Rafting Trip & Lots of Monarchs

Corey and kids are off for an adventure in Idaho. 

They woke up at 5:15 and loaded the last things into the trailer, like the ice water...

And final items - 

Then Wes helped make sure it was all tied down - 

And they were off. They left around 6:30. Corey texted at 9 saying that they were pulled over to the side of the road, cause the transmission was overheating, like it did last year when we went to Lake Tahoe. Doh! I checked in on them 30 minutes later and they were moving. They made it all the way to Idaho by keeping the hot air on full blast, and the windows down. So that must have been fun for them! But they made it. And if they have some very cold nights during this week, I'm sure they'll look back on their hot car drive with fond memories. They have been out of the range of cell service since 2:30, so I hope they are ok and we hope they all survive and that we'll be in touch with them again on Saturday. As for the rest of us... it was a sleep in morning again. E and Peter - 

Peter wakes up often with nightmares of scary monsters. 

He always wakes up atleast once during the night, and he's usually in a drunken rage. I appreciated Ethan being there and taking care of him last night. We are all loving Katharine - I brought up the super saucer today. She's holding her head up well, so it works ok with some blankets around to hold her in the center. 

She can barely touch the ground. 

It might provide a good place for her to be the focus of attention, but with the benefit of a 12 inch buffer between her and her adoring siblings.

And for the caterpillar update... today I had 24 eggs hatch. TWENTY FOUR!!!! Most of the eggs were black tipped this morning - that is their little face and lets you know they are about ready to eat their way out of the egg - 

24! This is a record for us! It is going to be a crazy mess when they are all in the fifth instar, but it will be magical when they emerge! Especially if we have a lot merging at once, that will be so fun. We had 7 emerge at once in 2017, so with 24 chances this time, I bet we'll have atleast a dozen! It will be amazing! I hope we're not gone... doh, we might be. We're taking a road trip to Nauvoo... let me see, no, it looks like we'll be here when they emerge but we'll be gone when they are big and eating. Hmm, I might arrange for help for that, or I guess I could risk it and put them out on the milkweed in the yard. Hm. We'll see. but it's pretty exciting. I didn't know we'd have such success and things would be so abundant this year, but I feel like I can't stop now. If eggs are left on the leaves, the spiders or bugs get them and eat them. The predators think they are little bonbons or something. I just took my monarch stats, and we have 50 monarchs in various stages. FIFTY!! This, my friends, is a new record, wow. I found 11 more eggs today and one that was just hatched, so that's 12, and today I had 23 come out of their eggs of the ones I've found, so with the one I found, that is 24 new baby caterpillars, and we have 5 chrysalis, 2 caterpillars right now (one died, just shriveled up) and a total of 18 eggs. One of our big 6 got stuck yesterday when he was changing into the chrysalis. After he was stuck like this for 10 minutes, I decided we needed to end his pain.

Had this happen before in 2019 (last pic)  I took this guy and buried/killed it under a rock. It was sad. Natalie was pretty worked up and was bawling, Owen was crying too. They are tender hearted kids. Having pets helps us give our kids lessons about life and death.