how they say that if you have a fat dog, *you* aren't getting enough exercise? Probably true...

I'll get on that soon, I swear!

And now - for the tomato culprit! 














Yesterday I found a HUGE, fat green caterpillar type critter on poor Henrietta (who is still endeavoring to produce tomatoes, btw). Now - I'm a pretty tolerant person when it comes to wildlife. If there's a spider or a lizard in the house (and I can catch 'em before one of the cats does!), I'll scoop 'em up on a piece of paper (ok, so my tolerance does not extend to actually touching them, lol) and toss them outside into the bushes.

This caterpillar thingy was not so lucky.

For one, I didn't even pause to get my phone to take a picture of it. I just turned the hose on "jet" and shot that sucker off my plant! I don't know where it ended up, but I wanted it off. And I sure as *heck* was not going to touch the thing - Ewww! 

Now - I had not seen such a critter on the plant this whole time, but I do think there are such things as tomato eating caterpillars. How this one could have caused so much destruction in one day (remember, when I discovered the missing leaves and stems it had literally been from one day to the next!), I don't know. Or maybe there were a whole host of 'em. 

The point is - this one is gone, and there aren't any on the other two plants - yet. My question is - how do I keep that from happening again?

Help!

Thanks! Oh, and later or tomorrow, I promise something completely different in my post besides tomato woes... lol

:)