Fly Away Home
Weekeeeeeeeend
Had some nice coffee, got this week's bread started (a raisin walnut loaf) and went outside to check on the garden things.
So in my last post (yesterday) my chrysalides looked like this:
And this is how they were Wednesday morning:
AAAAAAAAH!!! They're ready!
I tried not to freak out and went about my day as usual, but checked on them frequently to see if I could catch the emergence when it happened (it's called "eclosing", but that word is weird so I'm not much using it). I got the bread on its 3-hour rise, then went out to the garden to plant my milkweed and finish checking on stuffs. The bananas really are getting bigger!
Look at the weird flower bud of the black sapote.
A recent storm ripped out part of the screen in our lanai, so the creatures can get in.
My boyfriend came out to check out the chrysalides and found a banded sphinx moth in a corner of the pool deck!
I fished her out with the pool net and took her to a shady tree, where I hope she'll be more comfortable.
I planted three milkweed and the roselle plant in the pollinator garden. Hopefully no one else will lay eggs for a while so the milkweed can recover from being eaten. After finishing that project I wanted to wash my hands and prepare to interact with the bread again. As I was walking past the butterfly enclosure, I saw that one of the black chrysalides was cracking open!!
I ran as fast as I could inside, washed my hands, grabbed my phone and ran back out...but I had missed it! TEN SECONDS between me and awesomeness! Argh!
https://instagram.com/p/CN8FYjHnp2F
But how cool is this? I raised that butterfly! She looks beautiful.
A few moments later her "twin" emerged too. And yes, I missed it again. Listen, they're sneaky.
Hopefully I can catch one of the other five in the act.
The rest of the day was uneventful, I finished making the raisin walnut bread. It turned out pretty nice, even despite me adding in the add-ins at the wrong point in the process. Somehow they still incorporated pretty evenly.
Next week is black pepper parmesan bread. What meal should I make to compliment that?
In the evening I had steno class, which went OK. I've honestly fallen off the wagon with practicing after my class day/times changed. Mondays and Wendesdays are just so AWKWARD. And then I blew my weekend on butterflies and bread and gardening, so that's my own fault. Going to have to get back into it though, because this is costing lots of money :(
After class I checked on the butterflies and found them stomping all over the enclosure, reflexively opening and closing their wings, climbing stuff and flapping awkwardly against the walls and to the bottom. Getting circulation going, basically, and learning their new bodies. Cool. I made plans to release them in the morning, but also wanted to make sure they were hydrated and fed. I took a short trip to Publix and got the most squishy banana I could find, some overripe half-moldy strawberries, and a questionable orange. Butterflies like rotten fruit, you see. Oh, and a small jar of all-natural no-additives apple juice. Back home I put little slices of each fruit in a saucer and poured the apple juice in the bottom, then slid it into the enclosure. Continental breakfast.
The next morning we had screen repair dudes to fix the lanai, and once that was done I swept up outside a bit, and of course checked out the butterflies. It was still a bit cool out so they weren't very active, so I went back inside to have breakfast and gather the ingredients for macarons while I waited for them to come around. A few hours later they were stomping all around again, so I snatched one and took her outside. She was more than happy to get away from me. Jameson wanted to release one too, so I handed the other to him...and it refused to leave. Lol! What's he got that I don't got? But eventually that one flew away too, up into the trees where safety could be found.
Here are videos of both releases, click the small arrow on the right to watch the second video.
https://instagram.com/p/CN-Q46SgoS6
Looking at the other chrysalides, I realized that three of them would be "hatching" today! Including Zipper and Towelie!
It's very convenient for me that these butteflies chose my weekend to emerge, so that I could be here to see it and assist if anything went wrong!
I wanted very badly to catch an "eclose" on video, and there seemed to be a lot of interest among my friends, so I decided to try a live video. It went fine, but the problem is it can be hours before the butterfly comes out, and when it does it takes only a few seconds. So after a 30 minute live video and no action, I had to go inside and at least get the macarons in the oven.
When I came back out it was HAPPENING, and I was so excited, started the live video, got in position.
But right then, for some unknown reason...my g*******d phone screen locked!!!! FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
I couldn't tell if the video was still going, and apparently it wasn't, because when I watched it afterward you can see Zipper starting to poke his little head out of the chrysalis, then there are some weird flashes and gaps in footage, and the next thing you see is Zipper all the way out and unfurling his wings. ARGH. I was so angry I almost cried. Sat out there for an hour, ruined my macarons, wasted an hour of my friends' time, all for this moment, and my phone f*cked me over. So angry.
But, I've got to be grateful that I was there to see it myself. I raised this butterfly from an egg. It took a month. And I was there today to see his first moments as a butterfly. That's pretty cool, when you think about it.
Here is the footage I was able to get AFTER I got back into my phone.
https://instagram.com/p/CN-7xktAYII
Zipper's abdomen is swollen because it's full of fluid that is pumped to the wings and his organs. The fluid expands the wings and hardens them so they'll be ready for flight. Doing this takes several hours, so he'll hang upside down until it's safe to move around. Then he practices walking around while flexing his wings, getting ready to fly.
I had to run back inside to pay some attention to my macarons, but when I came back out later on there were THREE butterflies! One had hatched from a chrysalis under a milkweed leaf, and the other was Towelie joining the party.
Here is Towelie drying out his lovely wings <3
Here's one with her wings fully open. You can tell it's a girl by the thicker black stripes, and the lack of a black spot on the dorsal wings (Google "monarch butterfly male female" for pictures of the difference).
I want to release them tomorrow morning, but if for some reason I can't they'll be ok for another day in the enclosure.
Back inside I started assembling the macarons. For my first try, and considering I was extremely distracted with butterfly stuff, I'd say this went pretty well! The shells were not perfect, but none of them cracked, or crumbled, or had big air pockets, or burned. The "foot" on each cookie wasn't very pronounced, but that certainly has to do with the fact that I let them sit on the counter a full 20 minutes too long while out trying to get butterfly footage. Frankly, I'm pretty proud that they look as good as they do.
They're just plain vanilla, I didn't want to overcomplicate things on the first go. I did run out and get strawberry icing because I just didn't have the mental stamina to make a real buttercream, but to make up for the artifical oversweetened filling I added some slices of real strawberry in there. They need to set up in the fridge, but even at room temperature I thought they were nice. It was a good experiment, I'm glad I tried to make them.
After that it was pretty much time to start dinner, sous vide NY strip steaks with sweet potato fries and roasted broccoli. The steak turned out awesome, as all sous vide steak does. I didn't take pictures because literally all day I've been taking pictures, uploading, responding to comments, adding hashtages. I'm social-media'd out. After the butterflies are gone it may be time for a break so I can refocus on steno.
Also, the number of critical, negative, offensive comments on my recent butterfly posts has really bummed me out. I actually left a group over it because several of my posts--all of which met community guidelines, none of which were offensive in any way--received negative or critical commentary. From a group that's supposed to exist to provide support for people raising monarchs. The last straw was when I posted asking what I could do for my butterflies after finding out the Orkin man was coming to spray for ants, and instead of putting the butterflies first and making helpful suggestions, or even just saying "Sorry, nothing you can do," people felt the need to tell me I was poisoning my butterflies. Yeah, that was that.
Considering all the pictures and video of pesticide-poisoned caterpillars that people in that group post, the negativity-spreading hypocrites can frankly f*ck right the f*ck off. Not a single one of my caterpillars died, and none of them even puked once. ALL of them so far have pupated successfully and emerged as fully formed butterflies, no thanks to the people who felt a need to criticize my every move during the process. I left the group and I'm (clearly) still annoyed about it, but let me also add that there were a lot of truly knowledgeable, kind people in there. I may try to rejoin in the fall. But right now, with my butterflies emerging in what is supposed to be a happy moment, I just do not need people critiquing everything I post.
Alright, enough of that. What with macarons and butterflies and dinner there is so much I didn't get done today.
Tomorrow I'm supposed to work from home, but my boss already called me and said that if even one person calls out I may have to come in. That makes me sad but it's part of the deal.
If I get to work from home tomorrow, I'll release the butterflies on my lunch break and practice steno right away after work.
If I have to go to work, the butterflies will have to wait either until I get back (evening releases are not ideal) or I'll have to let them go before I leave, and then I'll do as much steno as possible once I get home and Jameson goes to rehearsal. I also still need to plant the rest of the milkweed, do meal prep, and other regular chores that I neglected so I could enjoy the butterflies.
Worth it. F*ck chores.
I'm really sweary today.
Life is short. Watch the butterflies. Swear sometimes. Make bad macarons. And enjoy it.
Had some nice coffee, got this week's bread started (a raisin walnut loaf) and went outside to check on the garden things.
So in my last post (yesterday) my chrysalides looked like this:
And this is how they were Wednesday morning:
AAAAAAAAH!!! They're ready!
I tried not to freak out and went about my day as usual, but checked on them frequently to see if I could catch the emergence when it happened (it's called "eclosing", but that word is weird so I'm not much using it). I got the bread on its 3-hour rise, then went out to the garden to plant my milkweed and finish checking on stuffs. The bananas really are getting bigger!
Look at the weird flower bud of the black sapote.
A recent storm ripped out part of the screen in our lanai, so the creatures can get in.
My boyfriend came out to check out the chrysalides and found a banded sphinx moth in a corner of the pool deck!
I fished her out with the pool net and took her to a shady tree, where I hope she'll be more comfortable.
I planted three milkweed and the roselle plant in the pollinator garden. Hopefully no one else will lay eggs for a while so the milkweed can recover from being eaten. After finishing that project I wanted to wash my hands and prepare to interact with the bread again. As I was walking past the butterfly enclosure, I saw that one of the black chrysalides was cracking open!!
I ran as fast as I could inside, washed my hands, grabbed my phone and ran back out...but I had missed it! TEN SECONDS between me and awesomeness! Argh!
https://instagram.com/p/CN8FYjHnp2F
But how cool is this? I raised that butterfly! She looks beautiful.
A few moments later her "twin" emerged too. And yes, I missed it again. Listen, they're sneaky.
Hopefully I can catch one of the other five in the act.
The rest of the day was uneventful, I finished making the raisin walnut bread. It turned out pretty nice, even despite me adding in the add-ins at the wrong point in the process. Somehow they still incorporated pretty evenly.
Next week is black pepper parmesan bread. What meal should I make to compliment that?
In the evening I had steno class, which went OK. I've honestly fallen off the wagon with practicing after my class day/times changed. Mondays and Wendesdays are just so AWKWARD. And then I blew my weekend on butterflies and bread and gardening, so that's my own fault. Going to have to get back into it though, because this is costing lots of money :(
After class I checked on the butterflies and found them stomping all over the enclosure, reflexively opening and closing their wings, climbing stuff and flapping awkwardly against the walls and to the bottom. Getting circulation going, basically, and learning their new bodies. Cool. I made plans to release them in the morning, but also wanted to make sure they were hydrated and fed. I took a short trip to Publix and got the most squishy banana I could find, some overripe half-moldy strawberries, and a questionable orange. Butterflies like rotten fruit, you see. Oh, and a small jar of all-natural no-additives apple juice. Back home I put little slices of each fruit in a saucer and poured the apple juice in the bottom, then slid it into the enclosure. Continental breakfast.
The next morning we had screen repair dudes to fix the lanai, and once that was done I swept up outside a bit, and of course checked out the butterflies. It was still a bit cool out so they weren't very active, so I went back inside to have breakfast and gather the ingredients for macarons while I waited for them to come around. A few hours later they were stomping all around again, so I snatched one and took her outside. She was more than happy to get away from me. Jameson wanted to release one too, so I handed the other to him...and it refused to leave. Lol! What's he got that I don't got? But eventually that one flew away too, up into the trees where safety could be found.
Here are videos of both releases, click the small arrow on the right to watch the second video.
https://instagram.com/p/CN-Q46SgoS6
Looking at the other chrysalides, I realized that three of them would be "hatching" today! Including Zipper and Towelie!
It's very convenient for me that these butteflies chose my weekend to emerge, so that I could be here to see it and assist if anything went wrong!
I wanted very badly to catch an "eclose" on video, and there seemed to be a lot of interest among my friends, so I decided to try a live video. It went fine, but the problem is it can be hours before the butterfly comes out, and when it does it takes only a few seconds. So after a 30 minute live video and no action, I had to go inside and at least get the macarons in the oven.
When I came back out it was HAPPENING, and I was so excited, started the live video, got in position.
But right then, for some unknown reason...my g*******d phone screen locked!!!! FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
I couldn't tell if the video was still going, and apparently it wasn't, because when I watched it afterward you can see Zipper starting to poke his little head out of the chrysalis, then there are some weird flashes and gaps in footage, and the next thing you see is Zipper all the way out and unfurling his wings. ARGH. I was so angry I almost cried. Sat out there for an hour, ruined my macarons, wasted an hour of my friends' time, all for this moment, and my phone f*cked me over. So angry.
But, I've got to be grateful that I was there to see it myself. I raised this butterfly from an egg. It took a month. And I was there today to see his first moments as a butterfly. That's pretty cool, when you think about it.
Here is the footage I was able to get AFTER I got back into my phone.
https://instagram.com/p/CN-7xktAYII
Zipper's abdomen is swollen because it's full of fluid that is pumped to the wings and his organs. The fluid expands the wings and hardens them so they'll be ready for flight. Doing this takes several hours, so he'll hang upside down until it's safe to move around. Then he practices walking around while flexing his wings, getting ready to fly.
I had to run back inside to pay some attention to my macarons, but when I came back out later on there were THREE butterflies! One had hatched from a chrysalis under a milkweed leaf, and the other was Towelie joining the party.
Here is Towelie drying out his lovely wings <3
Here's one with her wings fully open. You can tell it's a girl by the thicker black stripes, and the lack of a black spot on the dorsal wings (Google "monarch butterfly male female" for pictures of the difference).
I want to release them tomorrow morning, but if for some reason I can't they'll be ok for another day in the enclosure.
Back inside I started assembling the macarons. For my first try, and considering I was extremely distracted with butterfly stuff, I'd say this went pretty well! The shells were not perfect, but none of them cracked, or crumbled, or had big air pockets, or burned. The "foot" on each cookie wasn't very pronounced, but that certainly has to do with the fact that I let them sit on the counter a full 20 minutes too long while out trying to get butterfly footage. Frankly, I'm pretty proud that they look as good as they do.
They're just plain vanilla, I didn't want to overcomplicate things on the first go. I did run out and get strawberry icing because I just didn't have the mental stamina to make a real buttercream, but to make up for the artifical oversweetened filling I added some slices of real strawberry in there. They need to set up in the fridge, but even at room temperature I thought they were nice. It was a good experiment, I'm glad I tried to make them.
After that it was pretty much time to start dinner, sous vide NY strip steaks with sweet potato fries and roasted broccoli. The steak turned out awesome, as all sous vide steak does. I didn't take pictures because literally all day I've been taking pictures, uploading, responding to comments, adding hashtages. I'm social-media'd out. After the butterflies are gone it may be time for a break so I can refocus on steno.
Also, the number of critical, negative, offensive comments on my recent butterfly posts has really bummed me out. I actually left a group over it because several of my posts--all of which met community guidelines, none of which were offensive in any way--received negative or critical commentary. From a group that's supposed to exist to provide support for people raising monarchs. The last straw was when I posted asking what I could do for my butterflies after finding out the Orkin man was coming to spray for ants, and instead of putting the butterflies first and making helpful suggestions, or even just saying "Sorry, nothing you can do," people felt the need to tell me I was poisoning my butterflies. Yeah, that was that.
Considering all the pictures and video of pesticide-poisoned caterpillars that people in that group post, the negativity-spreading hypocrites can frankly f*ck right the f*ck off. Not a single one of my caterpillars died, and none of them even puked once. ALL of them so far have pupated successfully and emerged as fully formed butterflies, no thanks to the people who felt a need to criticize my every move during the process. I left the group and I'm (clearly) still annoyed about it, but let me also add that there were a lot of truly knowledgeable, kind people in there. I may try to rejoin in the fall. But right now, with my butterflies emerging in what is supposed to be a happy moment, I just do not need people critiquing everything I post.
Alright, enough of that. What with macarons and butterflies and dinner there is so much I didn't get done today.
Tomorrow I'm supposed to work from home, but my boss already called me and said that if even one person calls out I may have to come in. That makes me sad but it's part of the deal.
If I get to work from home tomorrow, I'll release the butterflies on my lunch break and practice steno right away after work.
If I have to go to work, the butterflies will have to wait either until I get back (evening releases are not ideal) or I'll have to let them go before I leave, and then I'll do as much steno as possible once I get home and Jameson goes to rehearsal. I also still need to plant the rest of the milkweed, do meal prep, and other regular chores that I neglected so I could enjoy the butterflies.
Worth it. F*ck chores.
I'm really sweary today.
Life is short. Watch the butterflies. Swear sometimes. Make bad macarons. And enjoy it.