Honestly, sometimes it’s hard to make myself be really really positive on a Saturday morning. After a week of schooling and housekeeping, and a long Friday which includes 8 hours of work and then a 2-hour karate class, I’d much rather have Saturdays free to visit my mom, take the children on an outing, play in the garden, or clean, even! But Saturday is a work day for me.

I got up this morning especially tired, put water on for tea, grabbed my bible and went to the front porch. My bible opened to Ecclesiastes, which I ended up being really grateful for. It was encouraging and sobering all at the same time.  I was reminded that the day wouldn’t last forever and not to take the “poor me” side of my personality too seriously.

I read a little bit and then strolled down into the garden with my camera. (I try to always keep my camera with me. I have learned the hard way that you’ll always see the BEST shots when you don’t have it with you!)

I was admiring these “sunpatiens,” looking really pretty next to the antique pedestal and homemade mosaic birdbath, especially after yesterday’s rain, when I turned and spied an early-morning miracle.

This black swallowtail had just emerged, still unable to fly, and was hanging onto the rue while its wings took their full form.

The colors were stunning and it was quite exciting to be able to take plenty of pictures without having to chase this butterfly around.

The butterfly hung upsidedown for a long time, pumping blood into its wings, while I wondered about how it would ever survive Oreo and Cookie, the two garden cats.

But survive somehow the butterflies do, because I see them frequently in the garden. As you can see there are two split chrysalises, indicating that another butterfly had been born into the garden not too long before this one.

It slowly flaps its wings from time to time.  This butterfly, by the way, is NOT from the chrysalis (pupa) that Michaela and I have been watching.  It is still intact and we are counting the days.

I am amazed and so thankful to start the work day in such a way!  I mean, I’ll be typing all day about injury and illness and end-of-life issues for people, so to start the day with something so fresh and new and full of life lends some balance to the day.

I sip on green tea, looking over my cup at Oreo and Cookie, who have not yet spotted this very still butterfly.

What to do…

After about 45 minutes in the garden and the butterfly seeming more and more “alive,” I decide to let it crawl onto my hand, which they’ll readily do when they are new like this, and take it to the high branches of a butterfly bush in a far part of the garden. 

Checking on it about 30 minutes later it’s still okay, then an hour later it has flown away.

You gotta love a flower garden. 

Lynn

PS – if you want to see a really close-up picture (you can click on lower right corner if necessary) go here.

I have updated the caterpillar to pupa post with a new picture today.  Enjoy.

Lynn

Yesterday on a break, I went into the garden and saw a parsleyworm, or the caterpillar stage of the Black Swallowtail’s life cycle. It was metamorphosing from caterpillar to pupa, right before my eyes. It had spun the silken pad that attaches its tail to the plant. It had also spun the girdle which passed around the middle of its body and would support it. 

At some point it would begin the amazing task of wriggling off its old skin.  If only I had longer to play in the garden yesterday, I might have witnessed that. 

I went out this morning to check on it and it looked totally different.

It is now in the very early pupa stage, something that Miss Michaela and I will watch with interest.  Every time I think my garden needs to be cleaned up to look more stately and neat and orderly, and without the wild ways I let it veer toward, we see something like this and I know my garden needs not much more order than it has right now.

I’ll keep you posted.

UPDATE, 8/24/09:

I went out on my lunch break today and the pupa now looks like this:

It is becoming thinner and more papery.  It has been 11 days since the caterpillar attached itself and dropped its skin.  We are watching closely.

UPDATE, 08/29/09:  This morning it was this after a heavy rain.

By the way, I just wanted to say today that I love to hear from my readers.  Your comments make my day.  I know I’m slow to respond sometimes, but I’m always reading your comments.  Work just slows me down in doing the things I enjoy the most.

Happy Saturday.  Working today…

Lynn

Yesterday I had an amazing experience with a butterfly in my garden.  Princess of the Universe had a friend coming over to play, so I walked outside to greet the little girl’s mom when they pulled into the yard.

I looked down at my rue to see an awful sight.  A very large wasp (a paper wasp maybe) had a beautiful, large black swallowtail by the tip of its wing, pulling and dragging it down the rue stem.  Down they went, the butterfly struggling to get free.  I was not sure what to do, as I try not to interfere with nature and all her life cycles.  I have certainly seen hornworms with braconid wasp eggs on them before, but I’ve never seen a large brown wasp attacking a full-grown butterfly.  Finally, I could take it no more.

I did not hurt the wasp, but simply put out my hand, touched the butterfly, and the butterfly jumped/half fell onto it as the wasp flew away. 

The butterfly seemed partially paralyzed and it practically fell from my hand, twirling to the ground when I tried to place it safely into a nearby cover of flowers and foliage.  Unable to do anything else, I left the butterfly in the deep foliage it was in and went inside to work. 

Later I went back out to see if I could find the butterfly and to see how it was doing.  In fact, the picture above is from my trip back out — maybe an hour after I had removed the butterfly from the wasp.

I put my hand out and the butterfly immediately crawled onto it. 

It was like it knew me.  It kept putting its front legs out like it was scratching and feeling my arm.  It seemed okay, so I tried to put it gently onto a shrub nearby.  It flew onto a branch!  That made me so happy.  I had been wondering if it could even fly at this point, especially since the wasp had a little piece of wing in its mouth when it flew away.

BUT the butterfly would not stay on the shrub.  If flew back down to my arm and started scratching at my arm again.

It walked up, up my arm.

Up my shirt.  So I gently lifted it onto my finger.  It flew onto my skirt.

It began crawling up again – up my chest, towards my face, like it was saying goodbye. 

I put my hand in its way once again and it crawled onto it.  I stood up and the butterfly flew away!  I watched it go across the yard and up into a butterfly bush. 

Wasp, whatever you were doing, so sorry to interfere, but I was happy to see the butterfly get away.

Lynn

In the garden today…

as is the case nearly every day, I found evidence of life…

and death.

Did you know that the “expected” life span of a butterfly is about 2 to 14 days?  Oh, there are some species that can live for months, but the expected life span is very, very short.

What would you do with two days? 

Would you add beauty to the world?

Would you live bravely?

Would you leave behind a beautiful legacy?

The butterfly does.

Lynn 

I’m actually okay and able to move after all my cleaning yesterday!  How I loved waking up to a clean, quiet house this morning.

I walked through the garden before I started my work day.  The sun was very bright.

Mary over at Across the Pond was writing about urns yesterday.  I was not sure I had one, but I thought I had an old one, broken, used in two different pieces in the garden. 

You can see one of the urn handles.  The top portion of the urn is being used for a planter.  This may not have been a true urn since the base was not hollow, but it had the shape of an urn when in one piece.

The urn base, flipped upsidedown, holds a small mosaic butterfly/insect bath.

Looking at my flowers, longing to stay outside, but I have to go in and work.

Fluffy came around to greet me and meow a good morning. 

The garden was, thankfully, full of butterflies this morning.  I think the butterfly above is a pearl crescent, but maybe someone who knows for sure will come along and confirm.

And I’m pretty sure this is an Eastern tailed blue.  So sweet!

Well, back to work…

Lynn

I was thinking of you in the garden today.  Yes, you. 

I was thinking that one can never have enough thyme…

to stroll in the garden, that is.

Look at the red-banded hairstreak!

and the liatris.

Black-eyed Susan.  Summer makes bright colors!

Maybe more of crepe myrtle’s snow will cool things down.

Look at the insects hanging out underneath the Achillea bloom.  Can you see them?

Top floor, please.

This Mason wasp (Mon0bia quadridens) knows what it likes.

A beautiful creature.

Can you get any bluer than this? 

Anyway, we’re not blue, because we’ve had thyme in the garden today.  :)

Lynn

I walked outside today on my break and spotted this gorgeous sight: a black swallowtail butterfly sitting in an orange daylily.

The swallowtail was so busy with the daylily, in fact, that it allowed me to get ever closer and just stand and admire its beautiful wings.

Aren’t butterflies simply beautiful? 

There’s something else to share.  My sweet husband brought me a tin can full or roses from a job he was working on.  The lady of the house asked, “Does your wife like roses?”  My husband knew the right answer. 

I can only imagine having this kind of roses and in this amount!

Lynn

I went out yesterday and looked at my beautiful mint garden.  There was a great big red admiral butterfly there!

I just love seeing the butterflies.  The red admiral feeds on nettles, and I do have some nettles growing close by.  I suspect that is why it was visiting us.

I have to work this afternoon (sigh) but this morning has been full of wildlife adventures.  My husband had cut a limb off of a big tree in the backyard about three days ago.  The tree was leaning pretty bad.  In addition, this huge limb was shading (and killing) our garden.

Early this morning (before breakfast) my three boys were out in the yard and I noticed them darting to and from the tree.  Not only had the sap at the place of the cutting drawn in a host of butterflies, there were some hornets visiting.  We let the diving frenzy die down – it was only about three hornets in all – and later went back out to take pictures of whatever was there.

There were about a dozen American lady butterflies all over the tree.

I got in close.  This one looks to be asking for a little privacy!  LOL!

It did not take long until a hornet came back.  There are varied insects feeding here, but the hornet ended up ruling the roost.  I outlined it so you can see it.

The hornet did seem very aggressive.  I watched (in shock) as this hornet would fly up and dive down on the other insects.  He incessantly drove away a large butterfly and finally actually dove down on and picked up a honey bee and carried it away.  The honey bee did not return.  I suspect it was eaten.  I had climbed up on a ladder to get pictures.  I did not want to get stung in the face (or anywhere) so I left to visit the mint patch, where I was rewarded with a common buckeye (Junonia coenia).

I finally went back out to the tree, climbed up and got a close picture.

There’s a June bug, the hornet, and several American lady butterflies.

On my way back into the house, I stopped one more time at the mint patch.  I got a good shot of some type of butterfly or moth and this funky moth at the top called scientifically the Attera punctella.  This stem of mint is some hot property.

More later,