Mrs Monarch Butterfly Takes Her First Flight

This is a case of if you annoy someone enough, you may just get some truly fascinating pictures.

I have enjoyed watching Monarch Butterflies since I was a wee brat.  Literally all my life.

They were the beautiful jewels of summer when I was growing up on the Prairies of New Jersey.  You never saw many of them, and when you did they were always special.

I did take some time to read up on them, and their life cycle is well known.  The butterfly is one of a few stages.  Egg, Caterpillar, Pupa, Butterfly. 

I had a thing for growing flowers, specifically Zinnia.  They would grow freely in our yard so it was a matter of tossing a few seeds and keeping the soil moist.  You would be graced by a bloom in time. 

The butterflies would eventually arrive from the South on their trip Northward.  Have a meal at my Zinnia buffet, perhaps lay a few eggs elsewhere and disappear.  There would be more coming from the North later on in the season, heading Southward.

When I moved to Florida, I found that there is a permanent population endemic here.  People enjoyed seeing them, so they would plant things in their gardens to help them along. 

I am, of course, one of those people.

Zinnia seeds in hand, along with the Bougainvillea that helped sell this house to us, I made sure that there were plenty of things here for the little visitors to have.

Bright idea!  I would grow milkweed and watch them progress through their life cycles from egg through emergence from their pupa and fly off.

Except, there's a problem.  Since Milkweed is not exactly plentiful in the curated gardens of South Florida, when they found it, the butterflies would lay eggs.  Dozens of eggs.  That meant dozens of caterpillars.  Usually on one or two plants.  Since they don't have much food, the ones that hatched first would eat the plant and the eggs of the others would not get a chance to either hatch or get any food.

In a week, I was left with toothpicks in the soil where once a planter box had knee high foliage. 

I hatched a plan to build a cage around the planter box so that I would reserve a few plants and hopefully get some flowers and seeds.

That cut back the visits.  The butterflies would bounce off the cage and fly off, frustrated. 

Eventually the milkweed grew to touch the top of the cage and one enterprising Momma Monarch left an egg on the plant, before I could train the plant with some wire to bend it away from the protective cage.

The one egg hatched into a caterpillar, then ate away a plant all on its own.  Formed a jade jewel of a chrysalis, and the butterfly eventually emerged.

That morning I saw her, found a stick and she climbed upon it.  The cage was set aside and I put the stick in the croton growing in the front. 

Excitedly, I got the camera out and snapped off a few pictures.  Then a few more.

She did not like having her portrait taken.  I think that is universal, my dog does not seem to care for it either. 

Launching in air, at that point I thought I was done.  Except when I looked at the photos, I saw one very strange picture.  It was a Monarch butterfly Thorax and a bit of the wing along with the antennae.

I have a picture of the butterfly in flight.  I never expected that.

So it does go to say that if you are annoying enough with a camera, even a paparazzi can get an interesting picture.

Congratulate me, It's A Boy And A Girl, And they're Orange and Black. More Monarchs Visit Me.

Ok, I'll admit it, good idea, poor execution.

The cage I slapped together did keep Momma Monarch away from my personal stash of Milkweed.  What it didn't do is keep Momma's little babies from wandering in and eating their fill.

What is this blather?

Lather, rinse, and repeat. 

In this case what I had done wrong was to leave some exposed Milkweed on my front porch.  I used up my supply of hardware cloth to build an ugly steel cage around my personal Milkweed. 

Caterpillars don't share.  Just ask any farmer.  The milkweed I left on the porch drew lots of Monarchs.  Beautiful critters, really.  That is why I plant and propagate the stuff, to help the butterflies. 

Very low effort hobby.  I can watch the little beauties fly in on the breeze from my easy chair in the front room of my house.  Momma floats on in, finds the exposed Milkweed, drops an egg on a leaf, and moves on to the next plant.

In reality she drops a couple eggs and lets Darwin take charge.  You hatch first, you get the tasty leaves.  You hatch last, you get eaten by a brother or sister who eats the plant you are stuck under.

It has worked for millennia this way.  I can't change them. 

You see the issue.  My personal stash within the milkweed cage was adjacent to the exposed plants.  The caterpillars hatched, ate those plants, then moved on to mine.

Only two caterpillars got in the cage, and ate about half of my milkweed.  Greedy little beauties.

They left their jade colored chrysalis behind.  One was inside the cage, the female.  The male came back out of the cage and wandered up the leg of a plastic chair on my porch.

Both did hatch from the pupa.  Both fledged and flew away. 

My neighborhood in the land named after flowers has lots of butterfly friendly flowers.  Who knows, maybe my butterfly's children generations removed may come back and grace my yard.

Hopefully I will get my seeds that I was looking for in the first place.  You know, so I can grow some more milkweed?

Greedy little beauties that you are.

Just leave me a little, Huh?

The Monarch Cage - So I Can Get Milkweed Seeds

 Sorry Monarch Mommas.  This one is for me. 

Your last batch of kids came through and ate every one of my milkweed plants.  One had gotten to the flowering stage. 

They even found the plants in the backyard and scattered within my other pots.

So this time, I got bold.

I built a cage for the Milkweed plants.  In this case, I am waiting to see if the plants become plants or are they just a goner. 

I built a box out of Hardware Cloth to surround the pot that I have on my porch.  30 inches tall and about that wide.  I did not measure anything.  It was too hot on the porch.  This is South Florida after all.

Then I covered the box with the leftover Hardware Cloth so that it had a sturdy "roof".

There are many other milkweed pots on the property.  Your children are welcome to those.  Just not this one pot.  Once I get some plants going, I will transplant them into accessible spots and you can have at them again.

I enjoy seeing the monarchs here.  I just need a little bit of milkweed for myself.

For the record it would be 30 inches tall, 30 wide, and about 20 deep.  About.  I did not measure anything.

Now go visit the backyard.  There is plenty of food out there!

Monarch Butterflies, we have to talk. You are eating yourself out of house and home.

I was happy with my little farm.  I was planting milkweed cuttings all over my property.  In existing pots, new pots, and in the garden.  I needed the seeds for bio-diversity.

I had some plants that were growing quite well.  One of the plants was waist high and I have a 35 inch inseam.  

Did you catch the "was" there?

My front window faces out to the porch and I have a recliner and rocker in that window.  It lets me see the world when I am not working out.  It is overstuffed and I can lounge around when I am in it, like now.

I need to rest frequently because I am an athlete.  You tell me if I am using the right word, three marathons on the bike per week.  First sprint is usually just over a half marathon at a 14 MPH average.  Then water stop and repeat.

So my sport watch yells at me that I am doing too much and PAI numbers are averaging in the high 200s.  It's a measure of activity, just like a resting heart rate of 52 is a measure of fitness.

Enough bragging, back to the butterflies.

I am about a block from a small park.  M.E. DePalma Park.  That is where I got the first seeds for the Mexican Milkweed that you little critters love so much.  I got them about 15 years ago and have been propagating them ever since.  I stuff some plants under other plants and take cuttings frequently.

Mrs Monarch, this is where you came into play.  You see I was just about ready to get some seeds when you found these plants.  Two days later I started seeing holes in the leaves, two more days and I had stumps in my pots. 

Yes, you.  You put your eggs on my plants left and right and center.  You and all your flutterby friends.  Swallowtail and Zebra Wing, all of you came by and visited my porch.  At one point there were enough of you on my porch that I thought I was looking at a holding pattern in a large airport.

Of course I know what that looks like, I bike at an airport in Pompano Beach, and I once rode a motorcycle up the New Jersey Turnpike past the Newark NJ Airport.  I know what a holding pattern looks like.

Then your children did what they do and ate my plants away.

Yes, I know, I grow them for that purpose and your children were hungry.  But every plant is now gone.

Now, don't apologize.  You did what you had to.  But I had about 50 plants and now they are all gone.  There are 12 in that one pot alone!

So I have to build a cage.  You won't get in this thing.  I have hardware cloth and I know how to use it.

Don't apologize, I am bound and determined to get something past the sticks!

Just keep your pretty orange and black wings and your eggs to yourself.   If I have to be a farmer I have to do it outside.  If I told you what the ants do to plants indoors here in South Florida, you would be deeply offended!

This is why I grow flowers all year around. Rack's Butterfly Pays A Visit

Rack, It's over 90 Degrees out there do we really have to go outside?

In and out, In and out, that's what being an older dog is all about. 

We've had you for almost 13 years now.  I can tell when I change your food, I'm going to be out of the rocking chair more often.  You had your lunch, I've given you your treat ball, and I have barely finished my Pork Sandwich and Baked Potatoes.

It's hot outside.   Summer here in South Florida generally lasts 11 months out of the year.  The yard looks like a photo that is over exposed.  I tell myself that when I look at a video from Britain and everything looks dark.  "Must be August".

The Laundry is demanding attention, how about waiting a little bit longer?

I take my clean clothes from the dryer, toss them on the bed.  As I reach for the hangers to air dry the T Shirts in the Air Conditioning draft, you're staring holes in me from the door way.

Hmm, you must really need the tree.

I turn.  Spotting an iguana cropping the grass I remember the state wildlife commission saying "Always "disturb" Iguanas where ever possible."

Come on, Rack, let's go annoy some Iguanas.

He runs to the back door.

I walk outside and realize the Iguana has gone where ever those nasties go when they aren't blending in with the turf and undermining it.  "If I wanted something in the yard cropping the grass, I'd have sheep." I mutter as I round the corner.

Spotting the flowers in the pot I think "This is why I grow Zinnia".  A mostly orange butterfly is feeding on a pink flower.  Flapping its wings gently I manage to get off some pictures and not disturb the little beauty.

Yes, this is why I grow flowers all year around.

Monarchs in the Air, Monarchs in the Sky, Monarchs eating my plants, By and By.

I grow a lot of plants here.  Many of them are here for very specific reasons.

I have to think that I am a victim of my own success in this one particular situation.  You see, there are a lot of Milkweed plants on the property.  I Just haven't seen any flowers in a very long time.

In fact the reason that I grow them is specifically NOT to see flowers.  They are food for the Monarch Caterpillars that hatch on the plants. 

One of the earliest pictures that I posted here was a close up of a Monarch that had hatched from a chrysalis and was drying the wings out on the leaves under the Sea Grape tree in the backyard.

That particular beauty is a boy.  The two twin spots on the veins on the back two wings are his "boy bits".

I am currently dealing with a maddening car issue and have been out in the carport, an open structure on the front of the house where you park your car to keep it out of the sun.   I'm under the impression that it's a peculiarly Florida thing, but who knows, I could be wrong. 

As I was out there, sweating because it is August and blisteringly hot, I had to make sure that I didn't crush any of these butterflies because between my flowers and those of the neighbors, we have quite a lot of them floating around.

I am just back from a bike workout, 20.65 miles to be specific.  I'm clearing out tasks for the day and I needed to take the recycling to the street.  Coming back to the porch, there was a beauty flexing her wings in the sunshine on my basil, just a few inches from where I stopped.  It is nice to have some visitors in the day.

We always have a lot of Monarchs in various stages of life here in both the front and back yard.   At this moment there is one banging against the front window trying to get inside the house.  Maybe it sees the reflection of the Mexican Milkweed in the glass of the front window.  I don't know.  

I will say that the last time I got flowers and seeds from one of those plants it was due to my using insecticidal soap on them and harvesting the seed pods as soon as they were ripe.

I don't feel too good about that as it meant that there were some caterpillars that did not make it.  On the other hand I did get enough seeds to reseed my own pots as well as the little park near the house.

 

So as you stand out in the heat, make sure you are protecting the beneficial insects around you.  After all, you never know where the little critters are.  Even on your back.

Time to plant Milkweed for the Butterflies again now that I was given my seeds.

It's January, just after the New Years week.  After that week where nobody really knows what they are doing and if they should be I have been puttering around the house.  The idea is to find things.

Or rather to FIND things.

You see we have been in the house since November, and just getting things back to where they should be.  All those things that are stored in boxes and put away for just the right time?  Well most of that is just stuff you're storing for the trash can anyway and can go out.

You have to either put it to use in a small 1200 square foot 110 square meter house, or you have to find a way to store it.  It might explain why there are just so many of those buildings around here converted into storage lockers.

Nice business.  Just pay someone else to keep the old socks you want to use to polish furniture for when you finally find the can of polish you bought so long ago that there's dust on the can.

No, not my way.  But imagine my surprise when I was presented with a ratty looking bag full of seeds that I have saved over the years.  Basil, Nasturtiums, Zinnia, and Hibiscus.  

There was also a bag full of Milkweed seeds.  You see, the Monarchs are so aggressive at feeding on the milkweed here that I never get any seeds from the plants.  I have taken to planting them under things and between plants so the little butterflies don't find them.  

I was given a frame by a friend that I can wrap in a mesh to keep the butterflies out but the mesh lasted only a season and then it degrades in the Florida Sun.

So I'm back to tossing Milkweed in the garden, taking cuttings, and hiding seeds again.

Just not in the house.  It's way too small for that, especially since we managed to remodel.

So in the best interests of domestic tranquility and general neatness, it is time to plant.  Actually if you are a gardener and you want new plants, January is a great time in South Florida to start.  Just remember to put up edging so the landscapers don't pull them all up.  That is a very different story indeed.

Butterfly in the Bush

Sometimes I think that this blog is all about Bill's weird camera and pictures Bill takes while walking around South Florida.

Then I see something like this.

You see here in South Florida, beauty can be just about anywhere.

I was following after my dog trying to claim every single plant in town and say "This Is Mine" and "This is Mine Too!" when, we arrived at the park.

This little gem, and I don't know the name for it other than beautiful, decided that it was fine with me getting close.

When I say close, I mean two wingspans away.   The tip of your thumb is about as close to the tip of your pinky finger with the hand spread widely.

So of course I have to share here.  

I'm fine with not knowing the name, I see regularly butterflies going from plant to plant at times.  I have had them land on me, I guess they go after the salt in the sweat.  They may just sense that I'm a safe encounter.

Heck, I pulled an angry shoe lace out of the pool the other day and set it on its way.  That would be a young Black Racer snake to you and yours.  Scooped it out of the shallow end of the pool.

I do feel privileged to be able to see this kind of beauty and when I hear stories of how butterflies are getting thinner on the ground it only makes me more interested in planting more Milkweed or other flowers in the garden.

Propagate anything and everything, and let nature take its due course. 

So Bill's Weird Photography habits are here, and being shared.

There's also this recipe I wrote about eight years ago that I got the parts for and have to try again.  If it works in the Instant Pot, you will see that too.  I'm wanting some Curried Chicken for dinner!

Butterfly At The Pool

The thing about gardening is that you have a lot of visitors. 

Through the years, I've been visited by various reptiles, more lizards than I can count, insects, and other neighbors.

Both two and four legged.

This morning, going out to inspect my nursery pots and see how my bougainvillea cuttings are doing, I noticed that there were literally dozens of monarch butterfly caterpillars happily eating my milkweed down to pegs. 

As a gardener it is at once frustrating and pleasurable.  I would love some seeds from those milkweeds, but courtesy of a neighbor and friend here, I have a cage that I could put the plants inside so they would go to seed.

As one who enjoys nature, that is why I plant the milkweed.  It's there so the butterflies come to my yard.   It is a rare day that I don't see a number of those Monarchs on the wing, floating around, coming to a landing somewhere.

To paraphrase:  If I build it, they will come.

Home (plate) I guess is in my backyard.

I don't wander around aimlessly back there, there's a purpose.  Usually I'm being herded back to the back door by my boy Rack the McNab SuperDog(TM) after only a few minutes, so standing at the back door and taking one last look means I am trying to think if there is anything that needs to be cared for.

I let him back inside because I realized I needed to deal with a visitor.   This Butterfly was perched, resting, on my sad little Hibiscus that so often is ravaged by Iguanas. 

Yes, we have herds of those beasts running around.  The Iguanas turn the neighborhood into something reminiscent of Jurassic Park, and usually result in my thinking "I hope there will be a solid cold snap this winter".

Their muscles can't function below 45F, and if it gets into the 30s it will kill them.

Good.

But this Butterfly seemed to be enjoying the rest and watching me go about my own stupidity. 

Good.   They're welcome here.    One of at least five different daily visitor species here. 

If you're seeing Butterflies in the yard and want more, the next step is to leave a little fruit out there for them to find.  The Fairchild Gardens in South Miami does exactly that in their butterfly house.  A little banana or orange goes a long way to help these beautiful creatures survive.

As for the Iguanas?  I hear they're good in a Curry Sauce.  Chicken of the Trees!

Welcome to Florida, we have overly friendly wildlife.

The first time wildlife encountered me was in my very own backyard.

I've been fascinated by the various lizards that roam around the place here.  Standing in the yard I spotted a rather common lizard.  Something scared it.

Might have been me, I have that effect on some people, and some wildlife.

Might not have been.

The lizard ran onto my shoe, then right up my leg.

And up the pant leg.

I've heard of ants in my pants but never a lizard on my lizard.

I've had posionous toads hop onto my foot while I was picking up after my dog.

I've had more Iguanas turn up in the Bougainvillias and Hibiscus in the yard than I care to count.

Nasty creatures, Iguanas.  No reason for them to be here at all.

Seventeen Ducks making more ducks on my front porch.

This was a much more gentle encounter.

A normal five in the evening Dog Walk.  It's been really quite intensely hot.  90 to 95 in brilliant sun.

Walking around the block and heading toward home, a "something" fluttered around my head and landed on my friend's arm.

A rather beautiful Butterfly.  Mostly black winged, some iridescent blue spots.

Basic Black.  Everyone looks better in basic black.

Being a butterfly, it was completely harmless, and it paid a rather long visit walking around my friends T-shirt, up one arm, down the other and hanging out.

As soon as it started it was over when the little creature went on its way.

I guess it wanted a bit of a rest.

Monarch Extinction or Fake News and a reason to keep your adblocks up to date?

Here I am.  In the South Eastern portion of a state named after Flowers.

I just saw a Monarch butterfly float past the window.  It's February and I do see them daily, I didn't think much of it.

The other day I was sitting in my Jeep.  I was at Pompano Airpark in the south eastern parking lot.  Putting on my inline skates for a workout.  A Monarch butterfly floated between me and the next car of to do whatever it was that butterflies do.

They are here.  But in a state named after Flowers you would expect that.  Lots of nice Nectar to drink, places to visit, fields to float through.

Along with my favorite Monarchs are Swallowtails and others, flashing black and yellow in their own dazzling display while floating on the breezes.

Then I get home and am confronted with a rather frightening news story screaming that their numbers are Below 1% and Heading towards extinction!

Pretty shouty and frightening titles if you ask me.


Except.


Those two links I have above?  Almost Word For Word copies of each other.  If you click on the links, expect to have more shouty advertisements for bogus things that you were not interested in popping up on you shilling some nonsense that you will never follow through with.

Any time you find that the majority of the search of a specific phrase, pick your search engine, I have been using Duckduckgo.com lately, are identical in a search - think fake news.

Those who support that sort of ... prank have been busy in recent years. 

At any rate, any time you see something like that, it's a red flag.   Keep your antivirus programs and your ad blockers up to date, someone has a farm of web pages, none of which really are all that worthwhile.

If you are in the west and are witnessing a drop in the numbers, plant butterfly weed and milkweed.

Even if you aren't, it's a good idea.

As for me?  Any time I get a web site throwing up a nonsensical pop up urging me to sign onto their newsletter list, I immediately go in and start blocking things.

It's a sure sign it's not really worth bothering with.

And plant some milkweed, ok?  After all the Monarchs really could use our help.

Finally, A Decent Mexican Milkweed Harvest

This rather scruffy looking pile is a lot of hard work.

It's a bit of a story as well.

You see, I have a bit of a problem with my Mexican Milkweeds.  They're a little bit of an obsession.

I plant them simply because the Monarch Butterflies like them.

A bit too much.  Quite a lot, actually.  It's their main food here.

I'm also a short walk from a little pocket park that is devoted to Native South Florida Plants, M.E. DePalma Park.  There are a lot of flowers planted there that belong there.  You know it's native because you are told - most of the flowers are not at all showy like you're used to seeing at the garden center.  Walking past that park, you actually can HEAR the difference since all the local insects and animals are happily living in what they've adapted to - native species.  In fact, the Mexican Milkweed flowers are one of the larger ones there by virtue of them being a cluster of flowers.

They're also very tasty to Monarch Butterflies.  We have quite a few of them flying by the house as a result.

The butterflies know they are there.  I'm not certain how, but if your main food plant is important to you you will learn how to pick them out.

And that would be the crux of the matter.  I normally can't keep them growing here.

I have since found that when the Monarchs lay their eggs there, they will eat from the nectar of the flowers,

leave and the caterpillars will com out a few days later.  Those caterpillars will eat the plant to sticks.

You can propagate those sticks if you take a finger length cutting with one or two leaf buds on them, and stick them into moist soil.

This time though, I was able to get a couple plants to grow to maturity.  The Monarchs did not find them.

It seems that the trick is that if your Milkweed is growing in a sheltered area, the butterflies can't really find them.

As a result of all that dancing around ... I finally have seeds enough for myself, the people who have been supplying me, some to return to the park, and a few to hand out to friends.

The seeds grow quickly and flower fast, but only if they are not seen.  The plants don't have any evil smell to them so they would grow indoors in a bright window, but you can't grow indoor plants in South Florida.  Ants would find them and all the sudden you have a colony living in your living room.

Nope.  No indoor plants here.

So my seeds?  They're happily drying out in my living room.  I'll be taking a pod with me on one of my many walks.  I can go back to being Johnny Milkweed Seed.  I may even get some more since there are a few pods that have yet to ripen.

But ... we won't tell the Monarchs that, will we?

Friendly Random Butterfly

You get used to this sort of thing.

When I had the flu, like most of the Western World, I sat in my chair and looked out the window.  There wasn't much more that I could have done since I truly didn't have the energy, moan, coughing fit, curse, swear, moan again when will this be over.

Yeah it was that bad.  Literally.  I was listening to a podcast from Armin van Buuren and they were talking about the "Flu Making Its Way Through Holland." at the same time I was coughing up a lung.

Freaky.

I watched the sun come up.  I watched the sun set.  I watched the same people walk down my block at the same time of day.  Watched the dog walkers including the guy who carries the Chihuahua who looks like its dead since it has melted over his arm.

Really, dude, the dog would be happier walking on the ground, trust me.

But it seems the wildlife here was the bright shining star in the nighttime that the flu induced.

We have ducks that visit.  My neighbor calls the ones that look inside the front door that is more than a meter, 6'6" of security glass, Peepers.  There is a triple of ducks that visit every day.  The largest has a droopy right wing, and two smaller ones.  I figure it is a family.   Just don't colonize under my Jeep, you're leaving a smelly mess.

I eventually convinced them to relocate to my neighbor's island of flowers.  The constant hosing down of the carport was a bit much.

I was noticing that the butterflies here are thick on the wing.  I would watch as my Monarchs would glide past looking for the Mexican Milkweed I have in the backyard for them to eat.

There's a black and yellow striped Zebra Longwing that flies past occasionally.  That pattern will strobe as it flies past.

The point is we've been lucky.  Due to the efforts of the neighbor and the various parks in town like M.E. DePalma Park, we're seeing more varieties of butterflies.

I have been out in the yard puttering around more than once while cleaning out my irrigation lines and had to be told to stand still as there were butterflies on my back.  Plural, as in more than one.

In the case of the orange one, I have never seen those before.  It wanted to see me.  I was over by the pool and the bougainvillea looking around aimlessly, and this little beauty landed quite at my feet.  I moved away, it got up and followed me.  For a good ten minutes. 

Ten minutes is a long time to be On Guard, I suppose, but I was entertaining this little creature in the whole time.

I moved to the trash can spilling water as I carried the basket from the pool skimmer, and it followed.  I guess nobody wants to drink pool water except my dog.

I decided that the best course was to enjoy the encounter and go about my business.  Eventually it did fly away off to find more flowery fields.  All a part of being in the great outdoors.

Butterflies and Mango Trees

Walking out to the backyard, nature will present itself.  Always take a camera.

Mind you, opportunities to take a picture of nature in South Florida are common. 

I didn't expect just how common it was when I made the decision to pitch it all in Philly, and fly to Florida for a new home.

Having had Black Racer Snakes in my Florida Room, more lizards than I can count on any given wall both inside and outside of the house, and spiders that are larger than a small car in the eaves, I have grown both amused and expectant of the creatures.

After all, I ran a Frog Hotel for quite a few years until the Impact Windows got put in.  The frogs left and I am disappointed that they haven't come back.

This particular afternoon, I was being dive bombed.

Oh sure, there were Monarchs everywhere as usual.  After all there were two caterpillars turning one plant into sticks at the same time.

This was something different.  This Orange and Black creature was not a Monarch.  It was a different kind of Florida Butterfly.  It was insistent that I follow it.  After all, it was orbiting my head like stars after a cartoon character gets hit in the head by an anvil.

No, I mean literally orbiting my head.  Round and round as I walked past the spa.

I got about half way down the yard and it left me.  The silly creature fluttered over to my Mango tree and parked itself there. 

The Mango was a tree that was imprisoned in too small a pot for years until I finally freed it by chopping the pot away from its roots.  On a very hot day, I dug a hole in the yard and stuck it into the ground.  They say it is a Condo Mango and won't get more than 10 to 15 feet tall or so, so I'm hoping. 

The Mango immediately showed its appreciation by dropping almost every old leaf and then following with a complete coat of deep green leaves.  It's a very happy plant that went green almost in a day.

Overnight.

The butterfly decided it liked it too.  It was there, on a Mango leaf and I swear it turned its head to watch me.  Reaching into my pocket, I was able to get exactly one picture out of the encounter.  Then the little orange and black creature fluttered away.  Over the house and into the beyond to live out its fluttery existence.

"One is all you get" it seemed to say.

Wildlife encounters are best when the wildlife insists on a selfie before it goes.

Monarchs in the Ruellia Rescue Pot

The easiest plant I have found to propagate is the Ruellia.

Mexican Petunia.

They are also considered invasive weeds by some. 

One of those things I guess, the butterflies and bees love the flowers, but the plants get out of control and will grow just about anywhere in the South.  Zone 8 to 11 if you're taking notes.

I guess I shouldn't propagate them, but since my entire property line on the East side is covered with them, they aren't going anywhere.  I get an almost 100 percent propagation rate from cuttings stuck in damp soil, and they make for a rather nice display in a pot.

Like I said, the butterflies like them and I'm all about making the butterflies happy.

I had this pot, one of my Rescue Pots where I was planting all sorts of stuff to see if it takes.   When I got a care package of some Mexican Milkweeds, I tossed the seeds into this pot and waited.

Nothing.  Nothing took.  That was back in March. 

Shrugging, since I needed to trim back the Mexican Petunia a couple of lawn mowings ago, I simply saved the cuttings and stuck them into the soil of that pot, densely.  Now the pot has this giant tuft of purple flowers and green leaves.

In the middle of that pot there was one odd ball Mexican Milkweed.  I could tell it was that because the leaves were not as dark as the Ruellia.  The leaves are almost identical, but it looked faded.

With my puttering in the garden each day, I thought it odd that my Milkweed had grown back healthy after being eaten back to sticks by all the Monarch Butterflies we have here.

Then it happened.

Momma Butterfly found my lone plant in the strawberry pot.  She missed the one in the Ruellia.

I shortly had three little baby Monarch caterpillars munching my plant to sticks.  "Oh Well, That Is What It's There For!" I said, promising myself to watch after my tiger striped pets.

A couple days later, they grew so big that they ate themselves low on food.  One of the caterpillars got hungry enough to try to escape the strawberry pot.  I saw it on the outside of the pot looking lost.  It immediately climbed onto an offered Sea Grape leaf that I picked up from the ground.

You guessed it, it went into the pot with the Ruellia.

So now I have caterpillar number 3 getting fat and happy with the Ruellia, which it seems to have a taste for too, as well as the other two back on the lone Mexican Milkweed that now is almost leafless.  

Good luck creatures, long may you fly!

Monarch Caterpillars In The Yard

Thank you Constance.

Thank you Kathie.

I've got seeds.
I will be getting more.

These little creatures are eating themselves out of house and home.  They're also one of the reasons I enjoy photography.

Going through the pictures, waiting for something to say it's time to do something with it, I spotted this one.  It's a shame to shrink it down, so I left it as large as I did.  The original picture, big as it is by today's standards, made it into my backgrounds folder on the machines.

If you take a lot of pictures, you are bound to get something that you like once in a while.

That would be the photography theory of "A Stopped Clock is Right Twice A Day".

Constance stopped by the other night.  I had a pleasant little visit standing in the front yard talking about politics, current events, and of course, butterflies.

She gave me a little plastic baggie with about three seed pods of mixed yellow and red Mexican Milkweed.  I doubt I'll ever see a flower out of them because there are so many Monarch Butterflies in this little part of the neighborhood, but it doesn't matter.  I'm planting them for the Monarchs.

I will also be carrying the bag with me when I go on my walks.  Johnny Milkweed-seed at your service!   I know of one semi-wet spot that will be getting a few.  The trick is that this area is so overbuilt, typical for Florida, that it will be difficult to find a spot to drop the seeds so that the cycle of butterfly can continue.

In front of my house, under the bathroom window, on the wall there is a rust stain.  The irrigation hits that spot twice a week.  I'll be grabbing four roof tiles and making a little square.  That will reserve the spot for my butterflies.  I'm a bit reckless with the weed-eater so I'll need to know where they're planted.

They should do well there as well as replenishing the pots in the backyard.

I'm thinking in the utility easement since that is fairly wild and "untamed".  That should give my friends a little boost.

Cashew, Coleus, and Caterpillar by the Pool

They tell me that the wet season is ending but with El Nino firmly in effect, that may be overruled for a bit.

As a result, bright sunny days are a little more scarce than might be needed. 

When they happen, you escape outside, pull weeds, and get chores done that have been waiting for the rains to stop.  On the other hand, it's better to do all that when it there is a grey sky than when the sun is beating down on you.

Either way, I still end up pulling great long roots of Virginia Creeper from one side of the yard to the other.  Blasted things are invasive and stealthy.  You start pulling at one side of the property and by the time you're done you have a coil of 50 feet worth of brown root that looks like an extension cord with a leaf here and there that taunts you.

Why?  Because there's a snapped end that tells you that the root merely broke off and it will continue growing where you left it.

Virginia Creeper is the Two Year Old of the Garden.  It's there telling you "NO!" when you're saying "GO AWAY!".

But it isn't all sweat and toil out there.  I have my chain of pots.  They started out as a place to put trophy plants that I wanted because I'm in the tropics-adjacent South Florida and everyone here should have a proper citrus tree at one point or another.

I'm also not that good at keeping them alive.  The original crop of citrus trees died back, but I still have my banana and my mango trees.

When the lemons died off, but the pots and the drip-feed irrigation remained. 

Ever practical, I started using them as "starter pots".  Where I will put these weeds I can't say, but they are there soldiering on! 

Instead of that Meyer Lemon that I was making Lemon curd from, I now have a weird collection of plants.  I specifically went out that morning to tend to the weirdness.  The first pot that I started planting weird in was that sad lemon pot.  Of course I needed somewhere to put my Mexican Milkweed so it went in there.

That didn't work.  The Monarchs use it as a salad and a way station for a quick stop before floating on their way.  "Oh well, that's why it was there!" 

But the pot looked bare by itself with just a stick of eaten Milkweed, so I added some other things.  My Cashew tree.  The neighbor gave me a fruit, that I ate, and I dropped the seed in that same pot.  The tree needs to be moved since it got knee high and stopped.  On the wind there must have been a stray coleus seed because it too decided to land in that pot.

I now have a small ecosystem.  When the caterpillars allow, there are Mexican Milkweeds, but only until the leaves get out.  They never get as far as flowering, and forget about harvesting seeds, because one doesn't share with insects, even beautiful ones.  You'll have sticks, and you'll like it.

I do like it because I do like the Monarchs.

The Cashew tree and the Coleus will end up elsewhere when I start over.

But walking around looking at this decidedly unartistic collection of plants, I noticed a thread.

Getting closer, I noticed that the thread was a tiny day or two old Monarch caterpillar already eating the leaves that were trying to grow on on what passes for the plant. 

Silly creatures you're eating yourselves out of house and home!

Of course the circle of life and all that went through my mind as I watched a female Monarch float in, land, and promptly lay an egg on that same plant.

Anyone want to bet whether the egg will hatch or it will be eaten in a day or three by that hungry caterpillar?

Someone, anyone, Beuhler?

The things you see out by the garden when you're out procrastinating, er, pulling weeds.

The Monarch of the Plant Pot

Wandering around town at dawn, I noticed that there was something missing.

Not people, oddly enough we dog walkers have a habit of getting out early, wandering late, and basically slinking around town at strange hours.

I've walked Rack at 4AM more than once.

The nature park nearby, M.E. DePalma park, was missing them.

My backyard was picked fairly clean.

Some of the spots where I was "guerilla" planting them hadn't taken either, or where they were they were eaten down to sticks.

You guessed it, my Mexican Milkweed is mostly absent. 

I have a reputation of scattering Milkweed Seeds far and near, and when I find the seeds, that is exactly what I do.  I remember these starbursts of silk floating on the breezes of my own childhood New Jersey Prairie that would land somewhere unseen from time to time.  Here, they don't get a chance to get that far.  The insects that I plant them for are much too hungry for them and are eating them down to nubs and sticks.

It's a cause and effect.  Give a Monarch a home and it will eat the home.  If there is no home, no Monarchs. That is why we plant the things anyway, for the Monarchs.

So whenever I find a seed pod on one of my plants, I watch over it.  If it survives to ripen, I snatch it and put it in a plastic bag or immediately scatter them.

I'm on a cleaning binge and I found one of those bags hidden in my kitchen from a while ago.  It had fallen behind the coffee maker on the counter, forgotten.

Walking out to the row of pots on the drip irrigation line that morning to plant the newly found seeds in the land, there was the culprit.  It could have been called the guest, just as easily.  A Monarch caterpillar climbing up the branch of the lone milkweed that had survived looking for a meal. 

Mmm Tasty, Tasty Milkweed.

I vowed to watch over that creature and see where it went but I wasn't that lucky.  It had its meal, then climbed into a sheltered spot.  With luck it was undisturbed, even by me, and then flew off to grace another yard with it's beauty in Orange and Black.

Mexican Milkweed Blooms Again

The Monarchs are Flying,
The Milkweed Blooms,
I guess I have a job to do.

As the Chief Irritant on this quirky little island, I've noticed that the Monarch Butterflies are flying around the neighborhood. 

The windows were open most of last week, it's our secret season. A Secret because we've all kept our yap shut over just how beautiful March in South Florida can be.  It can also be near the 90s and humid so when it's this nice we'll just take advantage of it.

I got growled at one day for keeping the windows shut and the air conditioning on.  In March.

It was more due to the fact that it was in the mid 70s outside and beautiful.

My tolerance for a warm house is pretty high, and as long as there's a breeze going through I don't notice until the indoors are into the low 80s.

This wasn't the case.

I had the air conditioning off that morning and being a house made of concrete blocks, the cool will stay inside for a while.   The house hadn't warmed up yet as a result.  Sitting in my comfy bouncy Poang chair, I was watching as one after another Monarch Butterfly would float past the front windows of the house.  The breezes were gentle and off the ocean.  They would later switch to be a land breeze.  When that happens, the palm trees flop over to the East and I know that a front would be coming through.

But for today the conditions were right for my orange and black Monarchs to windsurf past the window.

Time to open the house up anyway.

I had noticed that the Mexican Milkweeds that I had in the yard were eaten down to a stick, which might explain why the Monarchs were back.  Around the corner and down the way, the Mexican Milkweeds had ripened and the seed pods burst. 

So I have a job to do.  Grab one of those pods and be Johnny Milkweed Seed again.  There's a little bit of open land near the river that needs a few flowers.   Not that anyone asked me to, but as Chief Irritant, one of my responsibilities is to make sure that the world is safe for future butterflies.

Plus I need a few seeds for the back yard as well.  They always seem to turn mine into sticks, and it is a rare plant that gets as far as going to seed.

The ones here are some of the Monarchs that will begin to migrate North.  In a month or two they will be up near the big Cities, and in two they will make it as far as Canada.   We will still have a few.  They will dance on the breezes past my window and rise on thermals in small spirals over the flowers in the park.

But they will need places to lay their eggs so future generations will make the trek North to delight people as they float past their windows in places that they can't overwinter.   

Somewhere up North in a month or two, someone will look out at their garden, notice their own Milkweed has opened up and is beginning to set forth silver starbursts of fluff on the breezes to make those same homes.  They will grab a few seeds to scatter and pay it forward for the little creatures to find later.

The cycle of butterflies.  They could use a little help now and again.  After all, Canada is a long way away from South Florida.

Helping the Monarch Butterflies with a Few Seeds

Down in Mexico there's a "semi-secret" place.

High above a small city in a forest this place is a gathering place for millions of Monarch butterflies.  

It's the place where the Monarchs that are East of the Rocky Mountains overwinter.  The descendents of the butterflies floating anywhere North of that valley in the Sierra Madre mountains in Michoacan State in Mexico make it to spot just so they can survive the winter in peace.  The western populations have their own overwintering place in Southern California.

The ones that I see here in Florida are beautiful but they are here all year.  They don't travel far, and I consider that a blessing since I enjoy having them as neighbors and visitors. 

The problem is that this year, the count of Monarchs was very low in Mexico. 

I got involved, and it's very simple.  Plant Milkweed seeds wherever you can find the room. 

When I saw the original article, it was posted by a local friend here, Constance.  I simply asked if she had seeds.   Thanks to Constance, our own local population will have another grazing place in a few weeks under the eaves of my backyard shed.

Milkweed grows best in a spot that is well watered and not completely full sun.  On the other hand, if you're out of South Florida, your plants will be different since mine is the fully tropical Mexican Variety like in this Wikipedia picture.

I also carry a few seeds with me.  If I find a place that I think it can grow undisturbed, a few accidentally fall from my pocket.

Accidentally of course.

Milkweed varieties grow all over the US and Canada, but if you can't find the stuff, a stop in at a nursery for some "Butterfly plants".  They are rarely the showy plants with giant blossoms, but since you're growing them for the butterflies, you'll get your beauty from these visitors.

There are plenty of charities that will be able to help if you're in a city or just aren't a gardener.  This is one.

The easiest thing is simply to plant some flowering plants.  The butterflies will stop by and be on their way, and you as a property owner will get the pleasure of a better garden and a little better property value.

I will say that the Mexican Milkweed I grow in pots end up being little sticks.  One quirk I have noticed is that the Monarchs come in waves here in South Florida.  They'll float into the garden and find the milkweed, lay an egg and be on their way.  Others will follow.   A few weeks later, I find a caterpillar chewing on the leaves and stalks of my plants and I'm left with those sticks.  All goes quiet until the milkweed comes back, and the cycle repeats.

You can ignore the milkweed, the Monarchs will keep it trimmed back pretty effectively as a result.