Goodbye Lucky

Wednesday evening we released Lucky. He was very happy in his little habitat, but frankly, I don't need to try and figure out how to keep yet ANOTHER thing alive. He also seemed to like his little star wars plate.

Excuse the fingers, I had to push the entire container down

He didn't seem to fly too well, and in fact, had to be lifted by stick from the habitat to a tomato plant. This took a couple of tries since he fell off at least once. Lucky seems a bit thrown off by the whole outside world thing.

The official Lucky removal tool

Once he was on the tomato plant, he seemed content. Pooka and her friend K had fun and would check on him, then run away to play for awhile, then come back to see if he was still there. I did manage to get some better pictures. His wings are a bit misformed, which I think has something to do with his lack of grace in the air. Here's to you Lucky. You were always just lucky to be alive.

Lucky in his new home, the tomato plant

A side note is that today Pooka's Great Grandfather passed away. Fortunately, Pooka and I have talked about the cycle of life and how things do die. Being able to talk about how she is growing new things and that her Great Grandpa will be watching her helped. You will be missed Great Grandpa, may you fly free now.

Surprise Pooka

Monday evening Pooka got a surprise. She was taking the recycling out, which is her big girl job, and hear a fluttering noise in the garage. Yes normally this would be a very bad thing.

However, this time she looked in the butterfly habitat. Turns out, we had a new friend and he hadn't figured out the lid was open. Pooka called Daddy and he closed it for her and promised to tell me about it when I got home from work.

Surprise

Tuesday Morning, sure enough "Lucky" as Pooka named him was still very happy in his home. We all thought everything in there was dead, but we had been lazy and hadn't cleaned out the habitat. Good thing I have been busy.

Lucky even got to go with Pooka to her school on Tuesday and hang out. Fortunatly her teacher is very understanding of Pooka's love of science and even let her do a little report on him. He spent the day next to the class Betta - Blueberry.

Lucky says Hi

Lucky and Pooka came home and even though we forgot him in the car, he is still doing great. We are planning to release him this evening after school. Pooka asked if her friend K could come over to help her release him into her garden. Hopefully before then I will get a better picture of him.

Goodbye to Spot

On Monday Pooka said goodbye to Spot. He was a good butterfly, but I wanted to make sure we released him before he got too old. Not to mention the weather is perfect for out little friend being in the 70's yesterday.

Pooka and I took his little house in the backyard. I let Pooka do the honor of saying goodbye and then opening his house. She was just about to reach in and see if she could be brave enough to hold him when apparently he panicked and started fluttering around everything.

Goodbye Spot

At this point my normally calmish Pooka freaked and jumped away because she was afraid he would land on her shoulder. I went over to help her get him out of the house when he suddenly found the door and was gone. Sadly the above is the only picture of him that day.

Spot flew off the deck, and into the sky. It was then Pooka chased him for a minute and looked over the rail with a very serious expression. "Mommy, Will Spot be okay?"

Yes Pooka, he will be okay. His body knows what to do, its part of who he is.

"But he has never flown in the wind, and doesn't know what rain is. What if something tries to eat him? Mommy, I am going to miss Spot. He doesn't even have friends." She never cried, but she was verry worried about her little friend.

I told her that he would make friends and he would figure it out. He was a smart butterfly after all. In a month or 2, Spot will bring friends back to the garden, and maybe even leave some eggs that we can grow into caterpillars and then butterflies all over again. Spot would want you to care for his babies since he knows what good care you took of him.

That seemed to help, but my Pooka loves with her whole heart, and Spot will forever be in it, just like the bunnies and the Black Swallowtails. So goodbye and goodluck Spot. Don't be a stranger once Pooka has flowers that will need you.

Spot Via his Hello to the world.

Surprises for a Pooka

Our family came into town this weekend and Pooka became a very happy girl. It seems her Aunt B brought her some spinach seeds she had apparently promised a Pooka. I know it meant a ton to Pooka and to me it meant having a kind of seed that we know should work well. If I can grow it. Aunt B has alot more experience then I do, but I am lucky to be able to ask her or any of my other sisters for advice.

The little green package of spinach from Aunt B and others

Daddy got a surprise on Saturday after Aunt S and I went out for a bit. I came back with a second blueberry bush. You see I did some reading last week on the blueberry bush, and all the reading says that you can get blueberries from 1 bush, but it does better with 2, and great with 3. I talked to Daddy about it, but we decided to table it. Well as Aunt S and I were out, I decided to go look. Bad idea. However, we found a nice new bush that would transplant well and brought it home. It got planted while we had all this family here. I am sure they were entertained since I did it solo since I didn't feel like getting all the kids that were here involved. Although sadly it has kinda fallen over a bit since I planted it. I will probably spend part of this evening staking it back up to stand up straight.

The second blueberry bush

Sunday evening, Pooka and I were sitting in the computer room and the butterfly habitat was above my desk. I was zoned out (as I tend to do after having family all weekend and a funeral on top of it). "Mommy, look a butterfly" Pooka exclaimed.

Hello Spot

Sure enough, this little guy was flying around the habitat ready to play. He is the only one that has hatched yet, so at least we got one. Pooka decided to name him Spot and he has spent the last few days being feed by a flower and living on my desk. It should warm up enough to release him in a day or so.

Pooka's picture of runt

However, Runt went for a bit of an express trip due to the cats and hasn't moved much since. Out of the whole group, we got at least 1 butterfly. Possibly due to the cats. We may do this again, but with the wild caterpillars we find the garden. It wouldn't be the first time. Now we at least have the right places for them to live.

Helping some friends move

If you all remember, Pooka's caterpillars went into their chrysalis about mid week. Pooka was so excited and wished them all goodnight. Well I got the directions out that day and did some reading.

It turns out that the cup is not suppose to move the first day or our friends went to sleep. Apparently no one told the cats this since Daddy did say the first night he had found the container on the floor. That explains all the chrysalises being in their food.


The caterpillars fell out of bed

Once everyone is comfy, you need to wait a day or 2 before you move the paper disk so the shells can harden some. I gave it 3 to be safe and then Saturday afternoon, Pooka, Grandma K and I moved the paper disk and pin it to the side of the nylon habitat that our butterflies.

Moving our easy friend

Sadly that was the easy one to move. The rest were on the bottom of the container in their own waste. Fun. I refused to pick them up by hand because I was afraid to squish them, so I grabbed a pair of chop sticks and move the other three. I would not be surprised if at least one of them didn't make it, since it didn't look the same. These guys got put on a paper towel at the bottom of the habitat.

Add 3 more to the container.

Once I had them all in, the top was zipped and they were put on the top of my desk to finish growing. It says to keep them out of direct sunlight and any real breezes, so this should be a good place. I don't have a picture of it, sorry about that.

Hello Runt

What happenned to our little runty caterpillar? He is still growing strong. He is about the size of the other ones were we got them, so I left him in the food container (yes, I know its rather nasty in there). Since we had taken out the paper disk for him to attach too, I asked Pooka to get a stick from her collection. We broke it in pieces to place in their for him. He seems plenty happy with that, and maybe it will be easier to move. At his current growth rate, he should be going to sleep about the time we release his friends, so maybe Pooka won't miss the others as well. The extra bits of stick we broke and put in the nylon habitat for our little friends to crawl on once they wake up. Now we wait and see what happens.

Nighty Nighty Butterflies

Well, Pooka's caterpillars have been very busy. Pooka recieved a butterfly habitat for Christmas and her friends have been very busy. They came to us very small and grew.


They Grew

Well, on Monday night I noticed one had gotten very comfortable looking. I made sure to get a picture in case he was all wrapped up by Tuesday morning since Pooka was already in bed.

One Tired caterpillar.

By Tuesday afternoon they were all getting ready to form a chrysalis. The one closest to the camera (that is a tad blurry) had already started to form it's "sleeping bag" as Pooka calls it. I will say we have one "runt" as Daddy calls it. He has been very tiny the whole time and shows no sign of going to get comfy.


Nighty night little guys

By Wednesday morning, I think the cat's had decided to say hi. Most of the chrysalis had fallen down into the food. I don't think that was suppose to happen, I guess I get to try to pick them out of the bottom to put in the actual habitat. Pooka told all her little friends good night this morning. Goodnight little guys. Now if you excuse me, I need to go find the directions on what to do if they don't stay on the lid like they are suppose to.

Sweet dreams... and be butterflies soon.



It's ALIVE, ALIVE

Spring is offically here. While we were outside this weekend, we saw signs of life everywhere.

Peek a boo Garlic

Pooka's garlic is sprouting everywhere. We were slightly worried about the garlic finding its way out of the mulch, but it looks like we didn't need to worry. They have not all sprouted above the mulch, but a good number have and more since I took this picture Sunday. The rain last night helped.


Our tree

This is a picture of the magnolia tree Daddy and I recieved as a wedding gift almost 11 years ago. It is a bit small, but seeing as how it got moved between houses, its doing really well this year. It is finally taller then Daddy. It has flowers ready to bloom any day.

The bigger lilac

This is one of my grandmother's lilacs. It seems to have loved the winter and is very happy in its pot. We are even thinking of putting it in the ground. The littler one isn't doing as well, but I am just happy that ONE of them seems to want to live. Thank you Aunt Pooka for the help getting this for me.

The caterpillars

Even Pooka's caterpillars seem to have grown and are enjoying the warmer weather. They are still living on the counter or on the plant table in their little cup, but we can all tell they have grown and are getting huge. I am wondering how much bigger they need to get before they start getting into their sleeping bags.

New friends

One of the wonderful Christmas presents Pooka recieved was a butterfly garden kit. Pooka loved the idea but has waited (mostly) patiently until I told her we could order the caterpillars due to it being too cold.

The gift Pooka had to wait to open

Last Monday, I finally gave in and opened the box to see what I had to do to get the caterpillars. It seems you have to go to their website and after a $5 shipping fee, our little friends were on the way.

Pooka has been so excited for the butterflies after having her Black swallowtails last fall. On Saturday she recieved a little box in the mail. Even with the fact I told Daddy what I ordered, he was a bit leery of a box that says "live insects".

Mail Call for Pooka.

Inside was a little cup with some directions. Turns out, her little caterpillar friends will spend their entire caterpillar lives in the cup. Once they form their crysallis, then we can remove them from said cup and put them in the butterfly house.

Caterpillar A, Pooka named them all, but I don't know which is which

Our little cup had 4 bigger caterpillars and one very tiny little guy. It is nice to not have to feed these guys. These are suppose to be Painted Lady butterflies. So they will look nothing like our little black swallowtail friends. Now we wait and see how long it takes before they get into their sleeping bags.

The other 4 caterpillars, but they don't photograph well in the cup

Pooka did recieve a bug viewer from the Easter Bunny. I wonder how long before she asks to see her friends in it. She also found the "Other live insects we offer" paperwork in the box. Now she wants lady bugs and other bugs. At least the lady bugs would be good for the garden...