Guardianship update: 12th August 2018

The temperature took a nosedive today, and it’s cool enough that I’m in jeans and a sweatshirt quite comfortably (My low blood pressure is helping that).  The cool damp in the air instead of the humidly stifling feeling is quite a change!  I’m wondering how much difference this will make for the larvae growth rate, as the forecast is predicting this will be the norm for a few more days until the temps start to hit low 80s F again.  Continue reading “Guardianship update: 12th August 2018”

Note to Future Me #6

Remember those images of the shade changes in the backyard we took last year in mid May after reading about how useful it is to understand which parts of a garden is shaded or not, and when?  They were then filed away in the “Progress” folder, and I only found them again this year while hunting for an older picture.  Here’s a refresher in case you forgot again: Continue reading “Note to Future Me #6”

Guardianship update: 11th August 2018

So much to my surprise, and with a twinge of guilt, at late suppertime yesterday (which was the 10th for folks pondering the time difference), I saw Junior poised in preparation for J already.  Since the four older instar had been out of the incubator for a while, I really didn’t realize how big Junior had grown, especially since the last to form a chrysalis was the biggest 5th instar (and bigger than Junior).   Continue reading “Guardianship update: 11th August 2018”

Guardianship update: 8th August 2018

Yesterday was busy, so I didn’t get a chance to post news.  When I cleaned out the incubator yesterday, I found a single newly born.  I think one bit I thought was an egg was really just a tiny milkweed sap bubble.  I checked over the seed pods with a magnifying glass several times to be sure there were no remaining eggs before I put them back outside–they take up a lot of room in the incubator, and I wanted to bring in a stem with more leaves as all the larvae were getting bigger. Continue reading “Guardianship update: 8th August 2018”