I took this shot yesterday. I was fascinated by it. More eggs have been laid on the bronze fennel and all sort of generations of caterpillars have hatched. I like this shot because the empty chrysalis is still sticking to the fennel stalk, it gives the entire shot a sense of perspective I think. The one thing this shot does tell me however that despite me planting six bronze fennel plants this year (as opposed to two last year) I am not going to avoid the obligatory emergency trip to Pender Pines Nursery to buy dill plants seeing as I appear to have more caterpillars this year than I did last. I suppose it is a "if you build it they will come" sort of deal, the more plants you have, the more eggs will be laid. I am deathly afraid right now however that in their effort to eat, the caterpillars that I have will eat the fennel which has eggs attached to it... although I am hoping that instinct will stop this from happening. Time will tell I suppose, but in any event, to make sure those eggs have food once they hatch at emergency run to Pender Pines is in order. I must be nuts.

I have been cleaning and painting my living room all weekend. (No point in painting over cobwebs, so a full scale "spring clean" was in effect after which I painted the discolored upper walls). As is my want I had the TV tuned to Fox news, which of course was covering the middle east crisis, (or world war III if you believe Newt Gingridge.) What struck me was this entire outrage about the killing of "innocent civilians." Now, please let me point out that I do not condone, nor do I celebrate in any way, the killing of innocent civilians, but it occurs to me that "innocent civilians" have been killed in every war that ever was, in the history of the world. It would be nice if we could settle our differences in some other manner, a game of chess for instance, but as it turns out, you can only poke a large sleeping bear (Israel) with a stick for so long, eventually the bear is going to wake up, get mad and start slashing out with them claws. During World War II there was no particular military objective in the Germans bombing London, it was purely to kill as many civilians and do as much damage as possible thereby causing us to surrender (as Hitler said "we will wring the neck of England like a chickens neck" as Churchill responded "some chicken, some neck.") There was no military target when the US dropped the atom bombs on Japan, it was done purely to bring about the surrender of the Japanese, which it accomplished. WHEN exactly when did this idea of not killing civilians in a war come about? I mean really, war is simply about defeating the other side, by whatever means, so when exactly was it decided that in order to win a conflict (which is the politically correct term for war nowadays) that one is only allowed to kill combatants? And in the current case, how the hell is Israel to know who the hell is a combatant and who is not, these people do not wear uniforms per se, (pretty much the same as the "insurgents" in Iraq) they are not part of an organized force, they are just guys in shirts and pants, living in homes surrounded by "innocent civilians." It appears to me that this "nice way of playing war" has literally become quite absurd. So now the pressure is on Israel to cease fire because a home, containing women and children was bombed. I am in no way condoning the killing of women and children, but the videos that Israel have released have shown that the insurgents (terrorists) have been placing rocket launchers behind homes containing women and children such as this and basically using the women and children as shields. My question is this, who the hell is a fault here? The people who are trying to stop insurgents bombing their country or the insurgents who position their weapons behind a building containing many women and children. As far as I am concerned any man, insurgent or not, who hides behind the shield of a woman or a child is a pussy, a coward, is a man that has not a shred of common decency or bravery in his being. And, as far as I am concerned they deserve to be sent packing and in search of their 72 virgins or white grapes or whatever it is. If you want to fight, do it like a man, take your gun, run over the edge of the trenches and meet your enemy face to face. Hiding behind women and children is a sorry coward's way out. That is the most striking thing about terrorists, they are bloody cowards, they have not the guts to face a uniformed soldier face to face, no that would be a fair fight, no they choose to kill "innocent civilians" every day of the week, with their cowardly practices and yet no one condemns them. Every terrorist that have gone before them should be able to teach these people a lesson, terrorists do not win the fight, eventually they die and fade away into obscurity. Does anyone even remember the IRA?

Yesterday morning was a lifetime achievement for me. The butterflies hatched and I was there to watch them. On Wednesday morning I had got up and checked out the chrysalids but nothing was happening, so I felt I was safe to go back into the house and get ready for work. I showered, made my tea, fed the animals, watched the news and generally pottered. While I was brushing my teeth I decided to go back outside and check things out. To my dismay (well not to my dismay really, but to my dismay cause I had missed it) one of them had hatched, while I had been in the house. Thursday morning I was determined that the same thing was not going to happen again. I got up even earlier, got myself entirely ready for work, and then with camera and tripod I camped out on my patio. I watched one hatch but took few photographs, its location was such that it was almost impossible to get a decent shot of. So I concentrated on the one, you remember the little guy, he was the one I posted pictures of rubbing his cheeks on the stem of the fennel, placing the silks to anchor him. So I got my camera in focus on him and shortly after I did the chrysalis moved.... my heart skipped a beat and all of a sudden there was a crack in the case.....



my heart was beating so fast I thought it would bust out of my chest, my hands were shaking, my mind was racing, "did I have the correct focus, are these pictures sharp?" thoughts a million miles a minute were coursing through my brain while I watched the chrysalis split a little more....



and there she was, pushing her way out of that casing, it took about 30 seconds for her to get fully out (I was amazed, for some reason I always thought it took a lot longer)



at each stage my heart was literally in my throat, my hands were shaking like I couldn't believe and it was all I could do not to knock over the camera and screw the entire thing up. She grabbed onto the fennel stalk and began to haul her body out of the shell...



in no time at all she had dragged herself onto the fennel and began the task of flooding the blood from her abdomen into her wings to engorge them.



with each moment here wings grew, as the blood inflated them, and with each minute she became more beautiful.



until finally her wings were fully spread and she just had to sit and wait for them to dry.



I can tell you that without doubt it was the most joyous moment of my life, I had always wanted to witness such an event, and in all my years of gardening I had never been able to. I can tell you without being the slightest bit ashamed that I cried, so glorious was the moment, and even getting into work and having the boss yell at me for a mistake I had made on a brief could not diminish the moment. I was there at the beginning of a beautiful new life, and I watched as nature unfolded before my very eyes. I felt very, very priviledged at that moment, and I will never forget it. Thanks to my digital camera I will be able to relive it again and again.

I rose at 6:30 a.m. wanting to get outside to see if my chrysalids were hatching but no joy. I checked on them all day, but they sat, like a bump on a log doing nothing. I spent most of the day doing laundry (not an easy task when normally you hang laundry outside to dry and the chance of thunderstorms was 60%) so I fixed my posing table, it having been damaged beyond repair the last storm we had (that will happen when you use chipboard as a base, chipboard and rain on a regular basis do not mix.) Once I had fixed it I figured that I should set my camera up in the kitchen sink and test it out. I was really hoping to get a good shot of a Blue Jay on it, as most of my shots of the Blue Jays have been on the feeders, not the most natural of settings. As it turns out my Blue Jays have increased tremendously over the last couple of years. Whereas before I had one, perhaps two, I have dozens now (I obviously have a good breeding population) so that at any given moment there is a Blue Jay giving his (or her) familar "cack cack cack" as they come in for a landing. I was so happy with this shot today...



Prior to that I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to get a shot of this butterfly. He (or she) is a Palamedes Swallowtail, the butterfly "of the great swamps" which makes sense, seeing as I live in a swamp, I had just never been able to get a good shot of one before.



While I was trying to take this shot, I noticed a Hummingbird Moth also visiting the Lantana. They are fast little devils, and it is harder than whatever to get a decent shot of them, I liked this one though, flitting inbetween flowers....



All of a sudden a storm came in and the rains came down, I was still taking shots, and sort of liked this one of a canna stalk in the rain...



After the rain tapered off it would appear that it was Squirrel dinner time, of the three available feeders there were three squirrels on them, of course all was peachy until Squirrel number four showed up then all hell broke loose. Feeders went one way, Squirrels went another.... still prior to that I got this shot....



All in all it was a good day, storms and all.

Today a couple of butterfly weed pods popped open and their silken seeds burst forth and sat waiting for the wind to carry them to parts unknown. While this may seem a small and relatively insigificant event to most people it is a huge moment in time for me. Why? Because it means that butterfly weed seeds will be sailing on the air, all over my area, who knows how far they will travel? It means that somewhere, in at least a mile radius of my home, a butterfly weed seed will settle, and will nestle into the soil, and sit there over the winter, hunkered down in the soil and leaves and wait for the warmth of the spring sunshine. It will then germinate, along a roadside, a ditch, or perhaps even at the edge of someone's yard where the mower does not reach. And then a plant will grow, and once that plant has grown, a Monarch butterfly will land, and knowing it is a safe place, will lay her eggs. Soon the caterpillars will hatch, and they will feed on the butterfly weed, until they turn into the most beautiful green and gold chrysalids, and soon those chrysalids will hatch and a whole new generation of Monarchs will migrate to Mexico. A tiny seed, sits waiting for the wind, and in that moment, in that most precious of moments, at least two lives hang in the balance. I am joyous to watch my butterfly weed seeds disburse, because along with them is life, such glorious life.