Happy Earth Day 2024!

Yes, it’s Earth Day once again! That means it’s time for our annual walk to look for signs of Spring and see what flowers and other nature items we can find. Pop your shoes on and let’s go! 🙂 Here are some things we found:

Our Creeping Phlox flowers are blooming and they are so beautiful! Here we have light purple…

Also white…

And possibly my favorite colors, pink and white.

Next we found a bush with red and pink flowers. (Sorry, I don’t know what kind of bush it is.)

I bet you know the name of these bright yellow flowers! If you said dandelions, you are right!

Oh, look who is hanging out and gathering pollen on this dandelion!

These tiny little wild violets are growing in our yard. Yes, all by themselves. We didn’t plant them.

Here is another pinkish-purple flower that grows all on its own too. It even grows up through stones!

Speaking of stones…look what we found in our driveway, of all places! Two Killdeer eggs! From what we read, it seems Killdeer often lay their eggs in not very safe places.

While we are talking about birds and their eggs, look what else we found on our walk.

Care to guess what’s hiding inside this nest? This is a Robin’s nest and look what a beautiful color their eggs are!

Here’s another batch of pretty white flowers.

We’re almost done with our Earth Day walk today, but keep an eye out for trees that have blossoms right now too!

I hope you’ve enjoyed going on this walk with us, but I hope you can take time outside to go on your own walk and that you will find all kinds of beautiful things in nature that will amaze you! 🙂

The Last of the Monarchs for 2023

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. 🙂

Butterflies Galore!

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!

September Monarch Butterfly Update

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! 🙂

Quick Monarch Caterpillar Update

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!

Monarch Butterflies Beginnings 2023

I’m so excited to tell you that we are now finding Monarch butterfly eggs and caterpillars on our milkweed plants! 🙂 Each year for several years now, I try to help the endangered Monarch caterpillars survive until they turn into butterflies and then I release them back into the wild. It’s sooo interesting and fun! Monarch caterpillars will only eat the milkweed plant, so that is where you will find their eggs and caterpillars. They are just now starting to show up here in our part of Ohio. I currently have 14 teeny tiny caterpillars and they can be pretty sneaky and a bit hard to keep track of since they are so tiny! Here’s a close-up picture of one…notice how small it is in comparison to my thumb and finger.

Now let’s test out your powers of observation. Can you find 4 caterpillars in this picture?

There is one caterpillar on each piece of the milkweed leaves. In case you are having trouble seeing them, here’s a bigger picture.

I bet you found them all now! 🙂 Can you believe how small they are?? Wow! Remember that I said they can be sneaky little guys? Look at this guy I caught escaping from his “hotel”!

Luckily I saw him before he got any farther and I offered him a fresh piece of milkweed and he decided he liked that and crawled aboard. I put him safely back in his hotel. 😉

Stay tuned for more Monarch caterpillar updates coming soon! 🙂

I’m back after a round with Covid.

Hello again! Sorry I fell off the map there for a while, but my husband and I came down with Covid the same day. UGH! While we didn’t get seriously sick like some folks have, we were definitely miserable and were ready for it to go away long before it did. We are still feeling the crazy tired stuff but slowly improving! I’m hoping to be back in the saddle now here on the blog.

Yesterday was our last day of quarantine and we both had cabin fever. Time to get out of the house while still keeping our distance from people. We ordered “curbside to go” food from a local restaurant, drove through a local coffee shop drive through for some yummy drinks and then went looking at some of our favorite nature spots in our Jeep. Oh yes, Rusty, our Labrador Retriever came along. 🙂 Believe me, he had cabin fever too! LOL

Clear Fork Reservoir is not far from our house so that was our first stop. There is a small Marina there and a boat ramp. We were surprised to actually see a couple of people out in a boat. The trees are, of course, without their leaves, so it wasn’t as pretty as it is in the spring and summer, but the fresh air felt amazing!

Part of the reservoir water is thawed now, but there was still some ice in places. We got a chuckle out of watching some birds running around on the ice. We also dreamed about when the weather will be warm enough again to take our boat out for a spin. 😉

Knox Lake is not far from us either and so we spent a little time driving around that area and finding the different boat ramps. Then we googled where the Knox Lake dam is because its a little tricky to find. (Aaaand Google was wrong so that made it even more interesting!) But we were eventually successful!

There isn’t much to DO at the dam, but again, it was just nice to feel some fresh air and get out of the house for a bit.

We find it interesting to explore the area we live in and almost always find something we haven’t seen before. So even if you need to stay in your vehicle like we did, you can find something to explore. 🙂

Can You Spy Our Little Friends?

Just for fun today, I have 4 pictures for you to look at and see if you can spot a little animal friend or friends. The first one is the easiest one…here we go!

#1.) 5 little babies are in this picture. Can you find them all? (You can see part of a 6th one too.) (Baby chicks)

2.) Can you spot 1 little brown friend in this picture? I almost stepped on him before I saw him! (Baby toad)

#3.) This little yellow, white and black striped friend was crawling on one of my flowers. (Monarch butterfly caterpillar)

#4.) And now the tiniest of all our friends today! Can you spot him? He’s a smaller version of picture #3. (Monarch butterfly caterpillar)

Wasn’t that fun? Keep your eyes open when you are outside because you never know what little friend you might see! 🙂

From Chrysalis to Butterfly!

Hello and welcome to another adventure in the life cycle of the Monarch butterfly! Yesterday we looked at how the Monarch caterpillar changes into its chrysalis. Today we’ll see what happens when it’s time for the butterfly to emerge from the chrysalis. (Hang on until the end of this post for a video!) So just to remind you, here’s what the Monarch butterfly’s chrysalis looks like.

When the time for the butterfly to emerge is getting close, the chrysalis will start to turn a darker color and look black. Notice in this picture that one chrysalis looks green but the one in the background is black.

Here is a closer look.

Did you notice that you can see the butterfly’s wing inside the chrysalis? My pictures aren’t super clear because they are taken looking through the plastic container, but here is a picture taken with a flashlight shining on the chrysalis.

Whoa!! How cool is that?! The chrysalis is now very thin and you can see the butterfly! Next, the chrysalis starts to slowly open. Can you see along the left hand side that the chrysalis is splitting open?

Then the split becomes a little wider. The butterfly is hanging upside down right now and you can start to see its head coming out first.

The butterfly is dropping down a little lower now. You can start to see its legs that are folded up close to its head.

It’s now beginning to slide out of the chrysalis!

Sliding farther out…almost there! The chrysalis will stay attached to the top of the container as the butterfly slides down and out of it.

And it’s out! Look how big it’s body looks right now and how small and folded up it’s wings are.

The butterfly grabs a hold of the empty chrysalis and it will hang right side up now.

As the butterfly hangs on the empty chrysalis, it will pump fluid from its abdomen into its wings and the wings will begin to expand and the body will become smaller. This next picture was taken 5 minutes after the butterfly emerged or eclosed. Its wings are still wrinkled looking.

Then 10 minutes…it’s wings are looking straighter.

And then here is 15 minutes after emerging.

It takes a couple of hours for the butterfly to finish this process and for it’s wings to expand and dry off. They don’t need to eat right away so it’s good to give them time to dry off and to begin to flex their wings. After a few hours have passed, I carefully open the container and put my hand close to the butterfly and they usually climb onto my finger. And then it’s time to set them free outside.

Here is a video I took of the process of the butterfly emerging from it’s chrysalis. It is so amazing to watch this happen!

It has been such a rewarding experience for me to help these beautiful creatures along in their transformation from a tiny little egg into an amazing gorgeous butterfly! This is my fourth year of raising and releasing Monarchs and I hope I can continue to do so for many years to come! I hope you have enjoyed coming along with me on this journey! 🙂

It’s That Time of Year Again! Raising Monarch Butterflies!

Yep, it’s begun again! In case you haven’t followed me long enough to know what I’m talking about, every summer I raise Monarch butterflies and release them back into the wild. The Monarch butterfly population had dwindled down drastically, but over the last couple of years the population has increased a LOT! Which is so exciting!! Many people are doing their part to grow plants that the Monarch’s feed on. Monarch caterpillars will only eat Milkweed plants. I look for the Monarch eggs or caterpillars and raise them in a safe place away from many of the predators that will destroy them. Here’s the start of my setup this year!

Last Sunday morning, I found 6 caterpillars and put them into their “hotels”. 😉 Some children were here that day and they discovered 5 more! And we were off and running! 🙂

I don’t put more than 4 caterpillars in one container at any given time. And I try to put the same sized caterpillars together.

Today I found 1 more caterpillar and he/she is still very tiny! Can you find him/her in the next 2 pictures?

Isn’t that pretty neat?! I won’t share all the steps today that the caterpillar goes through to become a butterfly, but for now I’ll just say eventually they form a chrysalis. They stay in the chrysalis for a while and then the Monarch butterfly emerges. It’s truly magical! (I’ll share more details in another post.) Here is a picture of 4 of this year’s caterpillars that have gone into their chrysalis now:

For some reason, it seems they all wanted to be in the same corner of their hotel! LOL Two of them are actually touching, which I’ve never had happen before. Now the wait is on till it’s time for the butterfly to put in an appearance! I really enjoy raising Monarchs each summer! 🙂 It’s a great experience to share with your kids!