Tag Archives: caterpillars

stronger…

07 Tuesday Jul 2020

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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…

obsessed…

05 Sunday Jul 2020

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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…

molt…

04 Saturday Jul 2020

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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;-)…

eggs…

30 Tuesday Jun 2020

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so excited to have spotted monarch eggs on the milkweed…

after a bit of research I discovered that it takes four days for them to hatch…

I’ve been checking every day to see if any have popped out… and I found some;-)… they are the teeniest little things…

I’ve watched them before, but only when they were large, so it is very cool to see them at such a small size…

a number of times each day I check over, under and around the edges of the leaves…

now I know to look under the leaves with brown spots as they don’t always eat right through the leaves at this stage… it appears they like the newest leaves as they are clearly more tender…

sometimes it is easy to spot them and other times I don’t see any, lol…

very exciting;-)…

persherons…

05 Saturday Sep 2015

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great fun at the zoo today… the little boys and I got to check out the barn and go on a lovely wagon ride at the new McFeetors Heavy Horse Centre...

  
the guide explained all about this powerful horse breed as we circled the new area…
  
our ride was excellent… we went and picked up some rain ponchos as it was misting on us a bit…  properly attired, we checked out a few other spots…

   
looking for butterflies… most of them were released last week…

 
but finding lots of caterpillars… Mr. Eagle Eyes even spotted a chrysalis…

  
unfortunately the littlest guy had a headache for a good portion of the day… when we got home, having walked from the Park, he napped for a bit…

  
this is a picture of the canna…

  
cannot see the hummingbird that came to it twice while we were in the garden… it was faster than I was…

here’s a picture of two of us taken by the littlest person…

  
was a bit cool by then, but happily rain didn’t start falling again until just after dark…

had its low points, but wonderful time spent together…

hook-up

04 Saturday Jul 2015

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finally took the time this morning to hook up the splitter for the garden hose… now I can either run water into the regular hose, or into the hose that goes underground to the pond… will make it much easier to fill it when it is low… which, sadly, is still happening on a regular basis, but at least the waterfall is beautiful, lol…

new hose hook-up...

new hose hook-up…

was quite easy to do, but did make me feel that I was wearing my big girl pants…

later the kids came over and we left my grandson to work on the front flower bed and went to a couple of garden centres to see what they might have…

had a lot of fun…

new baskets hanging...

new baskets hanging…

got two amazing baskets which are adding to the beauty of the pergola by the pond…

morning glory and parsley...

morning glory and parsley…

and a number of other plants… happily was able to get a couple of morning glories as, of the two packages of seeds I planted, about three have come up and they are very small… these ones are my favourite blue and I can hardly wait until they start blooming…

also picked up three parsley plants… monarch caterpillars love parsley and my grandson spotted a couple on the parsley plant at their house… hope I get some too…

while they were here, the little boys cut some roses for me… they are from the plants that my dear friend and neighbour Ellen gave me when she moved…

Ellen's roses...

Ellen’s roses…

I do love the garden and really appreciate having my grandson come and help me on a regular basis…

just got everything planted when the sky clouded over and thunder, lightening and rain came down… hope that everything survives the downpour…