Tuesday, August 6, 2013

It's Butterfly Season



Dear Friends,

If you've been following this blog, you'll remember that we were raising up Black Swallowtail caterpillars that had hatched out in our garden. Most of them have successfully pupated now, and we're getting a bumper crop of beautiful butterflies!



 Numbers seven and eight emerged and flew off today, leaving us feeling a little bereft of their companionship after so many weeks of care. Rather like watching one's little ones grow up and develop wings to fly away on their own!



We've been sowing lots more dill and fennel, in hopes that it will be big enough for future caterpillars that "our" butterflies might produce~



The swallowtails aren't the only butterflies we've been enjoying~ the little skippers seem to like our butterfly garden more than anyone else, and we love watching them flit here and there.


The bees have finally started coming in and pollinating our vegetables, thanks to the huge squash blossoms everywhere~




Now we can have even more cucumbers that we don't have to pollinate with a paintbrush! 

Whether Rebecca will share them or not is another story. . .



Soon we'll be getting lots of yummy yellow squash, if we can keep ahead of the squash bugs and vine borers~ A gardener's job is never done!


This is our first year of successfully raising native wildflowers, including this Plains Coreopsis. We have a nursery bed devoted to raising a few perennials that should start blooming next year, and we hope eventually to have our own little business of raising and selling butterfly and bee-friendly natives that are easy to grow. Now to find that elusive farm. . . .

The girls have been busy helping friends get ready for a move, and making hats and scarves for a local homeless shelter. We'll have to share their progress on the next post.

In the meantime, may these last Dog Days of Summer find you doing what you love, as much as you can, and keeping cool the rest of the time! :)

Love,

Marqueta






7 comments:

  1. What a beautiful post today....I love everything about it.....blessings

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  2. What beautiful butterflies... how delightful to have gotten so close to them and be able to photograph them :0) Have a blessed week Marqueta :) m.

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  3. You always come up with the most amazing projects. I think yours is a delightful family! I am glad you all enjoyed the ducklings, they are growing too fast for me!

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  4. WOW! The swallowtails are so beautiful, I have lots of fennel, but none of those!
    Aren't courgettes and cucumbers satisfying to grow? No wonder Rebecca wants to keep hers!
    Have beautiful lazy, hazy days! xxx Hope you are keeping well, it seems so.

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  5. I've been noticing our butterflies, too. I like your swallowtails. Just as the birds get quieter the butterflies (quiet too) start flitting about. I wonder where they go when it rains. We've had a rainy summer in eastern Pennsylvania.
    Projects that put children's minds into the "other orientated" mode are so good for them.
    Karen A.

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  6. Marqueta, those butterflies are lovely - especially the blue one! Thank you for sharing them with us!

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  7. Dear Marqueta, how lovely!! You've had quite the bumper crop of flutter-by's. (I can only hope that I hyphenated and apostrophed correctly.) Hope you are well these days!! Love, Lynn

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