Posts Tagged ‘monarchs’

Buckle Up, Unette

July 3, 2011 @ 7:35 pm | Filed under: ,

monarch caterpillars 2011

As I mentioned yesterday, we’ve spotted our first monarch cats of the year. From the size of this guy, you’d think we’d have cottoned to him a little sooner, eh?

And our blueberry bushes managed to produce four perfect, perfectly delicious berries. We lost most of the buds weeks ago, unfortunately—transplant shock, I’m guessing. They came home from the nursery LOADED with blossoms but most of them fell off prematurely. Ah well. Those four berries were jewels. Rose, Beanie, and I each had one—no one else here likes them, can you believe it??—and the girls insisted that I take the extra, because the bushes were my Mother’s Day present.

I’m looking at this caterpillar and thinking that another huge metamorphosis is about to occur…after two days on Google+, I have to say I think it’s a game-changer. A year from now, we’re all going to be internetting very differently, mark my words. Not just my words: the murmurings are everywhere. All my musings these past months over the best way to share links and save clippings and log read-alouds and keep in touch with loved ones and and and—well, suddenly there’s this one place where you can do all of those things, and email and chat and etc etc etc—and whether such an entity appeals to you or not, it’s going to change the landscape for all of us in one way or another.

I say this not without trepidation and cautiousness; it’s unsettling to contemplate handing one entity that much power. But a streamlined web life has tremendous appeal. I’ll proceed watchfully but enthusiastically. (And I’m not ditching Facebook…yet. Not ever, as long as my family is there.)

“A Little Egg Lay on a Leaf”

July 23, 2009 @ 6:18 am | Filed under: , , ,

How many times have you read The Very Hungry Caterpillar aloud?

It’s got to be in the hundreds for me. Seems like every single one of my kids has had a time when that book was the favorite above all others.

But in all these years, I’ve never actually seen a real caterpillar egg—until now.

egg

Can you see it? The little white dot on the underside of the leaf, quite near the stem. I watched the butterfly lay this egg and immediately afterward I ran inside for the camera, so this photo was taken no more than two minutes into the egg’s existence.

I hope the other caterpillars don’t eat that leaf. They are munching away and growing quite fat. We’ve counted up to eleven at one time but it’s likely we’re missing a good many. Counting callerpidders has become Rilla’s favorite thing to do. Mine too!

duo

Butterfly watch: two monarchs, a tiger swallowtail, several painted ladies, and assorted sulphurs and cabbage whites. Also a possible viceroy sighting but Jane, my resident expert, wasn’t there to confirm.

As for our blue flower…Jenn, I was sure it was a cornflower too, but the rest of them are coming up—

pink

pink!

(The color’s a bit washed out in this photo. The flower is really a soft shade of pale pink. Hmm….)