Big Guy's New Look

Here's the freshly formed chrysalis of the first caterpillar I collected from our wild milkweed. I'm humbled everytime I even think about the process. Within two weeks a fully-formed butterfly will emerge and point South towards Mexico.

Monarch Caterpillars Pack It In !

This picture was taken on the 19th...the biggest caterpillar formed it's "J" that evening and 24 hours later became a chrysalis. What was , just hours earlier an active eating, pooping wave-legged bug, is suddenly a still, silent gold-spangled trinket hanging from a twig. So interesting ( and slightly scary ! ) to observe these caterpillars make these critical changes in the relentless succession that nature demands.
The teeny tiny hatchling is not in this picture...it had not hatched yet.

Let the Eating Begin !

The egg hatched yesterday and the tiny new life is enjoying milkweed, milkweed and more milkweed. We'll call him Tiny Guy. I transferred a bit of his "birth leaf" and the caterpillar to a new stem of fresh young milkweed and it didnt miss a beat. That's my thumb in the lower left...for scale....!

Monarchs In The Air and In Our Living Room

Monarch Butterflies have followed me most of my life, as it turns out. I was born in Monterey, California when we owned a house in Pacific Grove...the Winter destination for the Monarchs West of the Rocky Mountains. Here on the East coast, the butterflies have a different flight pattern.

This egg I watched being delivered on a milkweed plant by a gorgeous female Monarch Butterfly, out in our Virginia yard on the 18th. I cut the stem and about half the plant and brought it inside to watch the unbelievably swift process from egg to wing. The egg hatched out today, less than 72 hours after it was attached to the underside of the leaf. The newly-hatched caterpillar has already eaten a tiny hole in the leaf, and the the big 1 1/2" caterpillar that I collected off of a milkweed on the 19th, split its caterpillar persona and became a chrysalis over the last 24 hours. Whew...so incredibly fast !

Spring !

Yea, Spring ! Just when all outdoor plant life looks really, really dead and gone, trees start to flower and bud out, Spring bulbs begin to nose out of the Earth...and suddenly.... Winter is over. Not that we had a hard Winter. Just the lack of green, growing plant-life brings me down after awhile. Houseplants help for sure, and the Dwarf Banana tree ( now a small grove ! )that shares our bedroom for six months out of the year has a definite living, breathing presence of its own. But watching the return of the mighty Hostas and Bleeding Hearts always seems incredible...so delicate looking, yet there they were, frozen root clumps for a good part of the year. Actually, frozen and defrosted several times over.
Yesterday I sowed some seeds out in the Fenced Garden, in a bed I prepared several months ago with some veganic plant food from Garden's Alive, some kelp meal and compost from our own heap. I sowed Red Cloud Beets, Short 'n Sweet Carrots, and Osaka Purple Mustard Greens. Garlic is coming up where J planted some out last October....or was it early November ? The weeds will be starting their race any day...some have already begun, but not in earnest yet.
Yellow Goatsbeard seeds got planted in a flat of seed-starting mix. I harvested the seeds from a crazy-looking seedhead down the road. I think S helped me collect the seeds. We'll see how they do...I kept the seeds in a closely closed baggie in a laundryroom cabinet all Winter.

New Leaf Vegan Society

I'm playing in Photoshop more....and trying to learn XHTML and CSS at the same time. Boy do I feel dumb a good part of the time...so many news angles to learn...!

I am looking forward to spiffing up our site and getting more information out to people about the truth of industrial-scale animal agriculture, and how easy and delicious and better for everyone involved, a vegan diet is.

Pirate Sam Dammit

Sam will be 12 years old this May. He's still got the energy and humor of a kitten. His left may need to be removed soon, and just for fun I fitted him up with a patch on Photoshop.