A beautiful butterfly day!

...among other things. Like cleaning up the yard and winterizing things and having bonfires complete with hot dogs and s'mores! But this is the one thing I snuck off and photographed. :-)


Painted Lady on my blue salvia...

No School day!

Well, I've been a bit busy keeping up my new blog...my 365/Grateful Project, but thought I better post something here. A collage is handy to do a bunch of pictures at once, so here's mine from today! Had fun with the boys playing putt-putt!

Swallowtail takeover

I have really enjoyed my Monarchs this summer, but now it's time for Black Swallowtails! They are a beautiful butterfly and also make a unique chrysalis.

Here's the top of my butterfly house right now. I still have a lot of Monarch chrysalises, but more than half of the ones that have come out in recent days have been plagued with disease, so I don't know how many more disease-free ones I'll be able to release to fly off to Mexico. It's hard to see them not make it, but I have to remember I helped an awful lot this summer make it to adulthood.

This is a Black Swallowtail chrysalis on a rock. I use these rocks to weight down my butterfly house so it doesn't fall over in the wind, but my, the Swallowtails LOVE them. About 3/4 of my Swallowtails chrysalises have hung themselves on my rocks. It's so funny! ...and I have to be careful when I clean the house out now.

There are 7 on this rock. You can see the 2 in the front left still have not shed their skin and turned into a chrysalis. They appear ready to, though. This rock is turned over, so normally they would "hang" off the rock like the picture following this one.

Here's another couple on the side of a rock. Some of these I worry I will smoosh them when I turn the rock back over, but if they found that spot when they rock was turned over before, there must be enough room for them.

This chrysalis is green, but is also a Black Swallowtail chrysalis. They can turn either green or brown, I've read it depends on what they're attached to.

These two are playing piggyback.

And these three attached themselves to the underside of the paper towel on the floor of my butterfly house. I almost threw them away when I was cleaning the house out! Yikes!

This is the bottom of my butterfly house now. I have one little Monarch cat left still chomping on Milkweed and the other plants are Queen Anne's Lace that the Black Swallowtail cats are feeding on.

Copy cat

This is a Viceroy butterfly...they try to look like a Monarch so they won't get eaten either. (Monarchs are poisonous or distasteful to their predators due to a chemical found in milkweed, the plant they eat when they are a caterpillar.) This one looked like it was considered tasty to someone because it had a lot of nips taken out of its wings. Amazing how they can still fly with large chunks of their wings gone.

Monarch photo session

Loved watching these two sun themselves! Beautiful creatures! I didn't have any tags left for them, but hope they make it to Mexico safe and sound!

Monarch tagging continued

I had 5 Monarchs come out today, so I got to use my other 2 tags for this lady and gentleman pair. #948 and #949!

Here's my little helper! He loves to let the butterflies climb on his finger for a runway before flying away. This one cooperated quite well!

My future butterfly tagger! It will be a while before I'll let him put the tags on, though. Phew, it's touchy work! The tag is very sticky and you've got to get it positioned just right with a toothpick before pressing it into position.

1st Soccer game of the season

T's soccer team...the Lions!...won this morning. Trevin was so proud to have made a goal to help his team win.

So here he is approaching the goal...

He kicks!...He scores!

One big smile! :-)

I love this shot, too! He really put forth a lot of effort in the game. Go! Go! Go!

Exciting Monarch news!

I tagged my first Monarch tonight! A lady Corey works with gave me 3 of her tags and I was able to put one on a female Monarch I released tonight. Can't wait to see if my little lady makes it all the way to Mexico! I am so excited!

Monarch report

Released 5 females and 2 males today.

Monarch report

Released 2 males and 2 females today.

Monarch release

Shared it with a friend today! I love sharing these beautiful creatures!!!

Logan is quite the Monarch expert himself. :-) I love hearing him say "chrysalis!"

These two ladies sat around awhile before flying off. We got to really study them.

L was asking for help to get the Monarch to fly away here since it was starting to tickle his neck, hence the smile. :-)

Monarch update

Released 4 females and 1 male Monarch today. Found 16 more caterpillars. Grand total 54!

Monarch moment

Love this shot...

Monarch update

I released one male today...but when I cleaned out the butterfly house, I counted 38 Monarch caterpillars! Woohoo! Lots more butterflies to come. :-)

Also...the Swallowtail cats are still alive, though they aren't eating a whole lot. I think they're doing a starvation protest. :-(

Black Swallowtail update

Finally witnessed the Black Swallowtail butterfly laying eggs on my parsley. They look a little different from the Monarch's eggs. These are round and more creamy colored. Hope I can get a couple generations of raising in before winter. I don't have much parsley this year (heavy rainfall in the spring killed it down) so I was buying parsley at the store to feed the caterpillars that I found on my parsley. Then I wondered why they were dying off as soon as I brought them in. Duh.....pesticides! I admit I had to Google it, didn't think of it myself. Wonder what they do to us? Anyway, with the help of my mom today I was trying to brainstorm other sources of food for them. They eat plants in the carrot family...carrot tops, parsley, fennel, and wild carrot...anyone know what the other name for wild carrot is? Queen Anne's Lace! Yippee! I had my food source! So I picked some along the roadside today and transferred two little Swallowtail guinea pigs onto it. :-) I hope they will eat it and like it and grow! I will keep you updated!

Unique Monarch shot

This isn't crystal sharp, but it was hard to get a shot of these two up in the tree! This is a pair of Monarchs mating.
I think I've seen everything now...all the stages of a Monarchs life.
Mating, laying eggs, teeny tiny caterpillar, bigger cats, shedding skin, J-hooking, turning into a chrysalis, emerging as a butterfly...and flying away to do it all over again!
What a miracle!

A new kind of caterpillar!

I'm not going to go crazy with this one, but it was fun to see a new caterpillar and ID it. This one is the caterpillar of the Buckeye butterfly. I hope to catch a photo of the butterfly soon! In the meanwhile this cat is enjoying my snapdragons which is one of its host plants. Tonight it was on a nearby plant, so maybe it's ready to form a chrysalis. Who knows! Stay tuned!

Monarch update

Released two females and a male today.

Monarch update

Released two males and a female today.

Monarch update

Released two females and a male today.

Monarch update

Released 3 males today.

Monarch update

Released 2 males today.

Goofin' off with Daddy

What they do best! Daddy knows how to give them a good time!