hope and tragedy

A monarch caterpillar set up shop in the garden basil a couple of weeks ago. I brought it inside the other night because it was projected to almost freeze that night. And then it warmed up. And lo, the pupa turned from mint green to almost black, which the interwebs tells me means the butterfly within is just about ready to emerge.

Here it is, balanced between two wooden skewers suspended over a jar.

This next one is sadly blurry, but you can see the classic monarch markings.

And then...sigh. She (?) emerged while we were having breakfast this morning, and took a tumble to the bottom of the jar. We carefully slid her out onto the picnic table.

This breaks my heart a little. 

The now-empty chrysalis.

That is all.

Sigh.

a random sampling of roadside pleasures

July already? 

Gone are the days when I could while away the hours on a mere trip to the mailbox a quarter mile away, and get 200 shots in. For lo, I am gainfully employed and whatnot, and damn if it doesn't eat in to the esoteric pursuits. Translation: oh right, the Mighty Lumix! Let's go out into the world with it, shall we?

The milkweed is just starting to pop.

This summer, I've let a handful of milkweed get established in the lawn because, why not? We got mouths to feed. Specifically, this one:



I spotted this monarch caterpillar a couple of days ago but couldn't find him (her?) (it?) today. Must be around somewhere.

Grass is always good for a close-up. I don't know what kind. The tall kind. Sorta like timothy grass, but we have that, and it hasn't gotten this far along yet.

Purple-flowering raspberry. I'm just going to go on a binge here, don't mind me. We'll start with the beginning:

Some say beauty fades with youth, but I'm not so sure...the petals may be gone, but this is life unfolding before your very eyes...

Ah, wasn't that fun? Soon that'll ripen into the the sweetest little open-cupped raspberry you can imagine. Yum.

Here, have a fly.

And now, a final dose of purple, courtesy of the bittersweet nightshade flower...

OK, time to call it a night.

life = plasmic goo

On a run this morning, I noticed one last batch of a lovely purple-blue flower at the top of a hill about a half mile from the house. I’ve never photographed it before, so this afternoon I went for a walk to investigate. Much to my consternation, when I got to the spot where I was sure I’d seen it…it was gone. Vanished! Vamoose! Maybe it’s like my neighbor’s morning glories, which are, in fact, glorious, in the morning, and less so, in the afternoon. I don’t know. I plan on a drive-by tomorrow morning, if only to prove to myself that I did, in fact, see something there.

In the meantime, there were other consolations in the late afternoon sun.

This, for instance. And…

My first ever (around here) monarch caterpillar! Munching away happily on a milkweed leaf.

It’s hard to imagine how this creature will turn into…

 

…this creature.

But we can all hope, can’t we? To be transformed? It’s that mushy part in the middle that’s the tricky bit, isn’t it. The part where the caterpillar is ensconced in its cocoon, and literally dissolving into plasmic goo.

In other news, the white baneberry, or Martian Eyeballs, as Kevin calls it, is turning fire-engine red:

…while the lily of the valley berries ripen.

crab-and-jellyfish, dolphins, alligator: a typical day

On today’s agenda: an hour and a half ass-kicking yoga class:

Vinyasa Flow: Our signature class! A dynamic blend of strength, sweat and spirituality that will detoxify, heal and electrify. This sequence will strengthen and tone the muscles of your body and mind, and is sure to take you to your edge.

Duly detoxed, healed, electrified, strengthened, toned, and drop-kicked off the edge, I followed this up with a strenuous two hours of deck chair asana, which is not for the faint of heart. I put my all into it. By mid-afternoon, I was ready for the next adventure: a kayak tour of yet another chunk of heretofore unexplored estuaries.

The sibs, with just the baseball cap of our guide in between.

Reason #1 to get an SLR camera to supplement the point-and-shoot: a blurry great egret. I should note, s/he was not blurry in real life. S/he was quite in focus, actually, croaking indignantly at us as we gingerly made our way through the high tide waters and spartina. We also annoyed a great blue heron.

Speaking of Spartina, here it is having just flowered.Woo hoo!


FAIL: this was supposed to be an awesome close-up of an immense blue dragonfly eating a monarch butterfly. Not only did I miss the shot, but my presence disturbed things enough so that wham, the dragonfly took off, and the butterfly corpse exploded, with pieces landing in the bottom of my kayak.

Like so.


Cool. Sad, but cool. Dragonfly’s gotta eat.
And now for the fun part. Here’s a wee tiny jellyfish.
These don’t sting. And, bonus, this little one is perfectly alive and happy, scooped up by our guide, Jesse. She explained that certain species of crabs have a little loveshack arrangement going on with these jellyfish. (Yeah, my terminology here.) They both eat the same kinda stuff. So sometimes crabs hang out up under the lid (yeah…my terminology again…) of the jellyfish, to eat with their host…

She rummaged around the hapless beastie to show us.


See the crab??? There were two of ‘em in there.
Then we made our way towards a huge pod of dolphins proceeding through their late afternoon lunch. We parked ourselves where they’d go right by us, and they did: going under us, and then surfacing – at one point, three at a time, doing a partial breech. Heaven.

Reason #2 for plotting the purchase of the next camera: I want a super-duper telephoto lens with stop-action capability.


We visited about a dozen pelicans. They glided by serenely.
A fine day. Tomorrow will be even better, because Best Beloved’s joining us. Hooray! Oh: one last piece of news. The alligator’s back on the other side of the lagoon now.

Whew.

But the local heron took its place right in front of our driveway.

no use crying over spilled milk(weed)

Howdy devoted readers! Hot enough for ya? Here’s an idea: let’s drive down into New Jersey in the middle of a massive heat wave, to spend time with extended family. This time we were smart: we took the car with the more-or-less functional air conditioner.
We spent the day at the beach with a thousand of our closest friends.

The waves were big, the lifeguards vigilantly blowing their whistles from atop their throne to herd the throngs inside the tiny official swimming area. I successfully avoided the beach cops patrolling the crowds to enforce the $5/day beach pass rule. I just admitted to being a scofflaw, I realize that. But hey: as far as I’m concerned the beach is for everyone, not just the folks with five bucks. Besides, I spent that five bucks a couple times over on most excellent Jersey Shore PIZZA. Pizza for lunch…pizza for dinner… Please, someone, hand me a vegetable.
Now for the nature bits. MILKWEED! Right along the driveway of the house my brother-in-law and his wife have rented for the week was a whole row of milkweed – and they’ve already formed lovely gigantic pods.
Well, some are little.


And some are big.


Some were covered with Aphis nerii – Oleander aphids (thanks, bugguide.net!).

Some were ALSO covered by – get this, what a great name - Large Milkweed Bug (Oncopeltus fasciatus). When they’re fully grown, they look like this:

Actual conversation between a certain unnamed next-generation member of the family – aged 9 – and myself and his mother. “They’re mating,” says he. “Yep,” we agree. “How do they stay stuck together? Glue?” “Nope,” says his mother. End of conversation.
The Large Milkweed Bug is not the only creature having fun on the milkweed.

A Monarch butterfly in the caterpillar stage. My niece asked a great question: how do you tell where the head is?
Because this is one end…


…and this is the other end.

If it had been resting, and not chewing vigorously, I’m not sure I would have been able to tell!
We’re back home in Vermont now. I plan on learning just how those milkweed pods form, as I have never seen the process from the beginning.