Category: In the land of butterflies

The One Where I {should} Finally Get A Network TV Show

On By SuzIn As blogged by Suz, In the land of butterflies26 Comments

Tuesday evening I was in the backyard with the pups and they were doing what pups do and I was doing what I do; checking out my plants, caterpillars and having gentle conversations with butterflies passing me by. (I feel the need to tell each one how beautiful they are; I can’t help it) I noticed an old, withered monarch sitting in the grass. They don’t usually hang out in the grass, so I picked her up and put her on a salvia bloom safely out of Lillies mouth reach. I immediately recognized her as I’ve seen her flitting about my various garden areas over the past few days; she was recognizable by her one partial and almost see-through wings. She has seen some days and lots of weather. Monarchs here generally live 2-6 weeks and I’d say she’s seen close to six weeks from the looks of her.

I decided she might need a little help in the food department and who can turn down a juicy tangerine? No one, that’s who.

You can see her proboscis reaching out for nectar; this is the little tube they ingest their food from. I squeezed the tangerine to make more juice for her; this is the equivalent of a bartender filling up my wine glass. MORE, please.

Honestly, we don’t hear that many planes over our house so I can only assume that was the Discovery Channel or Nat Geo coming in close for a story.

*Still waiting for them to make an offer I can’t refuse contact*

I saw her a few times on Wednesday as well; still flying, eating, acting as she should.

On Thursday morning we found her again in the grass and moved her onto a plant for some nutrients. She’s missing a bit more of her wing but seems to be in good spirits. I mean, if she was in bad spirits she was disguising it. One thing I’ve noticed over the last few days was that the males were still coming in hot for her. Just goes to show you, Cougars also have a commodity in nature.

Meow.

I’ve thought about bringing her in and placing her in a mesh cage to keep her safe and happily fed, but decided she was meant to be out there, doing her thing for the rest of her days.

I do have one monarch that I’ve had in captivity for almost 3 weeks. Don’t get all crazy and call PETA this one has a virus (using layman terms here) that is very contagious to all the caterpillars/plants/butterflies in the gardens, so it was either keep her away from the others or go all Jack Kevorkian (freezer) on her.

Suz: making life & death decisions on the daily.

Happy Friday my sweet friends. Wishing you all a peaceful (easy feeling) weekend doing something that doesn’t require life & death decisions, but if you have to: CHOOSE LIFE.

Now leave a note or I’ll put you in the freezer with the others.

XOXO

It’s a poop party at the wild lime

On By SuzIn In the land of butterflies21 Comments

That title sounds like some obscure fetish gathering in an underground establishment that I’d not like to visit nor be invited to.

I’m sure you remember one of my first vlogs where I shared my wild lime tree. You don’t? What the heck have you been doing aside from memorizing my yard? Well, it’s a pity because I lost that vlog during the blogger to WordPress transfer. Your life will never be the same.

Please note the vine of death in the background up there. It is actually starting to sprout leaves, someone has laid eggs on it already and yes, I still have PTSD.

We planted this tree soley for the purpose of attracting Giant Swallowtails. They also like my real citrus trees but this is not a real fruit bearing tree; it’s as fake as a Kardashian derriere.

I found three giant swallowtail caterpillars in the wild lime recently, all in different stages. Can YOU SEE THEM?

Our creator is such a genius; he made it so that the baby caterpillars look like bird poop. Hence keeping predators from eating them. Raise your hands if you’re glad he didn’t follow through with making our children look like bird poop? I mean, I’m not saying I didn’t want to nibble on my babies here and there, but had they looked like poop? Ehhh, I’ll pass and I hope this ‘phase’ passes too.

Two are still in caterpillar form, the third is in his chrysalis.

I captured brought in a baby swallowtail caterpillar in June and was hand feeding it daily. It finally had it’s fill of food and it created it’s chrysallis on July 4th. Last week, much to my surprise VOILA’, she was here just a rustling around in the styrofoam cooler where I pin all the chrysallid’s. HULLO-Lady human, I’m ready to live my best life!

This is my very first time successfully raising a Giant Swallowtail and I was so excited, so you know what I might have done-yes, Happy SHAAAAT. I carried her outside, had her on my hand and was trying to place her on a flower when she decided to come in for a closeup.


I heard her say: why u schwetty? why u slippery and smell like sunscreen? what happen to yur nek, so wrinkky.

Who knew butterflies were so DAMN judgy?

Don’t ya love that it has two distinct “outfits”…the inside and the outside.

She stuck around for quite a while we had our own Glamour shot sesh.

Go ahead and comment: Pretty butterfly. You know you want to. But also, did you read the part about me almost shatting? That is what some might call quality blogging.

Well, that is enough learning for today. It’s also a reminder to apply sunscreen to your neck and decolletage. I apologize if you fell asleep in class, but that’s what you get when you stay up all night watching bad TV.

XOXO

Posing as Mother Nature is exhausting

On By SuzIn In the land of butterflies21 Comments

Thank you all for your empathy on my Monday post. I was really sad, down in the dumps, bummed, annoyed, etc…

Lu in TN commented (Thanks Lu!) about having a similar experience and reaching out to butterfly enthusiast groups for advice. Well, wouldn’t you know that I belong to a few different butterfly groups on The Face Book. I posted in my swallowtail group about my dilemma and lots of people had ideas; I love people with ideas.

Many of them were for nurseries too far from me, (I have my limits) but one mentioned a nursery that was only 1 & 1/2 hours. I had tasks that I had to accomplish yesterday, so a 3 hour round trip trek was pushing it, but I looked it up and it was only 25 minutes from my Lolo.

I started thinking….doesn’t that kid owe me something for the undying love I’ve been shelling out for almost 27 years? Didn’t I just purchase a wedding dress for her last week? *giggle giggle*

I texted her to see if she was up for a rescue mission and of course she was on board, I mean love and wedding dress, right?

I called the nursery and they had 6 pipevines, plus all sorts of good monarch butterfly plants that I needed. One, I had always coveted, but never found locally; the elusive Giant Swan Milkweed. AKA: Hairy Balls

She face-timed me when she was there and all the plants looked great. But, they didn’t look so BIG while we were on the phone. I ordered the 6 pipevines, 2 giant milkweed plants and 2 hairy balls. 🙂

She said, are you sure? They’re big. Me: YES!

SO, we met up a while later half way from my house and half way from her house in a Cracker Barrel parking lot. BTW, are we changing the name of that place anytime soon?

It felt like the best drug deal going down in a parking lot that I’ve ever been a part of. “You got my weed?”

Ya’ll, I didn’t have one inch of space left in my fake SUV. (I think of an SUV as a Suburban, Yukon, etc….) It fit tightly in Lolo’s Yukon, but it was a crunch in my fake SUV.

This is just a portion of the weed I picked up in the Caucasian Barrel parking lot. Ignore the exposed wiring in my garage….we have yet another project this week.

I immediately carried one of the pipevines to the grave yard ,scene of the crime area where I still had some starving caterpillars. I then went on a mission and found about 12 more caterpillars wandering. This morning I found two more survivors and put them on the vine.

BTW: last night I dreamt that the vine was eaten entirely overnight.

So, I saved around 15 or so caterpillars out of the 100’s.

Will I even put these vines in the ground? maybe not. I have PTSD. I’m just gonna see how it goes and if the ones the ground can fight their way back before being devoured again.

So, I feel a bit of relief today. For now. *giggle* I exhaust myself….

How is your humpday?