Two New Caterpillars

So usually I have caterpillars to babysit during Park City. But this year... nothing. Last year wasn't as great as 2017, but this year, to not have anything left me more than a little concerned. No eggs, no caterpillars, nothing but a lot of empty milkweed in the back yard. 

I'm hoping it's not cause they're all dying and will be extinct!! I've been googling information that has me worried! ...
Monarch Butterflies in Crisis
Protecting the Future for Monarch Butterflies
Scientists Scramble to Learn Why Monarchs are Dying so Quickly
Monarch numbers cut by 90% in the past two decades

That would be so sad if monarchs become extinct! So for date night, I asked Corey if we could go see a 3D movie at Thanksgiving Point "Flight of the Butterflies" so I could get my monarch fix and maybe some hope for their species. I liked it and I think Corey did too! Peter slept through it.

It was funny, Corey and I met there for the movie. He came straight from work. And at first he went to the Megaplex theaters. Then he came over to the dinosaur museum were this film was. "There are more people over there..." he teased. Yeah, this theater isn't showing the new Hollywood flicks. I had bought out tickets and we went over to go into the empty theater. "You can sit anywhere you'd like" the lady said as she opened the door for us. But there was one other couple sitting in the middle of the top row. "Not anywhere..." Corey joked. Yes, not those two seats that those two other people are sitting in, but we have plenty of options. The movie was great. I am amazed that they are able to film something so small as the caterpillar coming out of it's egg. There was so much detail! I learned somethings that I did not now before. Monarchs can travel 50 miles a day. And they can be like a mile up in the sky when they fly!! But they don't flutter that far, they glide in the air. Like they are blown where they need to go - that's how they migrate! They said that the monarchs migrate during the day and rest at night. So I decided to check the milkweed the next morning again, and I found two eggs on Saturday morning!! Yay! The eggs turned black today and one of them came out tonight, the other one will probably be out before midnight.

I'm so happy we have two!! I will pray for their little lives! And you can bet I'm against abortion. A little human baby is smaller than these caterpillars, and his or her life is even more valuable. I honestly don't understand how any lover of nature or earth could support abortion. Protect these helpless creations, let them all live. I hope these little guys make it. If they do, we'll match our 2018 butterfly total. Also, at church on Sunday we had a lesson on repentance. I had monarchs on the brain. She shared how in President Nelson's recent General Conference talk, he spoke of being and doing better. He spoke of how we do that through repentance. He shared that repentance comes from the Greek work "metanoao". The prefix "meta" means change, like in Metamorphosis "change form". Change - we can change like a butterfly I thought - by feasting and feasting (not on milkweed, but on the word of God) and that will help us GROW (like the caterpillars grow!) and soon we'll have a mighty change of heart, just like the caterpillars have a mighty change and become new creatures. We like them can become new creatures that can reach new heights that their former little caterpillar selves could have never have imagined nor done on their own. We have to change. We do it through the miracles Christ give us as he blessed us with growth and he will help us become new creatures that are like him. I'm going to keep pondering on that and trying to understand repentance better and how I am supposed to do it daily. Grow little catterpillars, grow! I will grow too, time to go feast on the word.

Creatures

While the rest of the crew is up at Park City, I've been taking care of these bugs and the guinea pigs, aka "the pigs". I've made a schedule for our home farm for myself this week. First thing I do in the morning is put the pigs out to pasture, aka on the grass. We need to let them enjoy the grass and the time outside while it's summer time. Other than the pigs, we've got a lot of caterpillars! We have 20 big ones right now and more eggs and small caterpillars growing, this is the most we've ever had!

And it's pretty cool cause I've found all the eggs! We only have a small handful of milkweed plants in the back yard - like 8 small plants. I go check them for eggs in the morning after putting out the pigs, then I'll bring in a few leaves with eggs. My current opinion is that caterpillars might even be better household pets than guinea pigs. Though it's mostly cause of the short term commitment thing (the kids are slacking taking care of the guinea pigs and I'm ready to sell them, but then the girls repent and do better for a week or two...). I know I've been spending a bit too much time watching the caterpillars grow, especially when there is housework to do and the kitchen is a mess, but the monarchs are a fleeting moment in time. The dishes are forever, so they can wait. It's easier to slack on the household chores when everyone's gone. The house is also pretty quiet. I put Owen and Daniel to bed early and then come in here where the caterpillars are to blog. If you really listen, you can hear them all munching the leaves, they are cute little guys.

So, I've been thinking about animals and all of God's creatures on this earth. Monarchs are pretty cool, even if they do only live for about 3 months. Though it does seem like a lot of work for such a short life. What is the point of it all? What is the point of guinea pigs? They are cute, but they don't do much. I've always thought the point of farm animals was to be or make food for us, but since going vegan my opinion of that is changed, but I'm still pondering what their purpose is now. Do they have a right to live just to live and just because? Maybe cows are just supposed to eat grass and be cows. They don't have to be useful to us, do they? We let lots of other animals just be animals. Like this deer that grabbed a bite to eat as he passed through our backyard this morning -

A deer is a deer and that's okay. We should probably let cows be cows, pigs be pigs, and chickens be chickens. Tonight as we settled down for bed, Owen and Daniel played with toys while we had a pbs Nature program called "Touching the Wild" on in the background. Some guy named Joe Hutto who just loved the mule deer. He had this relationship with this mother deer and her fawn and they'd let him come close and then the mother deer died and the baby would run around looking for her all day and calling for her. The little deer survived and he loved her and said "I learned so much from her" - which I found interesting cause the deer never said anything to teach him, right, so no instruction, what kind of things did he learn from her? Just by her being a deer and doing deer things? He spent years with them and became part of the deer society. Interesting... There are so many animals out there, glad people can find what they love. We also recently watched a passport earth episode with a lady who has dedicated her life to rescuing elephants from the streets and putting them back in nature, she founded the Thai Elephant Conservation Center. Anyway, I've just been pondering what the point of animals are and what kind of relationship we humans are supposed to have with them. But I really don't think we're supposed to kill them and eat them as much as we do, making a whole meat and dairy industry out of them. Talk about animal abuse. Poor cows. I caved in and had a little bit of ice cream last week for Owen's birthday, which turned into a lot of ice cream, and I wasn't eating it with thankfulness to God or the cow who provided the milk, I was mad at the ice cream for being so addictive to me and making me lose control. I thus vowed I'm not eating or buying ice cream anymore. I'm ready to move on from ice cream. Listening/watching this Dr. Klapper "Dairy Doubts" video over the weekend helped. I'm moving on, I don't want to be part of the mistreatment of cows anymore. It didn't use to bother me but I didn't really think about it, cause that's what cows were for, right? to give us milk and be meat. But I don't think that is their purpose anymore. I'm going to be come a cows' rights activist! Ha, save the cows. :) We'll see if I can start a movement lol, good luck with that eh!

Backyard is Clear

At the beginning of the summer, our lawn mower broke. I'm guessing it was probably the old gasoline that was in it, as I only semi-recently learned that gasoline gets old. Needless to say, we are new to maintenance of home and small machinery. So, I kinda looked at new lawnmowers at Costco, but then I thought ugh, we'll just end up breaking that one... cause we don't know how to take care of them!! Did I tell you our freaking new snowblower broke and we weren't able to use it at all last winter?!?! (Note to self, we should take that to the shop before it snows this year!) Well, instead of buying a new lawnmower, we've hired out the yard this year. One morning as Corey left for work, he saw a guy doing yard work and turned around and ask him if he was available for work and brought him to our house to ask for a quote. Marcos has been our lawn guy since. He's great!! He mows, he edges! He leaf blows and he hauls away. And he's dependable! I recognize that most hired help is, but the kids aren't, and since they've been doing the yard up until now, this is a welcome thing to know that it will be trimmed on Thursday mornings. The kids were telling me that the would have showed up too if we paid them like we're paying Marcos. I said we would have if they had done as good as a job as Marcos! Anyway, so it's not Thursday, but Marcos came today and the worked and cleared out the back yard, and it's like a new place. He was careful with the milkweed. I've thought before that in our life, we don't have time to plant flowers, but I would just like to be able to get the weeds gone and see the dirt. Thank you Marcos for helping us see the dirt again!!

He worked for over 7 hours, and then he hauled it all away...

We like Marcos. This morning I was giving him a check and he was like "I'd like to make a nice place for your family, you have 3 or 4 kids?" and then he paused, waiting for an answer... "We have... 12..." and his jaw dropped. That's the usual reaction, so my immediate response to get the conversation moving again is "Here's a picture" (I keep it handy on my phone). So I told him Joseph is in Guatemala, he's 19, the baby is 7 months. And that reminds me, we need family pictures again soon! I think we'll do it in October after I get my braces off, yay. But I don't know what to do for Joseph... I don't think I'll do a cutout, but I'm wondering if we have a picture of him in a frame, or is he just not there? I guess we can do one picture of each and we'll see how it looks with both? What else has been going on today. Daniel went down for his nap today like a good resistant toddler he is (aka said "NO!" until he collapsed.

Our two caterpillars are in their last phase and are being very good caterpillars.

We've had no drama at all this year. Two caterpillars is probably the right amount for a stress free experience. But I'd still like to have a great monarch year like we did in 2017.

So the caterpillars are resilient enough to hold now, but they mostly just played dead when we picked them up. They curl up as tight as they can in a little ball...

"I'm not a caterpillar! I'm a little rock! Just put me back in the bushes please!!!" Daniel was and is a very careful toddler, but I still get nervous. I trusted Lily with him a little more, cause she's been doing this for years!

And two more things... I was in the basement for a while today with the little boys. They like to go down there so Owen can destroy the things the girls are working on (sorry girls.) I found this little lego robot and got a kick out of it. I want to keep it on my shelf, I think it's so funny and cute.

I'm guessing this is a Wesley creation. And, with the start of the school year, I'm happy that I've got my morning routine back in place. I've been going outside on walks, and I thought this morning that I'll try to get one picture for my lovely world blog every morning that I go out, if I can. That's the goal anyway.

I chose the mosaic layout for that blog cause I just like seeing all the photos of flowers together, so pretty. And I also started that blog so that I could have a place for my aspiring photographer photos without overloading the family blog like I have a tendency to do! (Here's a few links to a few... more... examples.

Mother Nature and Human Nature

Well, overall I feel that this year has kinda been bad for our attempts at helping the monarch population - kinda feels like we've had lots of butterfly fails. We had a lot of eggs on our milkweed, and I started off really enthusiastic as I had visions of tons of healthy caterpillars munching around for the kids to wonder at. Reality has been lots of eggs with caterpillars that never emerged, little dried up caterpillars in the first and second instar, and big caterpillars that were vomiting or had diarrhea. We had only 5 make it to the chrysalis stage. Four have flown off on their own to face the world. And today the last of them was to emerge. It turned black and the kids saw it at breakfast, and then they were off to school and I watched it for a bit but then went on with my day too. I came at lunch and was putting dishes in the sink when I saw that it had emerged but fell off the stick - it was laying on it's back on the counter. I don't think it's wings expanded as big as they were supposed to, plus one of them was bent...

His wings seemed to have dried apart (or he hurt his back?) cause after I picked him up his wings wouldn't come together. I just felt sad about it, poor little fragile guy, he was so close!!! I put him outside and he hung on a branch for a while, but I'm pretty sure he's not going to be able to fly. His wings don't come together.

Darn it, poor thing. So do I tell the kids? Oh, the drama of it all. Why do I get involved with these little critters? Reminds me of the baby quail we found once that we tried to help that I ended up accidentally stepping on. Or seeing the deer that got hit, I'd rather just drive by and not get involved. Why open myself up to the worry/pain/awareness of the frailty of mortal life?

So I made the mistake of leaving the empty chyrsalis on the counter. The kids asked about it when they got home from school. After a few answers of just saying he emerged and I put him outside, I ended up confessing that he fell off the stick and that I thought it was hurt, and that I knew where he most likely was, as I was pretty sure it couldn't fly. So Mel and I went out to check. Sure enough, he had fallen off the flower I put him on and was on his back in the dirt. Mel spent an hour trying to help him out - she gave him juice of a clementine and did an internet search about how to fix their wings. She was sure if we got it's wings wet that would help them straighten out. I doubt it sweetie. "Well, can we try to fix him with cardstock and super glue?" Mel, that would be way too heavy for him... he's gonna die. We just gotta let nature take it's course (although I do support euthanasia in cases like this.) Let's just squish the poor thing and then he can fly in heaven. But I left her alone with it to do her thing and went out to get some school supplies for the kids. When I came back home, I saw she had made a little home for it and put it by the kitchen sink. No, not here. I moved it to her room, cause I didn't want to see it. I don't want to be dreaming about injured butterflies tonight.

So it's in her closet now.

So. Some things you should just leave be. I'd say most of those things belong to mother nature. As sad as it is, a deer that gets hit isn't going to get any help from the vet... we need to let nature take it's course. Baby bison also fall into this category (though I agree it's sad and hard to watch/think about). I'd put butterflies there too, but will let my children try to help, I think it's good for their souls to exercise compassion for these creatures that can't help themselves. And then there are other things are more horrible but also infinitely more important because they involve HUMAN life. I speak of abortion, sex trafficking, countries where rape is part of the decaying culture (please read National Review article about Denis Mukwege and his efforts to help women in the Democratic Replublic of the Congo), and helping refugees. We might want to shrink from knowing about these things cause it's just too much, too painful, too far away, and we feel there is nothing we could do to make a difference anyway, but these are areas where we need to open up ourselves and our awareness and take them in and own it and help. Learn about it and decide a way that you can help, cause those things are so important and there is something we can do.

Behind

Hi. So I'm really behind on life in pretty much every way. I read this article last week about the busy-ness of today's world - it does make we wish for a simpler time. Maybe that is why I'm taking such good care of the caterpillars right now - it's simple and doesn't take much time or effort, nor do the kids (or caterpillars) come behind and undo my work. Although they do leave a lot of frass to clean up and I have to make sure they still have leaves to eat. But it's still pretty easy. Perhaps that's why it's a good escape from life - and it makes me feel capable. So for a quick update on those magical creatures - We had 3 butterflies this morning, and we had 7 yesterday! It was really fun. Here they are just up over the fence on our neighbors pretty hibiscus flowers!

We have a lot more still coming. We had 15 in chrysalis already and we had 6 turn into chrysalis today, four yesterday, and we have 8 more caterpillars in various stages. It's fun and reminds me of the simple things in life. It's my small attempt at living in a little house on the prarie or in the big woods.

I think Corey and I are both on survival mode. He's running at full speed more than I am. The little ones make sure I never get much of a fast pace going. My mode is generally a slow walk cause I'm pushing a stroller or holding a baby while Corey's mode could be compared to that of a man on a mountain trail running for his life, trying to find a way through the brush with a mountain lion in pursuit.

"... many entrepreneurs harbor secret demons: Before they made it big, they struggled through moments of near-debilitating anxiety and despair--times when it seemed everything might crumble. It's like a man riding a lion. People think, 'This guy's brave.' And he's thinking, 'How the hell did I get on a lion, and how do I keep from getting eaten?" - from the article The Psychological Price of Entrepreneurship.

So my problems are easy compared to his, although I guess he and I are in our problems together! I need to plan meals and cook, I need to clean and do laundry, I need to budget and pay bills.... I'm trying to catch up with blog posts from June still... The house does look a little cleaner right now cause the kids have been helping me a little bit for the past hour (after I was on the verge of tears). Ugh. The lazy days of summer are almost over. School is on the way. I think this next week I might kick it in high gear and pretend the school year is underway, that way it won't throw me into shock. On the bright side - the kids are only in 3 schools this year instead of 4, so that's good.

I'm ready for fall cause our yard is an unkempt mess. I planted flowers and tomatoes once upon a time (2014 to be exact), but now I don't even bother. The weeds overcome the flowers and the deer eat the garden, so I give up. I'm struggling just to keep dirt free of weeds, never mind planting flowers in it. If we could pull the weeks or do yardwork together regularly I'd be happy and call it good. But I haven't pulled any weeds since Corey's birthday (not counting the milkweed I've been harvesting daily for our caterpillars) And I wouldn't have pulled weeds then if my angel friend and her girls hadn't started doing it first. So I'm ready for the frost and cold to just come and kill all the plants for me. Too bad that is still months away. My apologies to our neighbors who have to look at our yard! Sweetie, maybe I am ready to wave the white flag - feel free to arrange for yard care and a maid at your convenience.

So, I've got to catch up with blogging. Just finished June as I finally got pictures from Corey and Joseph's trip to Boston. Now to finish July and August. But thought I'd touch base here as to why I'm slow to update - I've hardly sat at the computer at all this week. I'm in a bit over my head. Corey and I are both about at our max. He's reached a new level of difficulty even beyond his last new level, which was impressive. As for me, I'm just trying to breath. Looking forward to a day of rest tomorrow. Last week I felt refreshed after church, I hope to be nourished again by the good word tomorrow.

School Challenge

Tonight, Corey issued a new challenge to the kids. Before issuing the challenge, he had asked them for some feedback on the Park City Challenge, how it went and what was good or bad about it. And the overall report was that there wasn't anything bad about it! It was all good. Sure, it was work, but the kids liked how they felt after working hard! I know we ALL enjoyed living in a clean home, they were pleased with the things they accomplished, and they enjoyed their reward (well, except for Wesley who was sick and didn't get to use his pass, we'll make it up to you Wes!)

So, since school is fast upon us, it's time to get ready to take on the school year. They can work hard and they need to work hard in order to survive. Ethan and Hyrum are both . Corey began the meeting by showing them a video or Mr. Strickland calling Marty McFly a slacker. Thus the introduction to level 1 and the different levels of productivity in this school challenge:

1. Slacker
2. Solid
3. Super Star
4. Celestial

If the kids can't complete the basics (like getting to school on time or practicing their music for 1 hour), they are at the Slacker Level (dark gray).

If they complete the basics and stay on top of their homework, they are Solid (lighter gray). If they get out of bed by 8:30 on Saturdays they are Superstars! And, if they're eating vegan, they are celestial! Ha, Corey made that level to tease me.

Here is a 7 min video of the presentation and discussion of this new challenge. This is about how noisy our meetings usually are... Kinda hard to communicate things or feel like you're being heard. But that's how it goes around here. Also, it's hard to keep track of your thoughts when you have to keep making comebacks to the teenager (Ethan) that pushes back on every statement you make. I usually can't handle it, Corey does better than I do.

Can you hear some of Ethan's comments? After Corey gives a verbal list of all the things he does in an effort to show the kids they are capable of doing more, Ethan says "And look at how stressed you are!" "Exactly..." "I don't want that to be me!" It made me laugh. We've got this teenager on the record! I'm hoping this video will make you laugh later in life, Ethan, as you have your own teenagers! Ethan also told Corey today that he can get me to say yes to anything. "Whatever I ask her, she'll say yes the second time I ask!" Corey didn't believe him. And for good reason. Because Ethan failed to mention that I say yes the second time because he changes the question to a negative. For example, as we drove home after his eye exam today: "Can we stop by Arctic Circle?" "No..." "Can we not stop by Artctic Circle?" "Yes!" "Thank you... I just like to hear you say yes."

Natalie said a few cute things tonight too. As we were going to bed, she said she was too scared to sleep alone on our floor. I replied "Ok, you can go sleep with your sisters in your room!" No. Corey said "Can I get you a big stuffed animal to sleep with?" "No, I just need a human. A boy human." I put Daniel on the floor next to her as he drank his bottle. "There! Daniel will help you not be scared!" She laughed at our joke, "No not Daniel! A BIG boy human!" She was trying to imply she wanted her father. It was cute.

Last report for today - the caterpillar report. We had one male butterfly today, we have 16 chrysalis, 5 big caterpillars, 4 small. Also, my neighbor brought me 6 of her big caterpillars on Tuesday night cause they are taking a trip to Yellowstone. But the caterpillars have all been sick - oozing green stuff. Maybe one of the milkweed is bad? One of them looked so in pain that I froze it, he was followed by one last night that was writhing in the same way, and then I located a missing one, it had fallen in the water of the cup she had tinfoil over. Our monarch year has been a huge success besides the tragic events these foster caterpillars just gave us. I felt bad for that little guy. Note to self, keep the glass jars. I'm going to keep a box of my monarch supplies for next year - little clothes pins, small containers to hold the leaves, rocks to put in the glass jars (helps the milkweed stay upright).

Caterpillars Are Back

Our neighbor Mary gave us some baby caterpillars last Saturday - 6 caterpillars, one of them just hatched and so tiny. They've all already grown so much, it is amazing. We all enjoyed them last summer, they are little wonders of the world and are so incredible, I don't know how anyone could know about Monarch butterflies and not be convinced that their is a Divine Designer behind it all - from the fact that the butterflies somehow know to lay their eggs on Milkweed, to the beauty of the chrysalis with their golden jewels, or when you watch their little wings expand and grow before your eyes, they testify of a Grand Creator, and these are just the simple and little things that testify of Him, don't even get me started on the big things like the gorgeous full moon (Sturgeon Moon coming up next Wednesday!) or the amazing machines behind this little faces.

All things testify of Him.

All things denote there is a God; yea, even the earth, and all things that are upon the face of it, yea, and its motion, yea, and also all the planets which move in their regular form do witness that there is a Supreme Creator. (Alma 30:44)

Great Monarch Year

Mel came back to the valley with me last night. She's been here with me most of the day. We came down last night cause she had a flute lesson today. Joseph came home too - he left this morning for a trip with his Voodoo Orchestra to the Telluride Jazz Festival in Colorado. It's nice having Mel here. She appreciates the caterpillars and joins me in having high hopes of a great monarch harvest this year (knock on wood...) We're butterfly farmers! They make a lot of frass to clean up, and that bothers my ultra-hygiene conscious boys to have caterpillar poop close by in the bathroom where they brush their teeth. So I've moved big group of them to the laundry room, but I did move them back to the bathroom temporarily while they are gone and cause I'm doing laundry, and I can't have them on the washer or dryer with how much it vibrates. I'll get them out of here in a bit..

Although it is much easier to find them and count them with the mirror behind helping me see where they were all hiding. I love it when they are big enough to hold too, they are really cute little bugs.

I've got a few downstairs in the kitchen. This one went wandering and made his j-hook by the kitchen sink.

Last year, if my memory serves me right, we had like 2 or 3 make it, despite having almost 30 eggs. Ok... just looked back at my blog, and this is why I blog, cause apparently my memory does in fact not serve me well. According to a mid August post last year, I documented that we had 4 make it through the life cycle to fly away as monarchs, but it was almost 5... that last butterfly loss was hard for me and almost made me vow not to get involved again. But the months pass by and my resolve grows weaker. Then summer comes and I get excited when I see the milkweed growing in our yard, and I look for and find eggs, just to see... and then before I know it I'm clipping leaves and bringing them in and we start watching the miracle take place.

"Ooh! Look! A little baby! He's so cute!!"

I'm perfecting the process. I should probably get some mesh cages though. We had 3 run away from the milkweed before they made their silkpads. Two of them have been located and one is still MIA.

Owen likes to see the bugs.  "A bug!" Little cute bugs. We have had some of them die. This one just slowly dried up, not sure what was wrong, but it looked like he wasn't able to completely molt out of his skin or something?

I also found lots of larva that I first thought were tachinid flies that eat monarchs, but after further research I think they are milkweed leaf miner bugs, cause we have lots of leaves that look infected and I found lots of larva in the water around the leaves. So yay, the caterpillars have been safe from parasites, phew.

So, as of now, we have 13 that made it to chrysalis! One turned black on day 2 and I think it's dead but we're leaving it on there for a bit longer.

Today 4 more turned into chrysalis, and we've still got 10 more in their last instar - 3 in j-hook right now and 2 are making their silk pads. Then we have 10 small caterpillars in the bathroom and I found 5 more eggs this morning! One hatched this afternoon. I think this has been a great year for our monarchs! I've found all of these as eggs in our yard except for two which our neighbor (and resident monarch expert!) Lisa gave me when they were going out of town. We are excited to see them come out. They are little miracles.

So that's the bug update. We're heading back up to Park City in a few, going to pick up Mel after her lesson is over at 4:45 and head straight up.

Little Pets

The kids are having fun watching the caterpillars. We had a few leaves with eggs that were contenders, and once any of them did hatch, we put them in their own plate on their own leaf so we can try to keep track of them. When they got a bit bigger, we put them on a bigger plant. We've got a magnifying that we keep by them so we can see them better.

Four of our caterpillars died already, so I've been doing a bit of butterfly research. I don't think we've had that many die before, but according to this website, they still have a better chance with us than they do in the wild, where only 2 to 5 out of 100 eggs will make it to butterflies. Appears it's a dangerous world out there for a bug - here's a list of 7 common killers. I have seen spiders on the milkweed, and I brush them off, but have been keeping an eye on them cause I do want to bring the eggs in before the spiders get them. I've seen some eggs that don't hatch but haven't seen any wasps emerge, #5 on that list of killers (how in the world does a wasp find a caterpillar egg anyway?) So I want to bring them in as soon as I find them, but then I'm also worried that the leaves will get too dry and maybe they will be dehydrated (killer #6). So over the weekend I was dreaming about that poor doe that got hit, and now I'm dreaming about caterpillars dying.

Ethan was also telling Corey and I on Monday night that he's ready for a pet dog. I said no, but never got around to giving my reasons, cause he just started giving his reasons of why it will be okay - "I'll take care of it! I'll buy it's food!" Yeah, been there, done that. We were lucky to be able to get out of having a dog once, we don't want to do that to a dog. We would not be good dog owners. We can keep the guinea pigs cause they're low maintenance, but no dogs, cause I don't trust you little ones to take care of it, and I don't want to have to take care of it until I'm done raising little children. And since we got another one of those coming in less than two months, I'm assuming any possibility of a dog is atleast 8 years away. Sorry buddy.

Abi was really sad about Chloe a few days ago. She was crying she was so sad, begging us to go take her back. NO. We would not do that to our friends, or to Chloe. The Nelsons are much better dog people than we could ever be. Kinda weird that Abi was talking about Chloe before Ethan brought it up getting a dog... perhaps desires for a pet come with summer boredom? So we did a skype call with her and after that Abi seemed to be okay. Phew.

Just looked at the date of the photo - This was on July 5th. But still doesn't matter how much they cry or want a dog, it's not going to happen. We were lucky to get out of my first impulse puppy purchase, I'm on solid ground now and will not make that mistake again, our family can't do dogs right now or for a long time. Talk to me in 10 years, kids. And you also have my blessing to have one when you have your own home and life.

Butterflies

 

We have some monarchs again this year. My friend Mary finds them in her yard - she's got a lot of milkweed. She gave us 8 caterpillars, then we found another baby one on the milkweed that we picked up to feed the other 8 hungry hungry caterpillars. So we had 9. One of them we let go outside when he was about to j-hook, so then we were back to 8. Then one of the big guys knocked off or ate the tiny one I think, cause one morning we couldn't find him - down to 7. One of the caterpillars got stepped on when he was in his wandering stage cause he got on a stool. Down to 6. 6 of them hooked, then the first one to come out was on Thursday, and he turned black and we could see the wings, but he never emerged. The chrysalis was cracked and we kept waiting, finally the next day I figured he was dead but wasn't sure, so I tried to open it - found out he was still alive inside but for some reason the poor guy wasn't able to push his way out of the chrysalis. But since it had cracked open his wings had dried up inside while they were all small. It was so sad, we felt so bad for him, but obviously he wouldn't survive, so I took him outside and sent him to fly in heaven (I squished him after an "I'm sorry" prayer).  So at our peak we had 9 and now 4 were dead. Hopefully these next 5 all survive. 

We watched the two black ones above come out this morning, so amazing.

The kids had fun with them. One of them was anxious to get on with his life and flew off high in a tree The other one stuck around for a while so we took lots of pictures. They named him Brian -

 

So amazing. It makes it worth putting up with all the frass (aka caterpillar poop) when they finally emerge. Love it.  I think the other 3 will be coming out tomorrow if anyone wants to come by. :)