[This post is the result of an experiment. The unholy limiting GUI of an iPad combined with my huge ergonomic keyboard is creating something that makes the ghost of Steve Jobs sad and Bill Gates would vaccinate against it. Fuck those guys, I’m trying to do something here and if their toylike visions kneecap my equipment I shall simply hammer things into submission. I hope y’all eventually see this live, but who knows.]
All of nature goes in cycles. Within these cycles there is variation. This is why suburbanite ivory tower fuckheads and debt saddled farmers alike spend their time fretting that this weather is unacceptable and that situation is unprecedented. It is the hubris of the observer that creates their own feedback loop. There is no “correct” weather pattern and no “ideal” situation. Nature simply is.
Why am I saying this? Because I’m up to my ears in Monarch caterpillars! Over the last few years I’d learned that you’ve got to examine a whole ton of milkweed to find a caterpillar. Perhaps, I was incorrect? This year, every time I grab a leaf to feed my existing caterpillars I’d find another caterpillar. I finally cut the situation off with a “herd tally” of 1 chrysalis, 1 caterpillar that inexplicably vanished, 2 medium sized caterpillars, and 1 small caterpillar.
In a world with soaring inflation and shortages of plywood and CPU chips, I found myself awash in “riches”. The trick with times of societal decline is to turn toward other, more timeless, concerns.
The first chrysalis turned dark as the other two caterpillars formed their fresh green ones. One of the cheeky bastards formed on the underside of the lid… which is cool because I can screw it off and allow him to burst forth without the confines of the jar. Unfortunately, the other formed in a part of the jar I can’t get to… thus dooming me to a few more days of looking at a jar filled with half rotten desiccated milkweed. The final caterpillar went J-shaped a few days ago and shortly thereafter finished his chrysalis on the lid next to his older buddy.
I used forceps from my fishing kit to extract the older, darker chrysalis and put it somewhere safe and easy to observe. Good thing too because the butterfly popped out the following day. It woke me up early on a day off work when I’d planned to sleep late! (The world is filled with reasons why night owls get dragged out of bed before they’re ready.)
Anyway, he was just as beautiful as any butterfly. I observed with blurry, not yet caffeinated, eyes and finally deposited him outside on my brush hog tractor implement for his wings to dry. It was blistering hot, even in the shade. I sat there some time, pondering the universe and the eternal cycle of life and rebirth, but in the end I abandoned him to acquire a cup of coffee. I never saw him fly away.
I took a few photos with my iPhone. I’m not posting them just yet because trying to extract the metadata from an iPhone photo using the tool of an iPod is as hopeless as thinking congress will balance the budget. I know when I’m defeated. Eventually I’ll be back in my home office, in the vicinity of real computers. Under those more favorable circumstances I’ll swap out the image. No worries, y’all know what a butterfly looks like anyway.
So that’s it, in the middle of the “drought of the century” (which seems to happen any year that’s not “the flood of the century”) I’m finding monarchs everywhere. One already flew the coop and three more await their turn. It’s the first time I had more than one. I’ll never get tired of tinkering with / observing ecology. We live on a fascinating planet.