24 Wednesday Jul 2024
Posted in garden, health, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, caterpillars, flowers, garden milkweed, growing, leaves, moments, monarch, nature, plants, re-emerge, widow
the monarch caterpillars decimated every leaf of the milkweed in June through to the beginning of July…
now, in the last few weeks, the leaves have begun to re-emerge…
some have even started to flower…
I am hopeful that another monarch butterfly might come by and lay a few eggs, not twenty, lol…
21 Sunday Jul 2024
Posted in garden, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, butterflies, caterpillars, chrysalis, discovered, garden, milkweed, moments, monarchs, nature, plants, weather, widow
when we got home from our time at the Airbnb we discovered twenty monarch caterpillars…
I had five milkweed plants but toward the end of their growing phase, the caterpillars were running out of leaves to eat…
they had stripped every leaf and I was able to cut some stalks from a friend’s yard…
I tied the new leaves to the old and we had just enough for them before hiding under leaves and building their chrysalides… two died, although there was still some leaves left…
we watched one caterpillar for a while once it moved into its j-shape but didn’t catch it weaving the chrysalis…
we only spotted two chrysalides, one of which vanished… not sure if it fell or something came along and ate it…
I watched it daily and then one day it turned black, which meant it was ready to eclose…
I watched all day, but nothing happened… late that afternoon I spotted the butterfly which had emerged…
it sat for quite a while before finally opening and closing its wings, but it was still on the iris leaf when I went to bed…
during the night the city came around and was spraying for mosquitoes…
In the morning it was hanging in a strange fashion and I was worried whether it would survive…
but, later I went out and she was gone;-)…
since then I’ve seen a total of eight butterflies flying through the garden;-)…
nature is amazing…
01 Monday Jul 2024
Posted in garden, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, caterpillars, garden, leaves, miffed, milkweed, moments, moved, nature, plants, stem, stripped, widow
yesterday I moved five monarch caterpillars from one area of milkweed, where all of the leaves had been devoured across the path to the group that were caterpillar-free…
this picture is before every single leaf had been gobbled up…
I used a stick to move them because I didn’t want to get injured, lol…
at least one of the caterpillars was miffed because it opened its mouth wide and felt like it was hissing at me…
I guess they also travelled on their own, because today I discovered eleven on those plants… and I moved another one that seemed to be trying to eat the stem of the stripped milkweed…
hope there are enough leaves to get them to the correct size to move into the chrysalis phase;-)…
19 Wednesday Jul 2023
Posted in garden, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, butterflies, caterpillars, change, colours, flowers, garden, milkweed, moments, monarch, multiply, nature, plants, pond, purple, widow
strange happenings with the milkweed…
I am very happy as they continue to multiply…
not too many caterpillars, and they seem to nest on the plants closer to a wall rather than the ones nearest to the pond… maybe there is more protection from predators there… too bad for me, as pictures are easier beside the pond, lol…
the odd thing is that the plants along the edge of the pond, all with the same origin, have produced two different coloured flowers…
the usual pink/purple flowers…
and these white ones which are turning yellow…
will be interesting to see what they do next year, lol…
04 Thursday Aug 2022
Posted in garden, life, moments, nature, Photography, retirement, Uncategorized
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, butterflies, caterpillars, eggs, flowers, friends, garden, luck, moments, nature, parsley, photos, plants, swallowtail, widow
besides being my support group, my friends bring me good luck…
I’ve only spotted swallowtail butterflies two or three times so far this summer and two of those were when they were over…
a few days ago I caught this long shot of one on the deck…
and then I found eggs on both of my parsley plants… which I only buy for the butterflies;-)…
maybe, just maybe, there will be caterpillars…
then I spotted this one… they sure move quickly, lol…
woohoo…
15 Saturday Aug 2020
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, caterpillars, garden, grandson, home, moments, monarchs, plants, thirst, water, weather, widow
happy to check out the garden after being gone for a short time… enjoyed walking through and seeing what was about to bloom, what had just about finished and checking for caterpillars… unfortunately I haven’t found any more monarch or swallowtail babies…
I had asked my grandson to come by and water it while I was away and was very happy that he did…
the front flowers were a bit sad, as he hadn’t remembered to water them. but a quick dose of water and they all revived…
the ability of most plants to recover from thirst is quite amazing, lol…
10 Friday Jul 2020
Posted in garden, life, moments, nature, Photography, Uncategorized
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, caterpillars, chrysalis, eggs, garden, grandson, moments, monarch, moving, nature, searching, widow
my caterpillars are on the move…
there is only one small sized one left on the milkweed… and I have found two new eggs so that is exciting…
my grandson spotted a caterpillar crawling in the lily of the valley, so I am going to lay down on the deck and see if I can find some in their chrysalis stage…
spent quite some time this morning laying on a lounge cushion and lifting leaves in the lily of the valley searching…
eventually I found one chrysalis… I also marked the leaf so I can spot it again…
will need to keep looking…
07 Tuesday Jul 2020
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, caterpillars, family, fish, flowers, friends, garden, grandsons, memories, moments, nature, pond, purple, stronger, sunshine, widow
another busy day…
up early, put out all the cushions and had my breakfast in the garden… lots of visits from the house finch couple and the chickadees…
went into the pond to clean the pump and filled half a pail with string algae… waterfall is looking better now and the flow is much stronger…
then a good friend came over for a garden visit and we had a lovely time… the garden is looking nice and there are still five or six caterpillars to search out on the milkweed…
she had just left when the lawn mowing service (the middle grandson) arrived… we had a visit before he started and just as he was done the chauffeur (oldest grandson) arrived with a new umbrella which will provide shade in the afternoon sun… we couldn’t put it up as we are waiting for the base to arrive…
then, before I knew it, they were all gone and I was back in the peace and quiet;-)…
lots of reading and nature watching for the rest of the day…
05 Sunday Jul 2020
Posted in garden, life, moments, nature, Uncategorized
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, butterflies, caterpillars, chrysalis, flowers, garden, milkweed, moments, monarchs, nature, obsessed, plants, research, widow
maybe, just maybe, I am obsessed with the Monarchs… I can’t even think of how many times I have gone by the milkweed to check on the caterpillars, lol…
saw more butterflies landing in the plant and maybe leaving eggs;-)…
there are small caterpillars, medium sized caterpillars and large caterpillars…
such fun to see where they are on the plant and how much they have munched through…
both of the biggest caterpillars vanished this morning… I was worried they had fallen off the milkweed because they were in leaves that were bent way over…
wasn’t sure if they were getting ready for the next step, but then found both of them in the lily of the valley… so I put them back on the milkweed…
now that I’ve done some research maybe they were moving on… apparently they can travel up to ten metres away from the milkweed to move to the chrysalish stage…
if they move again I will just search to see where they end up…
04 Saturday Jul 2020
Posted in garden, life, moments, nature, Photography, Uncategorized
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, caterpillars, flowers, garden, instar, lifecycle, milkweed, molt, moments, nature, plants, pond, weather, widow
it was overcast when I got up yesterday morning, but I went out before 7:30 to see what flowers were blooming and what the caterpillars were up to…
there were a bunch of morning glories and two dahlias were almost completely open…
the caterpillars were going through some of their instars… during the caterpillar stage they molt five times…
I was very excited to spot the largest one with the molt left on the leaf… after a while I noticed that another much smaller one went through the process…
this was exciting as I’d never seen this piece of the lifecycle previously…
the remainder of the day was spent quietly as I was not feeling well, so I slept and read in the shade, although I did check out the caterpillars now and again;-)…
herbiggirlpants 