everything which is yes

pretties

So our fatties are starting to turn into pretties!  We have released the first couple of swallowtail butterflies!  Bugga was so excited to see them fluttering about in the butterfly house.  I snapped a few photos. 

The first is poor quality, but I wanted you to see the underside of this species of butterfly, the colors are more vivid with blues and oranges:

And this is one of the little pretty getting ready to venture out of the butterfly house.  I figured I'd share this one because you can get an idea of what the butterfly house is like and also what the chrysallises look like (even though they aren't as interesting) for these swallowtails:

And lastly, about to fly away (yay!):

Everytime we get to see the caterpillars and butterflies I'm always amazed.  It's really a beautiful process.

our swallowtails

So since our last butterly garden update, we've housed 8 fatties in our little butterfly house and they've all since made chrysallises. The caterpillars and butterflies are really the "cool" things to look at and the chrysallises are less interesting so I'll spare you a photo of them.  They basically look like dried leaves. 

Bug Bear has been wanting to check on the caterpillars daily and she's so excited to see the butterflies.  Won't be long now!

more little fatties

So not too long ago I was lamenting the lack of butterflies in our garden and I'm so pleased to report that I think the season is finally warming up (note to self: be patient with nature)!  The other day Bugga and I saw a beautiful swallowtail floating about in the garden and laying eggs on our fennel!  A few days have passed and here's what the critters are looking like today:

We have seven total and this morning we place some of the fatter, more ready guys in the butterfly house with some more fennel.  I bet it won't be long before they start making their chrysalises. I loooove how bugga is really excited about the caterpillars..she loves to check on them and watch them munch! 

Our garden is definitely ready for butterflies.  We have some beautiful blooms right now.  Here's a shot I captured this morning (and looking at this makes me reeeaaaaally long for a wonderful DSLR--the point and shoot can only do so much):

I've always really loved coneflowers--they are gorgeous! 

first butterfly

Our butterfly garden is looking gorgeous this year!  Nearly all of our perennials are happily growing back and we've added daisies, malva (a host plant with a beautiful flower), a new variety of coneflower, and some zinnias I tried from seed this year.

We haven't seen many butterflies this season yet, which is unusual.  But we have had our first caterpillar of the season.  A happy fat little guy; a monarch caterpillar:

We scooped him up and sheltered him in our butterfly house when he was ready and before long we had our first beautiful monarch of the season! 

It was really neat to see bugga get so engaged with the process.  She loved to look at the caterpillar everyday and check on the chrysallis each morning until the butterfly emerged, which seemed to put her in awe.  I loved seeing the wonder and delight on her face!

Since then she's been scoping out the garden most everyday looking for more caterpillars; I so hope we get some more soon!  The garden is a little lonely without our usual load of butterflies flitting around everywhere.