Burning Silo

Yesterday was something of a ‘big day’ around here. I’ve been very busy this week, so haven’t had time to pay much attention to the Monarch caterpillars and chrysalises, but during one pass through the dining room, I glanced at the tabletop and found 3 butterflies in the process of eclosing. Two of […]

Yesterday, while checking the garden for insect and spider activity, I spotted this pair of mating Funnel Web spiders (Agelenopsis sp.) on one of the rugosa rose bushes. The male is the smaller spider that is resting atop the much larger female. All that you can see of her is the abdomen and […]

Yes,…. another caterpillar post. I hope this isn’t becoming too boring for others, but I find the cat behaviour quite interesting and thought that others might share the same sentiment.
But first, I’ll begin with a Monarch progress report: We’re now down to about 8 caterpillars of various sizes. I’d actually vowed not […]

If you’ve been reading along through the Monarch caterpillar rearing, and the chrysalises, and butterfly eclosings, you’ll know that we’ve been waiting for the arrival of tags from MonarchWatch.org. We’ve actually released 4 untagged butterflies so far (2 females and 2 males) as they began eclosing a couple of weeks ago. However, the […]

What do Argiope spiders and the Montgolfier brothers have in common? Not much — except that they both created airy spheres that float in the air. The Argiopes create spherical egg cases, while the Montgolfier brothers created hot air balloons.
Slight digression. One of those odd little bits of information that I have […]