It's been HOW LONG since I posted on here?

as you can see, the caterpillars do get pretty fat and happy as they store their bodies with food...









let's see.....where does one pick up after taking such a long leave of absence? i mean what HAS the world been doing without my BLOG?????

(a quiet falls over the room. nervous coughs , squeaky little laughs.) it's okay. i know. you have just been waiting patiently. you knew i would be back! you believed in me!!!!! and for that faith you shall be rewarded!!!! i am going to start with What I Did For My Summer Vacation!!!......in pictures. See the pictures? Well, what you are watching is the birth of a Monarch Butterfly, slippin' right out of its chrysallis, right on time. this has been the most amazing project i've ever involved myself in.

i walk by the lake pretty much every day in the spring and summer and this , i decided, was the year i was going to do it, look for the tiny little eggs on the back of milkweed plant leaves.....and i found a leaf with an egg and thought myself to be quite fortunate. i was walking back to my house and ofcourse had to investigate OTHER milkweed plants too, and i ended up with a total of fourteen eggs AND one caterpillar, a fairly sizeable one, so he had been one of the earlier born ones and was eating and eating and eating those milkweed leaves until it was time to transform.

i was addicted! every time the opening of the chrysallis was imminent, i would get so excited with the anticipation.......to watch this truly is one of the many beauties of nature. each butterfly needs about two or three hours to dry out their wings and try flapping them a little bit. what i started doing was letting them come out of the tank they were born in and letting them fly from my finger to the screens on the windows in my studio. there were only two casualties, one of which was just so sad; i had no choice but to euthanize him. he was a wonderful flyer but he was a bit brainless. i noticed him hitting the screens really hard and that one last hit just took him down...broke his two front legs and he couldnt' walk. so you know what you do if one needs to be euthanized? you put him or her into a small plastic bag and put them into the freezer for an hour or so. they feel nothing, they don't think "oh my god i'm freezing to death!!!" no, they just go to sleep, and that way i get to keep a beautiful completely intact Monarch Butterfly.

and THAT is what i did on my summer vacation!