Crazy Dog

Ok-so most of the time whenever I open the door, my dog Dakota practically knocks us over trying to get out the door. Lately, however, he has decided not to go out when I want him to. I actually have to physically push him out, now he plants his front legs and I have to push him like a wheelbarrow. This just doesn't like Border Collie behavior...crazy dog!

School Lunches

This is how we should be feeding our children here. Maybe the French aren't all that bad-don't tell my DH :-) If DS ate like this at school, I wouldn't have to pack so many lunches. I usually give DS a choice and now he is choosing to bring his lunches more often. I secretly smile inside. It's not my great cooking skills, it's the gray broccoli at school that scares him.

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6902333n

Feeling Blessed

Many times we forget how blessed we truly are. We have our health, working limbs, homes, food, friends and family. Today I was reminded of this by my dog Dakota.
Dakota wouldn't stop barking so I went downstairs to yell at him and to see what caused the commotion. I saw across the street a man from the rehab center had fallen out of his wheelchair. I don't know how long he sat there or how many people had driven by not offering to help, but I ran outside to see if he needed help.
I asked him if he needed help and realized he had hit a big PVC plumbing pipe and the wheelchair was stuck in a rut-I was able to get it to move and roll it closer to him -he must have been thrown out of it! He is a large man and unable to pull himself up and neither could I alone. I was going to run and find a neighbor when a lady pulled over to help us. Then 3 construction workers came over and between the 4 of us we were able to get him back into his chair.
Anyway, I feel blessed to have been able to work from home to see him and blessed with my crazy Border Collie who barks at inanimate objects most of the time. I am also blessed that I have my health and working limbs to have been able to cross the road and help this man....I didn't even get his name. Maybe I'll see him again when Dakota and I have our walks.
Oh and Dakota got extra loving and a treat for his heroics!!

To Pupate or Not?

Lil Guy on Mint

Gizmos

Inside guy

Well out of my 8 cats (caterpillars) that I raised from egglings, I have 6 that I managed to keep track of. I brought 5 inside and thought I lost the last little guy but lo and behold, he was soooo ready to grow up, he moved from my parsley to my mint plant! I found a link online that had these homemade gadgets called "gizmos" and I have placed 2 in those, I have 2 inside my habitat, one in a paperbag and one outside. Let the games begin!

Caterpillar Craziness

Chunk and Squirts new house ( Chunk is named in honor of the Goonies) :-)

Osmeterium out-"peeew"

I never realized how fast caterpillars grew! I had 8 babies living on one parsley plant so I had to relocate 2 of them to the other parsley plant. I bought a reptile carrier today and am going to attempt to see two of these babies all the way from eggs to butterfly. DH thinks I am weird but I have never seen this beautiful mutation happen. I bought organic parsley form the store and stuck it into the dirt so it looks like it's growing.

The Babies

I took these yesterday and there were three caterpillars happily munching away on the Parsley-good thing because we never seem to eat it. Today there were 6 of them on the plant! I am not sure what they will do when they are all as big as my fingers-they won't have enough plant left-I may be buying Parsley in the produce department to keep up with the digestive happiness of my newest pets.

The eggs

I have been following a Black Swallowtail Butterfly caterpillar for a while and one day she disappeared. I have never seen a chrysalis so I have been trying to locate one around the yard. Anyway, while I was eating lunch I saw the butterfly through the window, it was dancing around my Parsley plant. They love Parsley! It's one of their host plants. After it flew away, I went out for an inspections and lo and behold-we had eggs!!! They are the tiniest things-some were pearly white a couple were yellow. They are supposed to hatch in 3-5 days so I went out yesterday and we have baby caterpillars! They are sooo tiny-they look like brown cigars right now. I will keep updating as they grow. Enjoy the photos.