Other than the rainy start to the week, we've been having some spectacular weather for our week's activities. Decided to share a few photos with everyone. This first one was taken yesterday on our daily morning bike ride. The leaves are just starting to get a little yellow in most places. Great temperature -- jeans a must, but short sleeves still a comfortable option.
We FINALLY found some monarch
caterpillars, after searching for them most of the summer. I guess we were just looking a little too soon. In fact, we found SO many
caterpillars that we collected about 10 of them to set up in our formally-tadpole-occupied aquarium (now devoid of water, of course) along with a couple of milkweed plants, so that we can observe their growth, changes, and development. So far we've observed that they eat A LOT (we're going to have to go collect some more
milkweed plants soon!) and also poop a lot. We're looking forward to watching the amazing metamorphosis that is to come, and then releasing our Monarch Butterflies to join the great migration south. [NOTE: I have since been corrected by a reader that these caterpillars are in fact Milkweed Moth caterpillars.]
Here's Zoo Boy's tree. Or so he claims. He says hello to it every day on our bike ride, and he insists that those reflectors are eyes and that the tree watches him and talks to him. Not the first time he's insisted that things talk to him, by the way. "Everything moves and everything talks" is one of his frequent observations on the world, his tree included.
A late-season dragonfly, resting on our pasture fence. Now that the nights have become quite cool, the entire insect population has slowed down and died back. I'm sure this fellow was warming his wings in the morning sunlight.
You can see the yellow starting to come out in the trees at the edge of our pasture. The sheep have the grass
mown down to just-about-non-
existent. Usually we don't have quite so much brown in the grass yet (takes until the end of October for it to look this dead), but prior to Monday's downpours, we hadn't had rain in a month, and that sort of wiped out the green color. The sheep can still seem to manage to find something edible out there, though.
Other than the rainy start to the week, we've been having some spectacular weather for our week's activities. Decided to share a few photos with everyone. This first one was taken yesterday on our daily morning bike ride. The leaves are just starting to get a little yellow in most places. Great temperature -- jeans a must, but short sleeves still a comfortable option.
We FINALLY found some monarch caterpillars, after searching for them most of the summer. I guess we were just looking a little too soon. In fact, we found SO many caterpillars that we collected about 10 of them to set up in our formally-tadpole-occupied aquarium (now devoid of water, of course) along with a couple of milkweed plants, so that we can observe their growth, changes, and development. So far we've observed that they eat A LOT (we're going to have to go collect some more milkweed plants soon!) and also poop a lot. We're looking forward to watching the amazing metamorphosis that is to come, and then releasing our Monarch Butterflies to join the great migration south. [NOTE: I have since been corrected by a reader that these caterpillars are in fact Milkweed Moth caterpillars.]
Here's Zoo Boy's tree. Or so he claims. He says hello to it every day on our bike ride, and he insists that those reflectors are eyes and that the tree watches him and talks to him. Not the first time he's insisted that things talk to him, by the way. "Everything moves and everything talks" is one of his frequent observations on the world, his tree included.
A late-season dragonfly, resting on our pasture fence. Now that the nights have become quite cool, the entire insect population has slowed down and died back. I'm sure this fellow was warming his wings in the morning sunlight.
You can see the yellow starting to come out in the trees at the edge of our pasture. The sheep have the grass mown down to just-about-non-existent. Usually we don't have quite so much brown in the grass yet (takes until the end of October for it to look this dead), but prior to Monday's downpours, we hadn't had rain in a month, and that sort of wiped out the green color. The sheep can still seem to manage to find something edible out there, though.
2 comments:
Shelley- I had to comment on your caterpillars. They are milkweed tiger moths I believe. Monarch caterpillars are smooth-no fur- and have a striped black-yellow-white pattern. Nathan and I just watched our 2 go into chrysalis and hopefully w/in a week we will send them on their way to Mexico. I bet by now your moths have spun their cocoons and this is another indication that are indeed moths. Next year look for Monarch caterpillars around mid-July to beginning of September. I know probably too much information- this was just a VERY exciting science project for us. Andra
THANK YOU, Andra! We have since realized that they are not Monarchs, but we didn't know what they actually were. We were suspecting they were moths. They've not spun their cocoons yet, but I'm thinking soon.
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