Well, that bittersweet day has come and gone once again. Our last Monarch butterfly for this season emerged last week. A beautiful female…and now she is on her way! 🙂
Did you know that the last generation of Monarch butterflies for a season is called the “Methuselah generation”? They are the “super generation” since they are the ones that will migrate all the way to Mexico for the winter. They might fly up to 3,000 miles!! That’s hard to believe! This generation of Monarchs actually live longer than the other generations. They also will not develop reproductively until next spring. In the spring, they will finish developing and mate and then the cycle starts all over again. 🙂
I always enjoy helping the Monarch butterflies to survive while they are with us and to help keep them from becoming extinct. You can also help them by planting milkweed seeds in the fall! Monarchs are amazing and beautiful creatures! I hope you’ve enjoyed your peek into their lives through my blog. 🙂
You’ve probably seen red beets and even eaten them. I’m guessing you bought them from the store in a can like this:
But do you know where red beets come from? Have you ever seen a red beet plant? We grew our own red beets this year in one of our garden boxes. (The orange flowers you can see are Marigolds which can help keep bugs away from the red beet plants.)
The red beets grow under ground and then they are dug or pulled up. Here’s a closer look at the plants and what you can see above ground.
This is what one red beet looks like when it’s taken out of the ground.
A raw red beet is hard and is best eaten cooked. There is a process to follow if you want to cook red beets. First you cut off the top leaves, but it’s important to leave about 1-2″ of the stem intact. And you don’t cut off the roots. If the roots or the stem are cut off, the color will bleed out of the red beet when its cooked.
We sprayed the red beets outside with the water hose in order to remove the biggest part of the dirt from them. Then they were taken into our kitchen and put in the sink.
Next they are washed by hand and put into a large pot.
Water is added to the pot so that the red beets are all covered with water.
The water is brought to a boil and the red beets are cooked until the skin of the red beet will slide off the outside of the beet. The beets are then put into a large pan of cold water so they can cool. Once they are cool enough to be handled without burning your hands, each beet is gently “squeezed” and the skin, the root and the stem will slip right off.
And ta dah, there is your red beet ready for eating or canning into jars.
We canned or preserved our red beets so we will be able to eat them all through the winter time. In order to can the beets, they are cut into smaller pieces.
The red beets are packed into special glass canning jars and some salt and boiling water is added. A two piece set of a metal lid and a metal ring and placed on the top of each jar. Then the jars are processed in a pressure canner for a while. When the right amount of time has passed, the canner slowly cools down and once the pressure is gone, the jars of beets can be removed. As the jars cool, the metal lid will seal and that is what makes it safe to keep the red beets for a longer time on a shelf.
That is an abbreviated version of the canning process, so if you ever can red beets yourself, be sure to follow the instructions that come with your pressure canner. 🙂 Now you know where red beets come from! I hope you’ve enjoyed learning more about red beets!
I came across this adorable owl craft kit at our local Dollar Tree store. Just had to share it with you! 🙂
This is a great, simple craft kit that you can do with the kiddos. All you need to complete it is some glue.
There are no written instructions, but you can easily make this owl just by looking at the picture on the package.
These are the pieces inside the package. There are a few pieces you will need to punch out of the felt and then you’re ready to create!
I started with the eyes, first putting the white felt piece in place and then adding the 2 black eyes. You can aim the eyes in the direction you like best. 😉
Next I added the headband, feathers and the beak.
Then I added the tummy and 2 wings.
And your cute little owl is finished! 🙂 Super simple and super cute! And the best part is, it only cost $1.25! (plus tax) Great little project for fall! 🙂
I just wanted to share with you another quick butterfly update! The Monarch butterflies have been popping right and left today! At least 6 of them emerged from their chrysalis today! I caught pictures of 4 of them, but some of them were sneaky and flew away before I saw them. 😉
You might notice that you can see the empty chrysalis beside each butterfly.
This one was hanging on our decorative windmill. There are 2 other chrysalis still on the windmill and you can see one of them in this picture.
This little one was sneaky enough that I didn’t even notice there was a chrysalis on this flower until it emerged today. 😉
That’s all for today! Just wanted to share more butterfly news! 🙂 I get excited when they emerge and fly off on their own!
Hello again! 🙂 Sorry I’ve been away from my blog a lot this summer! It’s good to be back! I think it’s way past time to give you an update on our Monarch butterfly raising this year. It’s been a pretty good year for us. In previous posts, I showed you the teeny tiny Monarch butterfly eggs and then the tiny caterpillars and then how they were growing. We were able to raise and release 25 butterflies inside our home in their private little “hotels”. Yay! Here’s a few pictures of butterflies that emerged from that bunch of caterpillars.
This one is still hanging on the empty chrysalis that it emerged from. Isn’t that amazing?! How did that butterfly fit inside there? Wow, isn’t nature impressive?!
Here is one butterfly being released into the wild.
This one was taking a rest on some Swamp Milkweed.
Here’s another one checking out our orange Coneflowers.
One more picture of a butterfly almost ready to take flight from these Black-eyed Susan flowers.
After the first 25 butterflies were raised and flew off on their own, we started finding new eggs and caterpillars. But it was almost time for us to be gone for most of 2 weeks so I didn’t bring any caterpillars inside since I wouldn’t be home to care for them. BUT they did a great job on their own! 🙂
Our milkweed plants were literally crawling with Monarch caterpillars! Check this out…there are at least 4 of them in this picture!
Here’s some more! They look like little fat sausages, don’t they? 😉
We came home to find their chrysalis all over the place outside our house! Under the edge of the deck…
On the stairs…
On the downspout…
On the siding on our house…can you find 3 in this picture?
And 2 on the handrailing on the deck…
Altogether we found 22 chrysalis! Wow! Now look what is happening… 😉
Yep, the butterflies are starting to emerge! 🙂 So far, 4 of them have emerged and flown away. But wait! There was one more surprise today!! 🙂 While I was outside checking the chrysalis this afternoon, I found this!
Ha! 4 more “little fat sausages”! They were on a milkweed plant that is almost done for this year, so I brought them inside to a “hotel” so I can keep them supplied with fresh milkweed until they go into their chrysalis too. 🙂
Raising and helping to preserve Monarch butterflies is such a fun project for kids AND adults! Maybe you can grow some milkweed plants too and you just might be visited by some beautiful Monarch butterflies! 🙂
Wow! Summer is speeding by soooo fast! We have been so busy! We plant our own vegetable garden every spring and we have been super busy processing all the veggies we’ve grown. But now I want to take a minute and share a quick snack idea with you. 🙂 Let’s call them Banana Pops!
The main ingredients you’ll need to make them are a banana, peanut butter, assorted toppings and cookie sticks. You might like to also use some strawberry jam and yogurt.
Slice the banana into chunks and place on a plate.
Spread some peanut butter on the top of several pieces of banana.
You can put peanut butter on all the banana chunks or spread some pieces with strawberry jam or your favorite yogurt.
Put a cookie stick in each banana chunk. I cut my sticks in half.
Add your favorite toppings to each banana pop and they are ready to eat! I used multi colored sprinkles, raisins and Teddy Graham cookies. You could also use chopped nuts, chopped dried fruit or chocolate chips.
These are great for a quick and easy snack or even for breakfast! Enjoy! 🙂
Do you love s’mores? That yummy dessert that is made around a campfire with a fire toasted marshmallow and a piece of chocolate candy bar sandwiched between 2 pieces of graham crackers? Yea….that one! 🙂 But do you sometimes get hungry for s’mores when you aren’t by a campfire to toast a marshmallow? Well, here’s the next best thing – the Walking S’mores Dessert! You will need the following items: individual packets of Teddy Grahams bear shaped snacks, chocolate pudding, miniature marshmallows and whipped cream.
Note: To make this dessert the original way means you open the little packets of Teddy Grahams and put the other ingredients inside the packet and thus you can walk around while you eat them. Buuuut I can only imagine the mess that might make, so while we had 4 grandkids staying with us last week, we opened the Teddy Grahams and poured them into a bowl. 😉 So you can buy a box of Teddy Grahams instead of the individual packets.
Another side note: Have you ever noticed that the Teddy Grahams teddy bears are not all the same? Pretty cool, right? 😉
Back to our s’mores…next add a dollop or two of chocolate pudding on top of the Teddy Grahams.
Add a few miniature marshmallows…
Top with whipped cream…
Grab a spoon and dig in! 🙂 That’s how simple this Walking S’mores dessert is to make! Our grandkids gave it a thumbs up! 🙂
Greetings, butterfly lovers! I don’t have much time for blogging today (company is coming!) but I wanted to give you a quick update on the Monarch caterpillars I showed you. Remember these tiny guys?
I took that picture 5 days ago, but here is a picture I took just this morning. Do they look different to you?
Wow! They grow so fast that it’s hard to believe! 🙂 They are still quite little, but are you surprised at how much bigger they are? It’s so fun watching them grow! 🙂 Check back later for more Monarch caterpillar updates!
The Kids Niche 