Daily Photo::23

I spy with my little eye...

peace

Daily Photo::21

My husband, the bat catcher...

peace

Taking flight

Warning :  This post is image heavy!!  

The following picture montage is the emergence of one of the butterflies from its chrysalis.  If you look carefully, you can see the butterfly pull itself out of the chrysalis and the wings actually expand as its blood-like fluid pumps into its wings for the first time.  This butterfly was the only one we happened to see emerge and I was awestruck.

A new (temporary) pet

Friends of ours have been raising monarch butterfly caterpillars, some of them from eggs, and have entrusted them to us while they leave on vacation.  I know that keeping monarchs through its metamorphosis stages is common for many families but we just haven't yet.  And it really is so exciting!  When we picked up the critters yesterday, two were already in the chrysalis stage and 3 were very hungry caterpillars.

This morning when we woke up 2 had formed a silken mat and were hanging in the famous J shape.  According to my internet sources, the caterpillar should hang for about a day. Then it will shed its skin for the 5th and last time and a green chrysalis will be underneath.  I am just as excited as the kids to watch this all unfold (literally!) before our eyes.

In this picture you can see the caterpillar on the right in the J shape and the last very hungry caterpillar still eating milkweed on the left.
  

See those golden flecks on the chrysalis?  They look like the gold paint you see in museums or fancy churches.  I think the two on the bottom will be the butterflies eye.  Just a guess from looking at pictures of the chrysalis right before the butterfly emerges.  Updates of the progress to follow...

peace

A new shade of blue

By mid February winter blues of a slow-and-steady-few-inches-here-and-there kind of winter had set in around here.  So when we saw a big winter storm coming our way, we were actually looking forward to the change of pace and the beauty of lots of fresh clean snow.

That is until the storm got here and dumped 24" of wet, heavy snow in 36 hours on top of the 2 1/2 feet we already had plus another half a foot a few days later with more inches in between...we lost count.  It snowed every day for 6 days.  We went out into the yard a few times without our snowshoes on and Matt and I were both up past our thighs with more snow underneath!  Now I know that plenty of other parts of the country were hit with snow, lots of it and in unexpected places, this winter so I am not really complaining, just explaining why the additional 6 inches of snow-cone like snow this past Saturday just about threw me over the edge.

Since Monday, however, I am seeing a new shade of blue.  It has been amazingly beautiful the past few days and the sky has literally been a shade of blue I have either never seen before or never noticed before.  Electric blue, to be precise.  So despite the 2 feet of snow still on the ground, I KNOW that spring is here.  First the purple finches came back to the feeders, then we heard robins in the woods and two barred owls calling to one another, and today a hairy woodpecker was chasing a downy woodpecker away from the suet feeder.  Pretty soon we will see bear tracks, hear the peepers in the pond and see the ferns begin their alien-like emergence. 

And sandals, oh sweet sandals!  Nothing like a good late winter snow storm to give you spring fever.  What are you anticipating this spring?

peace

Sightings

Saw today:

A squirrel
A dozen or so huge dragonflies (some mating, some wishing they were :-)
Several species of birds I cannot identify
2 geese
Salamanders
A deer
Several bright blue butterflies
5 peepers
A beaver
Bear tracks