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...

Today's walk report: 062914, another weekend report

Temperature's rising...

It's certainly summer in SoCal (especially in this Valley!) and that typically means later walks and less light to work with.

Friday, 062714. A nice evening stroll into the garden...

Black chinned hummingbird on desert willow.

This rufous hummingbird seemed a little ticked off over something.

Night blooming cacti are currently in abundance.

Another dove on a wire.

Saturday, 062814... A little earlier today and we were really sweating it.

Cabbage white (Pieris rapae)

Closer...

Wings open... These are not the markings common to images I've found and photos I've taken in the past of Pieris rapae. However, it looks like a cabbage white for the most part and I come up empty in searching a more positive ID. Maybe it's a gender thing? Any corrections are welcome.

 
Monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) on narrow-leaved milkweed.

I find it remarkable how well the birds pick the dried out silver sage flowers for seeds, all without disturbing the husks.

Sunday, 062914...

It was hot so the walk started late. Shadows were besieging the garden upon our arrival. I went straight to the milkweed to visit monarch caterpillars and it turned out to be a wise decision.

Paper wasps are known to eat destructive insects but I noticed it left the monarch caterpillars alone, for the most part. The caterpillars thrashed a bit too when the wasp got too close.

Paper wasp and monarch caterpillar, lower left corner.

This one is at peace.

and a ladybug minds its own business.

While the sun sets behind a sea of white flowers...

Thanks for coming along!

Today's walk report: 112813

Happy thanksgiving.

Yesterday I mentioned a couple of things about how I was thankful for taking this blogging direction with my daily constitutional by opening it up as something to share no matter how trivial, personal or even  how significant documenting a rather routine walk in a typically uneventful environment may be. Certainly it's more for me than it is for you. But there's a common ground here, you know what I'm referring to because for the most part that's where we're all at. I encourage you to look for something interesting outside your front door too. It's there, I promise you. You just need to see that it is interesting. Meanwhile, my looking for something thought provoking in all of this somehow fulfills the prophesy. At least where's a curious effort--for me anyway. I only hope that some little things here and there are engaging for other people too. At least there might be the occassional pretty, amusing, or otherwise compelling photograph. And hey, there was this image, found by a photo editor for Science & Vie (Jr. version) magazine in France. This for a "special issue on, 50 projects for a better world." 40,000 copies for the print edition, my monarch caterpillar gets 1/8 page and I made some money. I'd love to do that all day everyday. This also reinforces my point because I learned a lot about the life cycle of the monarch when I did these images, just as I do about many plants and creatures I bump into with my camera. I don't just take a picture and say here... I do research and learn. In fact, with the monarch I am also planting milkweed seed, seeds collected from the very plant you're looking at in this image come spring. Monarch caterpillars are specialist feeders that feed only on milkweeds.

What I didn't mention and what I'm probably most thankful for in my walks is the incredible zone it often opens for me when it comes to problem solving. I can't even begin to describe and for sure nobody would care to know how many times I was stuck on some task, process, mental or emotional barrier and I was able to work through it or get past it on my walks. That's the 1st thing. The 2nd thing and this has been mentioned a few times before is, I get over physical pain on my walks. Most frequently I recover from back pain by walking. Granted my feet aren't always happy about it but it works and it also works to relieve stress related tension remarkably. No drugs, no side effects... well, again there are the feet. But even foot pain which to be honest is ever present tends, in most cases, to ease after 1-2 km into the walk. Sometimes they start complaining again around 6-7 km but I'm usually homeward bound by that point and they're fine once I relax and take my shoes off.

Today's walk was amazingly quiet. There were moments when I felt like I was the last man on earth. Then some idiot driving like he was the last man on earth snapped me back to reality. Aside from that the music was great, the air was crisp and it was a very satisfying 2 hour outing covering about 10 km. Yes, I stopped a couple of times just to relax and take in my surroundings.

Thanks!

Today's walk report: 070313

Chatty walk...

I made a wrong assumption that with tomorrow being 4th of July, a holiday, that the school would be sans students this evening so I took my camera and went on my regular trek to and through the campus. I was 1/2 right. There weren't a lot of students by the time of my 6:15 PM arrival but there were enough. I simply feel more relaxed when these kids aren't milling about. Nevertheless, I stopped to take some pictures.

I followed this monarch butterfly for several minutes trying to get a shot. I didn't realize it was so beat up until I got home. I wanted to point out the lack of butterflies here these days. I remember when I was a kid you'd see butterflies all the time, spring-summer. I hardly see any these days. Something's wrong there.

One thing, at least with monarchs anyway, I don't see that there is very much milkweed around. Milkweed used to grow wild nearby but a lot of where I remember this has now been developed or it's simply dead. I know that a lot of herbicides were used just behind my street here when I was a kid. I remember everything dying along a street-wide strip which bordered a railroad track that went several miles through this part of the Valley. It never bounced back.

Monarch caterpillar on one of the few milkweed plants in the garden back 1st week of April. Monarchs only lay their eggs and develop on milkweed. I'm considering adding some milkweed to the "garden" here only for this reason. I don't find it very attractive.

Another furry cactus. This one reminded me of a dream I had when I was probably about 6 years old. There was a cat in the backyard here which had spike-like "fur." It was rubbing up against my legs out by the clothesline and I saw blood on the sheets as they were hung on the line. Creepy huh? Even creepier, I still have a vivid memory of this dream. I never brought it up in therapy.

Another bold jack rabbit. I wasn't going to take a picture, my left hand was busy with my iPod at the time but it just stood there so I popped off a couple of shots with my right hand. Cameras are right-handed, ever think about that? Left handed people like me think about those things.

Unknown butterfly on lantana. Had I been able to get a good shot I'd look up the butterfly or try to at least. It was difficult maneuvering around this bush without stepping on young plants and I'm really good about watching my step.

I was taking pictures of the flowers anyway. The butterfly had surprised me.

So the point about "chatty"... There are no pics of any of this. I had a long first-time chat with Scott today. We've passed each other on occasion for two years now with only nods, waves a quick hi, hello, how are you?, in passing but we never spoke. This time I stopped him. Turns out, although 15 years younger than me, he and his family have some history in this neighborhood so we talked a bunch about how stuff used to be and how they've changed. Scott is considerably taller than me and I say that almost not knowing how tall because then you're 6' 5" and not hanging out with an NBA crowd you don't realize your own tallness until you come across someone taller. At least I don't. He also takes advantage of this extra size and walks quite a bit faster than I do--something I never see. It was nice to finally stop and meet Scott.

Next I saw Robin and Joe who I stopped briefly to ask a question about one of their more immediate neighbors. Turns out they didn't know them. This house I was referring to had a broken sprinkler system for at least two days. No one was home. I pulled good Samaritan for these folks and called the DWP on Monady and someone came out and at least shut the water off. We're taking 100s of gallons spewing out so I'm sure this saved them some money and hopefully this wasn't causing flooding under their house. There are no brownie points in the outside world but I felt good for doing this.

Lastly I met Alex (?) and some other cat who's name I'm even less sure of at the moment, maybe his brother. Anyway, these two guys were out front of their house flying a DJI Phantom Quadcopter with a GoPro Hero3 camera mounted. This is something that interests me a lot--it's just not a reasonable expenditure anytime soon. It turns out they do creative work. I gave them my card. I used to be very deliberate about giving people my card. If we crossed paths 2x, you got my card. I need to get back to that.

My card... (something else I need to redo)