My Blog

Wow!  At my last post, I announced with great joy the discovery of monarch caterpillars in my garden.  At last count, I have at least 25 of them!  Hannah is the expert "buffeye" finder, and she knows what they are. She tries to be very gentle with them. Not bad for a 2 year-old!

The other morning I was jolted awake by the crash of the little 2-gallon tank. I was foolish enough to leave it perched on the windowsill, by an open window. The wind blew it down. The impact dislodged the last of the chrysalises, which I knew was about to emerge. I didn’t know if the thing HAD to be hanging or not, but I gently picked it up and tried to prop it as vertically as possible in the corner of the tank. (-after I moved the tank away from the window…) Two hours later, Hannah broke into my room. As I apprehended her, we passed by  the tank. The Chrysalis toppled over and began to twitch. OOOooh! The Big Moment! As we watched, the casing cracked, and a very bedraggled and crumpled "thing" emerged- a fat black and white speckled worm with tiny shrivelled wings. Great, I thought- the first time I get to witness a butterfly emerging, and it’s a mutant! Nuts. But then again, It was my first time, so I didn’t know what was vs what wasn’t supposed to happen. So I ever-so-gently picked up the pathetic creature and let it hang on my lampshade. The body started to pulsate, and the wings began to expand! It was amazing! As the body grew thinner, the wings grew larger. The antennae also grew, and it uncoiled and coiled it’s tongue. WOW! The wings were so delicate and limp. It hung there for an hour, and Hannah was fascinated with it!  She even tracked down a magnifying lens to look at it!  (Atta girl!!!) I transfered the now-obviously-magnificent Monarch Butterfly to a rope on my front porch, where it rested for another 2 hours before flying off. Just think… that butterfly will fly all the way to Mexico!

I put some pictures in the album, If anyone is interested.

This has been a wonderful week for me and my garden!  My swamp-hibiscus finally bloomed after 4 years of taunting me.

                    Ta-da! 

The hummingbird at least contemplated one of the feeders I set up just for her. (But she didn’t drink any of it!). And now, to top it all, I discovered not one, but TWO monarch caterpillars in my milkweed!  

One of them is HUGE, and the other soon will be!  I am  so excited!

Here’s a picture of the big one! I hope I get to see it turn into a Monarch! Isn’t it lovely?

This morning, I made a peanut-butter treat for the birds out of some old hardened peanutbutter I found hiding in the cupboard. Within 5 minutes, the mother catbird was there with her youngster, and was stuffing it in his mouth as fast as she could! A chickadee later also helped himself as well. Don’t have many of them in my yard.

Yesterday, I discovered where all my almost-ripe apples are disappearing to.  A squirrel went up the tree, inspected several apples (Golden Delicious variety.. my favorite), selected one, nipped it off the branch, picked it up in it’s mouth, and scampered as fast as it could (not very, since it was a large apple, and it was a rather small squirrel!) and went up my neighbor’s tree!  Ah HAH! So that’s my apple-thief! Oh well…she’s most likely got a nest of babies. The rabbits like the apples that fall on the ground too.

This evening a young male cardinal, who was still working on getting his red coat and top-knot, was hopping around the backyard as we ate. I had to laugh, since he didn’t seem quite "finished" yet! Quite bedraggled!

I find it so gratifying to know that my hard work and care is appreciated by the wildlife. I planted the milkweed specifically to attract monarchs. I planted the honeysuckle, trumpet vine and cardinal flower specifically for the hummingbirds. I planted sedge specifically for the dragonflies. I planted the apple tree for me, primarily, but also for the birds and the animals to nest in, and to eat the fruits.  So satisfying!

My house has a lot of wierd stuff in it.

I’m a naturalist, by profession and by passion. Three jobs, with no desk or storage at any of them.  Sooooo… there’s a lot of wierd stuff in my house!

For example:

In my bedroom: As of this morning, I’ve got a little 2 gallon tank in my windowsill with monarch caterpillars munching away on milkweed leaves.  I’m hoping they will turn into monarch butterflies. (My daughter adores butterflies…"buffeyes", she calls them).

In my closet, top shelf, I have a box of mounted insects/arachnids I’ve borrowed from a friend of mine who’s got thousands of them. Cool insects!!!! I use them for a class.

I’ve got feathers strewn on my desk by the monitor.. haven’t quite gotten around to putting them in the envelope yet…

I’ve got about 200 pictures of various mammals, mounted on construction paper and laminated, in various places in my room. They should all be in one pile, but again, my daughter loves to look at them. So they get all unsorted. Again. and again. But hey.. she’s not even 2 yet, and she knows alot of them already! That’s my girl!

In the sala I’ve got a pot of live carnivorous plants… with liverworts! (I just learned about liverworts….) I’ve also got a small terrarium, with 4 different plant phyla in it. And pillbugs. and a worm or two. There used to be 2 petri dishes there as well, with "waterbears" I was trying to culture. Didn’t work. >groan< .

Speaking of worms, in my basement, I’ve got a worm composting bin… hundreds of hungry little redworms eat up my veggie scraps. I feed them, they give me wonderful fertilizer for my plants and my not-so-great vegetable garden. In the kitchen is a plastic bin labeled "worm food"… for the veggie scraps! 

I also keep all mesh bags- like what oranges or onion sets come in.. great for the peanut butter mix I set out for the catbird! There is also a container of nectar in the freezer, next to the handfeeding formula powder for baby birds, which in turn is next to the puppy milk. Which is next to the kitten milk.

What else…In my bookshelf, pretty much all you will find are various field guides, text-books, histories, etc.  There is a macaw tail feather stuck between two books. (It’s too big for the envelope!) I’ve got a pile of rocks on the end of one shelf… igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary… that I’ve collected in various places. Oooh.. and a teeeny tiny little trilobite fossil I found all by myself!  And a mechanical bat that really flies-albeit in circles-  when suspended by a string from the ceiling.  I love it! (I adore bats!) I’ve got a headlamp for when I lead night-hikes. And a star chart (which I have no idea how to use).

A week ago, I had an injured young flicker (a woodpecker species) in a box next to my bed. I was going to shuttle it down the next morning to the rehabber, but it’s injuries were too severe. It died during the night. Over the years, that box has contained baby rabbits, a baby vole, several birds-from chimney swifts to grackles to robins to sparrows and finches- and a few baby squirrels.  Most make it… some don’t. My husband has resigned himself to the possibility of sharing the bedroom during baby season!

All this… and the school year hasn’t even started yet! THEN..you might find… mushrooms, moldy bread (fungi!), skulls, bones, sponges, coral, moss cushions, DNA models, whatever subject I’d be teaching soon… I’ll have various doo-dads on my desk..and on the table..and on the floor.. and in the car….both cars….. 

I’m sure all this seems a bit excentric to someone who doesn’t know me. But those who do, realize it is all geared towards teaching people to find wonder in Creation.

I won’t even start on what you might find in my backpack….

Every morning, I get up at around 6- which has been a real challenge since I am not a morning person. I get up about 1 1/2 hours before my daughter, make a cup of Earl Grey or Constant Comment Tea (I’ve given my stomach a break from the coffee), take my current knitting or crochet project, and head for my front porch. I park myself on the porch swing, and watch the early morning traffic.

Traffic- not of cars (although I have a few neighbors that are up and about at this time), but of critters! My small (maybe 30 ft square)front yard is a Native Wildlife Habitat. All my plants are native to Pennsylvania, and provide some sort of benefit for songbirds, butterflies and other insects, or hummingbirds. There’s a pond, and a modest fountain.  It’s been a "work in progress", but, oh the results!

As soon as my husband put in a flimsily-made birdhouse, a pair of house sparrows moved in. They’ve been there now for 3 years. I love to hear the cheeping of the babies!  I was too lazy to prune my butterfly bush this year, and it grew huge! But, laziness has it’s virtues, since Mr and Mrs Robin have decided it’s perfect for their nest. Same goes for the backyard hedge. It’s a beast. (I hate it!) But cardinals and catbirds nest in it, so I can’t bear to remove it.

Much to my daughter’s delight, I’ve got butterflies galore- Monarchs, Swallowtails, Red Admirals, Painted Ladies, Clearwing moths, Skippers, Hairstreaks, Blues, Question Marks, and others I haven’t figured out yet. (I’m not too good at my butterfly ID ‘ing yet).  And I’ve got at least 4 species of wasp that visit the flowers too, beside the fat bumblebees and the occassional honey-bee. For the first time I’ve even got Dragonflies breeding in my pond, which is way cool!  I love dragonflies!

I just discovered my Swamp Hibiscus finally decided to bloom- after taunting me for 5 years. Early this spring, this plant and I had a discussion. I told it either it was going to bloom this year or it was heading for the compost pile. Guess it worked. It’s got 3 lovely rosy blossoms on it.

As I sit and knit, I might hear a soft squeeky twitter by my ear. If I hold very still, our little female hummingbird might check out the flower patterns on my malong. (yes, I still wear my malong!) She steadfastly refuses to use either of the fancy hummingbird feeders I diligently keep filled just for her. (sigh). But she loves the honeysuckle and the Cardinal flowers. She might nab a spider or fly as well. Never had a male visiting. Wonder why.

We have a family of Mourning doves as well, and they are so tame. They like to drink from the basin at the end of the cascade. When I had to reconstruct the cascade/waterfall this spring, they flew down and waited for me- about 3 feet away- as if to make sure I was meeting their specifications!

I also believe there’s a family of rabbits living nearby- not sure where, but they do like to take shelter in my garden. My daughter loves to chase them. These rabbits have figured out that she’s not much of a threat, and just stay a few hops ahead of her- around and around and around my pond- then they zip into the foliage. Hannah keeps going around and around and around! I can imagine the rabbits chuckling as they watch her!

Now my Coneflowers are going to seed, and the Goldfinches are feasting on them. Such beauties are a delight to the eye. I have decided that it is impossible to be grumpy and watch a goldfinch.

A few years ago, we had a huge orange Orb-weaver spider(think "Charlotte’s Web") that would spin a gorgeous web every evening between the pillars of the porch. This web had to be 4 or 5 feet across, and it was a work of art. Jef and I actually went out, sat down, and watched her (?) spin it each night. It was amazing. That was 3 years ago, and there haven’t been any since. Hmm. Wonder why.

I am always loathe to sacrifice my morning ritual of watching the hummers, the rabbits, robins, doves, bees, mockingbird, etc. Everymorning brings some new discovery.  Maybe I’ll turn into a morning person after all.