1 Second Everyday: May 2016 edition

College Kid returns for the summer, Middle & Little Dude's classes wind down, cue the card games and puzzles.  Cue all the summer nature:  caterpillars, chrysalids, baby hummers, squab lobster by the hundreds of thousands, and rattlers, oh my!!

Monarch Butterflies: 2016 edition

I don’t think I ever finished documenting last year’s butterfly adventures.  The short story version:  more baby caterpillars showed up in our yard in November.  Which was weird.  Monarchs aren’t supposed to be mating and laying eggs in the “winter”.  These caterpillars remained caterpillars way longer than the prescribed 10-14 days, and the chrysalids remained chrysalids for 30 & 33 days, respectively (also way longer than normal).  When temperatures outside dropped below freezing, we brought the chrysalids indoors. 

Since this monarch emerged on a cold rainy day, we kept her inside overnight to dry out.  Big Dude jimmy-rigged a warming light onto the banana stock we’d chopped down in our backyard (after the wind blew over our banana tree). 

We released her the next day during a sunny couple of hours…

Because those winter caterpillars (9 of them all together) lived so long, they decimated our milkweed.  I’ve since bought a few plants from Lowe’s and thrown a bunch of seed here and there.  Which brings us to present day.  We’ve had caterpillars since early May.  They have turned our yard into their very own chrysalid playground (taking over chairs, pottery, plants, pipes, & window frames).  As of today, we have 7 chrysalids.  We should have butterflies emerging within the next week.

I’m sure the dudes all think I’m totally nutso.  But they do a great job helping me hunt down the chrysalids.  And hey, it’s cheap entertainment.

Just Call Me the …

… Crazy Caterpillar Lady.  Last summer I was beguiled by baby hummingbirds.  This summer I’ve been captivated by caterpillars and enthralled by stunning Monarch butterflies.  Bringing caterpillars and chrysalides home have had a domino-effect of complementary activities: 

I’ve bought & planted milkweed.  And I’ve grown/planted milkweed from cuttings.
Helpful links:  http://www.monarchwatch.org/milkweed/prop.htm
https://monarchbutterflygarden.net/grow-from-cuttings/
I’ve released my baby butterflies in the backyard – had them dry their new wings – on the milkweed I planted.  They’ve laid lots of eggs!


I’ve attempted to grow pentas from cuttings (slow process, so I just bought a gallon-size penta).
Helpful link:  http://homeguides.sfgate.com/make-cuttings-pentas-72098.html
http://forums.gardenweb.com/discussions/1926357/easiest-way-to-root-penta-cuttings  (3rd comment down, juneroses)


I have harvested milkweed seed…
Helpful link:  http://www.ourhabitatgarden.org/creatures/milkweed-growing.html

Growing from seed instructions & trimming instructions to promote thicker growth:  http://www.livemonarch.com/growinginstructions.htm

Buying inexpensive small live milkweed plants:  http://www.livemonarch.com/store_plants.php

The last milkweed cutting I brought home apparently had butterfly eggs on it, as baby caterpillars showed up about a week later.  So yesterday I decided to go ahead and build a cheap domicile for them… (btw, all thanks to Anita for this geniously inexpensive and easy-to-make caterpillar habitat!) 
Helpful link: http://forums.gardenweb.com/discussions/1786871/homemade-rearing-eclosing-cage


There.  Hopefully, I’ve remembered & listed all the helpful sites, so I can easily find them again after I forget all this :-p.

Evolution of an Edit …

Felt like playing around this morning.  Meet my butterfly baby from a couple mornings ago.  She’s about 3 hours old in this picture, still in the midst of drying her new wings.

SOOC …

+1 exposure, + One Willow Palette Vibrant preset, + edge burn, +Haze-Divine preset, + I bumped saturation a tad.

The above steps are all done in Lightroom.  In Photoshop, I added 2 Lil’ Owls texture Crackle (#5 or 6, I think) – soft light, texture erased off butterfly …

Also in Photoshop, lightened exposure a tad, and added Florabella Milk & Honey action at 28%.

Of course, I’m happy with the image at the Lightroom-finished stage.  But sometimes it’s fun to play a little further …

Emerging Monarchs, part 2

Finally continuing the story … this is chrysalis #2, the morning before Easter.

You’d think I would connect the dots and reasonably expect a short butterfly to come out of such a tiny chrysalis, and yet my neighbor and I scratched our heads and worried that this short stumpy little guy might possibly be deformed.  We need not have worried. Butterfly bodies just take a little while to stretch out.

Emerging Monarchs, part 1

This is last Saturday, the day before Easter.  There were three remaining chrysalides hanging in my neighbor’s front yard.  The chrysalides turned darkish Friday, so I was up early Saturday morning in hopes I would see the butterflies emerging.  I didn’t sit on the first chrysalis long enough and missed its debut…

In the meantime, chrysalis no.2 was looking like this, and I intended to go nowhere …

 
About 30 minutes after the first butterfly emerged, this little one came out, too.  !!!

tbc…

Easter Week Insect Shenanigans

What a week!  The neighborhood school is awash in caterpillars and chrysalides, blogged here and here. Four of the five chrysalides across the street burst open beautifully (still to be blogged).  And, on Easter Eve, we found a lone caterpillar hanging in a “j” on an actual branch instead of on the school stucco.  So we snipped his branch and “borrowed” him, because we wanted to see the pupation process.

We brought him home and set him up in the kitchen where we could watch him like a hawk all thru dinner prep.  We weren’t going to miss this.  And we watched and watched.  And waited and watched.  And waited and watched longer.

No action Easter Eve.  I got up extra early Easter morning in hopes of not missing the action.  Here he hangs, just like the night before.  Wait and watch.  And prep for brunch.  Which is planned for 10a, by the way.  Watch, wait, drink coffee, food prep, wait …


And here we are at 9:44a.  College Kid and his friend have been woken.  Mom & Dad (hi!) are due to arrive in 15 minutes.  Oh yeah, there’s one more butterfly across the street imminently due to emerge.  And NOW – not early this morning when I got up and had nothing more to do than watch & observe – NOW Mr. Caterpillar does his amazing, creepy, astounding thing …

This whole caterpillar to chrysalis with old skin dropping off process doesn’t last more than 3 minutes.  The finalizing chrysalis shape takes about another 9 minutes.  And oh yeah, Mom and Dad have arrived, all the brunch food is in final stage and needing attention (let’s just acknowledge that my hash browns ended up a little extra crispy due to my distraction factor) …

 
My pictures don’t do this transformation justice.  But there’s a super neato youtube timelapse video that you can watch to get an awesome sense of what goes down …

At the same time that breakfast was burning coming ready, Mom was across the street watching this butterfly beauty emerge.

Resurrected to a New Life. Happy Easter!

 
We were therefore buried with Him through baptism into death in order that,
just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father,
we too may live a new life.
For if we have been united with Him in a death like His,
we will certainly also be united with Him in a resurrection like His.
For we know that our old self was crucified with Him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with,
that we should no longer be slaves to sin—
because anyone who has died has been set free from sin.
Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him.
For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead,
He cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over Him.
The death he died, He died to sin once for all;
but the life He lives, He lives to God.
In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
Romans 6:4-11

note: this baby monarch emerged this morning!

Caterpillar-palooza, part 2

Do ye not understand that we are worms,
Born to bring forth the angelic butterfly
That flieth unto judgment without screen?
~Dante Alighieri

I don’t know why these particular caterpillars are leaving the relative safety of the plants (which are naturally toxic to their predators) to take to the stucco rooflines, but they are.  They carry the nectar toxins within their bodies, so they continue to be repellent to predators, even when away from the plants.  I did a quickie wiki background check for their lifespan/cycle.  The eggs hatch within four days.  The worms eat ravenously and grow for two weeks.  The chrysalides develop for two weeks.  The butterflies live up to 6 weeks, except for the last “generation” of the summer, which live up to 8 months and migrate to/from warmer climates.

  

The chrysalides in my neighbor’s front yard…