Busy Day At Pillar Place

And the case of butterflies so rich it looks as if all summer settled there and died. ~ Philip Larkin, "Autumn"

First off, I have to say our "rain storm" was a bit of a bust. It poured all around us, especially south (lucky Boston), but we got little more than a dribble. There's a slight chance of some thunderstorms today, but for the most part there's not more rain in the forecast for nearly two weeks.

We're dying here. Literally.

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Pillar Place was pretty crazy yesterday.

In Pillar Place: Monarch -- we had THIRTEEN eggs hatch. Yes, you saw right: THIRTEEN. Things are going to be REALLY busy in a week or so, keeping up with the hungry pillars. We watched three of them actually hatch (all the while wishing for a magnifying glass). It's pretty amazing. Check out this video:



This photo (borrowed from this blog post on raising monarchs -- which has some incredible pictures, if you're interested) shows just how tiny the eggs are:




In other Monarch news, Xi is hanging from his roof in a "J" and should be making his chrysalis very soon. Our first baby is growing up! It was so fast. We found him as a little bitty pillar only ten days ago, and he's already becoming a butterfly. It's amazing how quickly they grow.

In Pillar Place: Swallowtail, we got a bit of a surprise last night! I went to check on Xi because he'd been on his roof, and I glanced at the swallowtail box and -- there were two butterflies inside! The pupae had never turned black, so it was completely unexpected, and they'd probably been there all day. It wasn't as though we could release them anyway, due to the general cool, overcast and damp day, but I felt a little bad about them being cooped up all day anyway.

So, that's the last of our swallowtails. And, incredibly, it's the first season we've EVER had without any casualties. No pillars dying, no butterflies hatching with disabilities. How wonderful!

So, hopefully it'll clear up and be sunny in a few hours so we can release these two. Do you suppose they'll send a postcard?

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One more day of DH's vacation and then we're back to normal here at the homestead. Actually, it's been remarkably calm and relatively stress-free for a change, so I haven't minded the disruption in routine.

We've gotten all of DD's curriculum in the mail, and are awaiting the delivery of the DVDs. She's agreed that we should start early, doing only a day or two a week in August, just to get back into the swing of things slowly.

She's taking a typing course this year, so that's exciting for her. She's always amazed at the fact I can type without looking at the keyboard, lol. I told her that I learned to type on a circa-1900s manual typewriter (remember that typewriter, Mom?) and in high school "upgraded" to an IBM Selectric. I remember days and days of learning how to type on carbon paper, and ... remember White Out? Ah.... the days of no computers. PCs weren't commonly available until I was a junior in high school, and even then it was ones like the Commodore 64 (with 64 megabytes of memory -- which was HUGE then). Ahhh... the memories.

So, my DD is in junior high this coming school year. Seventh grade. How did that happen??

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I've recently discovered that there are blog posts not showing up in my Google Reader. If I haven't visited you recently, that's probably what happened. I'm trying to go through my list on reader one-by-one to get to folks who've posted and I've missed, but it's remarkably time consuming. I haven't forgotten or ignored you. It's just a technology fail. Sorry!!

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You Should Move To a Better Neighborhood

You really don't have the personality for moving. You only move if you should. You tend to worry about what might go wrong, so moving should be a clear upgrade for you. You would might rest easier if you were in a safer part of town closer to more services. Consider upgrading neighborhoods or home if you can. A homebody like you should have nice home to live in.

Where Should You Move To?

HAHAHAHAHAHA.... neighborhoods don't get much safer than mine. This cracks me up. And I *love* moving. Love it. I get itchy if I don't move every few years (so, yeah, I'm REALLY itchy now).

It needs to say, "You should move out west so you can be closer to family and friends who matter, and so you wouldn't have to deal with Japanese beetles and deer flies any longer."

Why doesn't it say that?

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