The Changling

It's monarch caterpillar season and we all know what that means, right? Time for the Chili's to go on their 4th annual monarch caterpillar hunt! This is the 4th year that we have helped keep the monarch butterfly population going strong by capturing said caterpillars and raising them to become responsible adult monarch butterflies.

The monarch butterfly population, among many others, is dwindling due to urbanization and so by capturing the caterpillars we are increasing the chances that they will make it into adulthood by providing a stable and safe environment away from predators. We didn't know that when we began this project 4 years ago, we just liked bugs and wanted to watch them go through all the cool changes. But knowing that we are contributing to the betterment of the monarch butterfly population is definitely an added bonus.

And so our adventure begins on the Falling Waters Trail just a couple of miles from our house.


We had ventured less than 50 yards down the trail when we spotted some milkweed plants.




Believe it or not, these little yellow and black striped buggers are hard to spot.


You have to really get in there and look all over the plant, especially under the leaves. They typically stay on the underside of the leaf in order to avoid getting eaten by ravenous birds. (Notice the nerf dart stuck to Chase's shorts. Obviously he took a hit to the butt. Man, if I had a nickel for every nerf dart I found around my house...sheesh.)


Booyah! We found one! We were excited to find this guy, but discouraged at the magnitude of mosquitoes that were swarming us, so we headed back to the truck to drive to our other favorite caterpillar hunting grounds.


This is where we tend to find at least 1 or 2 every year.


Jayme and Jodie are closely inspecting the milkweed plant...


....and wahlah! Another creepy crawly!


Meanwhile, Chase found another and obviously feels quite proud of himself.


We found a total of 6 little critters which we took home and placed in their new surroundings.


They are adapting marvelously, and well they should since they have all the fresh milkweed they could ever want and don't have to fear being eaten by the diabolically evil, Robin Redbreast.




Ummm...sorry to have to tell you this kids, but there's no dating until you're full grown butterflies.








I like this picture of Chase peering through the glass of the aquarium. We spend exorbitant amounts of time watching these fascinating creatures.


And lookie there! One is already preparing to build a chrysalis.


Here's Fabio in his chrysalis. (I had to take this through cellophane so the picture isn't very good.) Once again, for the 4th year, we have missed the making of the chrysalis. They must do it awfully fast because we are like fleas on a hound dog when it comes to sticking to our post as observers of the tank. Those bugger's will be hanging in a "J" for hours and we'll keep checking on it every few minutes, and then "blam", the next thing we know the thing's in a dang chrysalis. We have 2 more hanging in the "J" position and I've looked at them a dozen times in the last 2 hours. I bet the creeps are making the cocoon as I write...so I better go check.


Finally! Finally we have been able to watch these tri-colored changlings morph into the chrysalis stage! We didn't actually see the entire process. The above photo shows the critter already beginning to morph. It seems to begin from the bottom, which is really the head because he was hanging upside down. Notice the ridge of green about midway up the blob. Now look at the next picture....


...the green ridge has moved up higher to the next stripe. This continues until...


...the entire caterpillar is enveloped by the green material.


This picture is of Fabio who built his cocoon first and it now has a ring of beautiful golden spots. Matilda or Amarillo is in the background, hanging in the "j", preparing to begin the morphing process. Wild, I'm tellin' ya, just wild.

Oh My Nerves!! We saw more of the morphing process yesterday and here are the pictures to prove it. I have finally figured out just what is going on with these unbelievable creatures. I wish I would have had my camera sooner, but I was so mesmerized by the whole thing I didn't think to grab my camera right away. Here's what happened. I was walking through the living room and did my usual check on the critters. One that had been hanging in a "j" position was making a lot of movement, so I stopped and continued to watch. The poor thing looked like he was going through convulsions or perhaps had eaten a bad leaf and was preparing to violently heave his lunch. I walked away and stepped into the kitchen for about a minute and came back and there was this green blob on the bottom of the "j". I called for the kids and we watched as the changling wriggled and jiggled, all the while the green blob crept up his body. As the green rose to the top of his body, a black substance was being pushed up which we realized was his old body. He was shedding the old and becoming new...hmmm...might make for a good sermon. Anyhoo, all of a sudden I yelled, "My camera!" and I ran to get it and snapped the following pictures.


The process has begun, notice the old skin at the top.


Can you tell that the little guy is wiggling his heart out?


The old body fell off, there's still a lot of wiggling going on. This looks like hard work.


More wiggling.


From here the lower green material moves up and takes over like in the previous picture from a couple of days ago. Eventually he will be smooth and after a few days the shape changes a bit and the gold gems begin to appear.

So there you have it. Another episode in the life of our beloved caterpillars.

Stay tuned, because in about 5 or 6 days our first cocoon maker, Fabio should be about ready to proudly emerge as a beautiful monarch butterfly. We'll keep ya posted.

North of the Tension Line

There's a sign in a local cafe' in Houghton Lake that says, "North of the Tension Line", and that's just how it feels when we head up there to visit Joann and Brent and the girls. We headed up last Sunday afternoon and stayed a couple of days, relaxing and playing. Well, most of it was relaxing. We had a pontoon ride that surely could have qualified us for an episode of "I Shouldn't Be Alive" (ok, I'm REALLY exaggerating. The story's way too long to post, so I'll spare you the details.)

Anyhoo, here's a few pics of our tension-free activities:


Pizza always relieves tension.


Chase loves playing nerf guns at Aunt Joann and Uncle Brent's cuz he can shoot over the staircase.


A nice relaxing game of ladder-ball.

The night was cool and the mosquitoes were almost non-existant, perfect for a bonfire and s'mores.


Look, even Natty's relaxing. Of course, since her month-long stay there while we were out west, the Cryderman's place has become Natty's home-away-from-home.



Finally, pictures of Joann and me...now that doesn't happen very often.


This picture was a lot easier to take when the kids were little. We almost broke the slide.


They clean up pretty well don't they?

Favorite Pics

I am learning how to be more creative with pictures on the blog as well as making them bigger. Yippee! This is fun and I am wasting enormous amounts of time on it. If I look up from my computer I can see dirty dishes on my counter, hence I am doing my best to keep my head down.

I love these and have them matted and hanging on my wall just like this.

Livin' Life Baby! Love, love, love his face in this.

These are some photo assignment challenges. The first, Coffee and Chocolate, was depicting smell through pictures. I implore you to find a better smell than coffee and chocolate. The second was perspective I think. The third was to photograph something metal, which seemed boring to me until Jayme suggested I photograph my mountain bike....eureka! The final assignment was color and my Fiestaware fit the bill perfectly.

I have so many more pictures that I want to post here, but dog-gone those dishes, they are haunting me. Ok, I have one more I just have to post.....

Grandma's Love. This picture was totally spontaneous and unplanned which is why it is so beautiful.

License to Kill

"License to kill mosquitos by the government of the United Nations. Man, free to kill mosquitos at will. To kill, you must know your enemy, and in this case my enemy is a mosquito. And a mosquito will never quit - ever. So you have to fall back on superior intelligence and superior firepower. And that's all she wrote." Carl Spackler played by Bill Murray in Caddie Shack. I took the liberty of changing it to say "mosquitos" instead of gophers.

The mission began at approximately 8:30 a.m. this morning with the intent of obliterating every freaking mosquito that dared to approach the Chili residence. The firepower included 3 quarts of Cutters Backyard concentrated bug spray, a spray tank, and 2 cans of Cutters fogging bug spray. The body gear was composed of a long sleeve t-shirt, hooded sweatshirt, lined sweatpants, long socks, muck shoes, heavy gloves, and a bandana. After 3 long hours of spraying this concoction all over the back 40, those darn bugs had bitten clean through my sweatshirt and t-shirt, as well as my heavy duty gloves. My shoulders ached from carrying the 3 gallon tank sprayer and my neck hurt from constantly jerking my head back and forth to keep those evil biting machines from eating me alive.

Frankly, I'm opposed to spraying any kind of poison on my yard, but I couldn't take it anymore. My kids won't even play outside. Every time I walk through my yard to my neighbor's backyard it's like walking through the Amazon jungle and I end up running and screaming for cover like some crazed lunatic....and that's strange even for me.

Unfortunately I was unable to dowse the front yard, so even though I hurried to get the door when I heard the bell ring, I was too late. The Archers came bursting through the door screaming for help as they were being ravaged by swarms of pelican-sized, needle-nosed, blood-sucking she devils (only the females can penetrate skin). Thankfully the kids and I were able to revive them and doctors believe they will soon be on the road to a full recovery. Hopefully the tremors and night terrors won't last too long either.

Somewhere a mosquito is hopefully taking it's last breath.....

Fresh Start

Man, it's been 2 years since I posted on this blog. I had high hopes of keeping this thing alive, but I missed a day, then a week, then a month, and then to be honest, I totally forgot about it. Let's blame it on chemo-brain...can I still use that excuse? I believe I can because well, I forget easily and I'd rather blame it on chemo. than on age.

We just finished our month long trip out west and it was everything I'd hope it would be and then some. First and foremost I'm thankful that God watched over us and brought us back safely and also provided some amazing miracles and showed His love to us through the kindness of complete strangers. Second I'm thankful that the punks were great sports and kept the arguing to a minimum and never complained, not even with 2 blowouts that landed us on the side of the road for an hour each time in some pretty hot weather. Third, I confirmed what I already knew and that is that when one endeavors to take on a task that seems too big to handle, one should never give up, but continue one step at a time until the task is complete.

And that is good advice for our next adventure that is both exciting and foreboding. Exciting because it is new and different and challenging and creative. Foreboding because I'm not sure this adventure is the best plan for me personally at this point in my life. But when was the last time I actually made a decision based on what was best for me anyway? All my decisions center around what's best for my kids and, for the next year anyway, I believe that one of the best decisions I can make for my kids is to....drumroll......homeschool them. So there, I said it and that makes it even more real. All three punks are excited about the upcoming homeschool year. My reasoning for this plan began for one reason. Those of you who know me also know that there have been a couple of circumstances in my life that have made me realize just how short life is. Because of that, I want to grab life by the horns and make the most of it and for me that means pouring myself into my kids' lives. What better way to impact my kids than to spend time with them, teaching them, planning grand adventures with them, and sucking the marrow out of life with them.

So for the next year, we will learn together at home and first hand by experiencing things like museums, libraries, nature trails, as well as Gettysburg and D.C. just to name a few. I don't even have it all figured out yet which is half the fun. But, in the meantime, I do have some decisions to make such as what curriculum to use, so if you'll excuse me, I best get to work.

Somewhere a train whistle blows......