Once upon a Monarch Butterfly

 Since June 28th I’ve been working on and off editing Folder 17 for a project I affectionately call, Once Upon a Walk Report (OUaWR). The details can be found in the first edition posted here on January 24, 2021. Folder 17 started out with 8,937 images and 11 videos from October 31, 2017 until October 12, 2018. That folder now contains 2,647 images and 11 videos, which is a percentage decrease of 70.38%. This process, besides being tedious, often carries with it a mixed bag of emotions both good and bad. 2018 was, in late June, especially dark and remorseful for both Docken and I. Docken lost her dear sweet, wonderful prince of a cat, Greg and I almost lost… me. That, of course, made things even more difficult for Doc. Greg had cancer. I had a saddle pulmonary embolism. Around 1 in 4 people who develop any form of pulmonary embolism die instantly. Another 10-30% die within a month of diagnosis. I had about a dozen doctors in the ICU and ER greet me with this line, almost as if they had all rehearsed it together beforehand, you are really lucky. I was especially lucky to have Docken get my butt to the hospital. Once again, thank you Docken.

I put aside about 300 images for this and future posts. This first post is about an event that took place from December 21, 2017 until January 15, 2018. On that December morning Docken and I discovered two monarch caterpillars on a milkweed plant near the front door of the house. I knew already that early morning temperatures were about to drop into the 30°s and that if these caterpillars were to survive there would have to be an intervention. Docken prepared one of her hurricane candle globes while I made preparations to bring the caterpillars inside. Despite the challenges of it being off-season for the caterpillars, we hoped they could at least fulfill their destiny and become butterflies. One of them only made it to the pre-puba stage. Shortly after it hung itself upside down to create a chrysalis it stopped developing. This is the story of the second caterpillar’s survival. In retrospect, it’s a metaphor of what was to become in 2018.

These images are presented in the order they were taken. The hurricane candle globe was at first covered with vented aluminum foil while things got organized. That was quickly replaced with a vented paper plate with a faux jade Buddha paperweight placed on top. It was lifted off the globe from time to time until the caterpillars made their way topside.

The paper plate moved to the backyard into a pre-planned location in a ficus tree.

Yesterday's endings will tomorrow life give you...