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| BUTTERFLY NIGHTS | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| We Will Perservere! | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Picture my brother took of a Western Tiger Swallowtail butterfly in our Butterfly Garden. August 2002. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Butterfly Garden 2001 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Our "Butterfly Garden" is coming along nicely. I never had one bit of faith that dead looking roots, all squashed up and received in the mail would actually grow, but some of them actually did. All those lovely pictures in the plant catalogs are full of grown mature plants grown in optimum conditions. Certainly not in the heat of the North Valley of California. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The last Monarchs have emerged and gone. We are sad and we are desolate, but 32 Monarchs fluttered south from the North Valley of California, Summer 2001. |
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| Butterfly Garden 2002 This year most of the milkweed died so we didn't have many Monarch butterflies--only 5. We did see a beautiful black swallowtail and found out that they are called Pipevine Swallowtail butterflies. They are very much not easy going like the Monarchs. They are wild and fierce and oddly hardy. We had only planted two pipevines and the californica is very slow growing. But it was enough to attract females to come and lay far too many eggs on the few tiny leaves we had. I tried to bring in eggs and I even mailed two batches to a friend in Hollywood (mailing in the same state is legal) but they all died and we don't know why. 42 eggs. We're in northern California and it's much cooler in the winter and has freezes. Also, it's very very hot in the summers. Also, we had Western Tiger Swallowtails that laid eggs in the willow tree in our front yard. The tree itself is about 45 feet tall so gathering any eggs was impossible. |
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| Butterfly Garden 2003 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| So far this year, we have had rain, high winds, tornados (in California?), sleet, snow, and cold. Everytime we think Spring is upon us, another windy rain gusher comes along. Last fall I salvaged 4 pipevine swallowtail butterflies. They turned into chrysalides and whiled away their time. Today one of the chrysalides emerged--a graceful eager beautiful black pipevine swallowtail butterfly. It flitted off on the one warm sunny day we've had so far this year. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Butterfly Garden 2004 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| My father died so the garden is not happening right now. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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