Obsessed...

That probably describes my current condition as it relates to monarchs and hummingbirds.  But, the hummingbirds will be gone probably a bit before the last monarch leaves my nursery, so I had to give the blip to the hummies today.  This is a juvenile male, with a single red feather on his neck.  He loves the buddleia and lobelia and I loved seeing him amidst such wonderful colors.  Win-win.  And, I have to confess, there's something about this shot that I kinda love.  

Temps dropped into the upper 50's (F) last night, so all the j'd caterpillars were slow to pupate, waiting until well into the afternoon.  And, the three butterflies that were ready to emerge today were also taking their sweet time.  I brought two of them inside and put their twig in my little soft box, hoping to get a time-lapse of one of them emerging.  I had to wait a little over 4 hours for the big moment, but it was worth the wait.  If you'd like to see the 24-second video, click HERE to watch it on YouTube.  It's pretty cool!  The iPad really makes neat work of time lapse videos - no skill required, as it turns out.  

I released three butterflies this afternoon - 2 males and one female, each perfect.  The female and one of the males went out in memory of Nettie and Doug, beloved family of WWombat (Barb) and CCN. The other male was released in honor of a friend's brother who left this world way too soon - his name was Steven and I know he is missed every single day.  

I have many more butterflies to release and am keeping a list of dedications.  If there is someone you'd like me to release a butterfly in memory of, just leave me a comment or if you'd prefer, send an email to dbifulco@gmail.com.  I try to get photos before I release them, but sometimes they are so eager to fly that I can't get a photo - but I'll do my best. 

I ended up coming home from my milkweed run with two tiny cats and 3 more eggs.  There are caterpillars all over the place right now and I'm quite certain I am going to exceed last year's number of releases.  Today I rescued a very worn monarch female from a spider web.  She settled on the buddleia, having a good long feed.  Her days are drawing to a close, but hopefully some of her eggs made it into my nursery.  

AC repairman came today and we got off much, much cheapter than we expected.  It enede up being a minor repair and we're nice and cool again upstairs.  Yay.

Thank you for continuing to stop by even though I seem to be obsessed with caterpillars and tiny birds at the moment...

xo
Debbi