Dry Dry Dry....weeds and wind. uggg

This is turning out to be such a weird year.  Super early spring, now so dry the ground has huge cracks.  It's starting to get  a bit humid even w/o the rain.  I heard once the corn does that. Pulls so much moisture from deep down and evaporates it into the air. Since we are almost solid corn fields around here the past 5 years, I can believe it.

I've been hoping for a nice couple inches of steady rain so I can put on a mild 10-10-10 fertilizer.  It hasn't rained enough to get the preen active! So yea, I need to get out there with my hoe too. Bleh.    Why is it weeds can germinate and grow like crazy when it's so hot and dry, but what you WANT to grow doesn't?  I guess that's why they are weeds.  The poop-thistles are growing like.... weeds! (I call them poop-thistles because they are always grouped under where the birds sit. So I'm sure that's where they are coming from)

I do have a little garden weed helper. He/she tries his/her best to nibble off the dandelions. (I think it's a girl-she's petite and cute! I think I'll call her Dandie)  I love to watch that little nose wiggle. She must have been out there all spring because she doesn't run away from me until I get less than 4/5' away. Then she just moves around the plant out of site. I hope the raccoons don't find her. (That's another story, I'll title it 'Why our garden shed stinks of Mothballs and ammonia!')

If you're following my auctions on ebay you know I'm busy busy keeping those going. Just a few more weeks and then I'll be digging orders.  Get your's in now, remember if you shop on my website www.sunshineannie.com  , you can use code LIKE10 and get 10% off your order! (only on my web site)

We are up to 115 Monarchs released so far! Only 3 chrysalis left to emerge in this "batch". Then I hope to find another round of eggs. Usually in July, but this year it's hard to tell.  It's been so windy that the milkweed has lots of little leaks under the leaves. Where it cracks or a bug punctures it , and it seeps out the white gluey milk that then looks sort of like a monarch egg.  So.... finding eggs is tougher.
 
Up until Monday I had seen lots of my Monarchs hanging around the yard. But it was super windy Monday and I didn't see but one yesterday. I hope they didn't all blow away!

...back to work  

19 Monarchs Today!

I was expecting about 10, what a surprise! Several of them are very anxious to be on their way. There are 11 boys and 8 girls. I took them out two at a time and put them on the bushes.
It makes me feel good to know if I hadn't brought these in, besides the natural predators, they wouldn't have made it to the butterfly stage. I gathered the eggs from the empty lot by our house, and it was just mowed off a week ago. All those chrysalis would have been mowed up! :(   So even though they still have predators, and are on their own, they got to be beautiful and free!

Couple of the girls I tried in  a different bush, it wasn't woody enough and they were having a hard time climbing up.  It did keep them from trying to fly off too soon.

If I could wish to be
something else for just a  day,
I think I'd like to fly,
and soar above the trees.
To here and there and where I may,
I think that day that I would be...
A Monarch Butterfly!
                                          Deb Noll



And the iris update.......
The iris are all done blooming but about 2 late ones. So strange, they should all be in full bloom right now. (Sort of like my slow finishing of the listings! Still a good number to do.)
 I put some fresh preen on the iris beds, now we need some more rain to set it in. I still have to get busy pulling the dandelions in the beds. Not a huge amount, but one is too many.  They are a forever presence though, so I don't get excited about trying to get them all out. Many are taken out completely when I dig orders.  Oh and then there are the "other" flower beds in my yard. I'm afraid some are going to have to go. I just don't have time to take care of them, and most are full of grass and weeds. I hate to do it, the birds and butterflies love the coneflowers and black eyed susan. .... Ohhh to be 30 again, when I seemed to be able to do all I thought I could! *sigh

More Monarchs today! 7 so far...

I shuffled out into the garage this morning with my coffee to see if any new Monarchs had arrived. I was stunned to see 5 already! (ok, I don't get up that early).  I noticed they weren't ready to go outside, so I let them be for about an hour.  I went back out and there were 7!   The first 5 were stretching their wings. I tried to get some pics but it's just too dark in the garage even with the lights on when they are on the window side.

These two are the youngest today. Can you see the one in the back corner? That corner was very popular this year!

Showing off !

So I took the ones that were stretching out to sit in the bush and warm up. They will sometimes stay there for a couple hours before they are ready to fly. UNLESS they are a girl! I don't know why,but the girls are very jumpy. This turned out to be 4 boys and 1 girl.
Can you find 4 of them on the bush?

Here is a closeup of one of the boys , warming up.

And this is the girl. She would NOT stay on the bush, flittered off and landed in the grass. I tried to get her but she  made it to the arborvitae by the road.  NOT ready to fly, but try to tell HER that!!

I did get her to sit on my finger and headed back to the "warming" bush.

Just as I got there.... well, of course, she's off again! I didn't find her after this, but I don't think she went far.  Monarchs are nearly invisible when they hang with their wings folded.

Here is one of her brothers, showing off the dots on the lower wings. Only the boys get those!

Still two more to release, they were later so I will leave them until after noon.

Back to the iris work!

120 Monarchs!!! First hatch today :)

Some of my blogger buddies might not know about my Monarch hatchery. A few years ago I read where the butterfly that always made me smile was in trouble. The bad weather in their winter habitat in Mexico had drastically decreased their numbers.  How a butterfly with delicate wings can fly all the way from northern US down into Mexico is still unbelievable to me.
I read that a monarch egg has only a 1 in 10 chance of making it to the butterfly stage. Even though the monarch caterpillar is toxic and bad tasting to almost all birds, the eggs are eaten by ants,mites,spiders and wasps. In my area it seems a tachinid fly is the biggest problem . The fly lays it's eggs on the tiny monarch caterpillar. It grows inside along with the caterpillar, feeding off of it, and when it's ready to leave it kills the monarch. Unfortunately I have seen this in my hatchery, it often happens when the caterpillar is hanging in it's J form getting ready to change. It's important if you have this happen that you find and remove the fly larvae from your hatchery. I have newspaper in the bottom, and it is always under the paper.

Fly larvae that exited monarch caterpillar. See the telltale slime trail? If it had been still hanging there would have been a string dangling from the cat .  I call it the dreaded death string.

White is the fresh larvae still crawling around, the red is the pupae waiting to hatch into a new bad fly.
 DESTROY THESE!

 I won't go into all the details here, if you google Monarch Butterfly you can learn all kinds of interesting facts about the life of a Monarch. Here are a couple sites, but there are many more:
http://www.monarchwatch.org/biology/pred3.htm
http://www.learner.org/jnorth/search/Monarch.html
for kids:
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/butterfly/species/Monarch.shtml
I'll show you a few pics of my hatchery and all the pretty green with gold chrysalis .

Green chrysalis "growing" butterfies!

Hanging in the J form, getting ready to form the chrysalis. It's pretty gross and amazing at the same time.

These guys eat like pigs! And poop like them too! (see below)

See that dark one? Well it's been dark too many days, and will have to be removed if it doesn't hatch today. Most likely the parasite has killed it, or it just didn't make it for another reason. I've read you never want to let that break open. Rotten eggs don't compare.    Just put it in the trash, carefully!  Hopefully there won't be many of those. Usually just a couple each year.

And...drum roll please!.....First hatch for 2012 pumping up it's wings! Can't tell if it's a boy/girl until it's wings are full and dry. Takes several hours.  I'll release this one this afternoon. I usually wait until they start flapping the wings. Then I take it outside and let it cling onto a tree or bush to warm up in the sun. Sometimes they take right off from my hand! It's a great feeling to see them fly off  :)  

 This one didn't connect very well, so I'm going to tie it with string. I've never had this happen before, so far 3 haven't connected their chrysalis well.  2 fell and I found them on the bottom. This one was wobbling on a teeny thread so I carefully took it down. and will put a string on it and tie up.  If the butterfly emerges from the chrysalis on the ground, it can't hang and pump up it's wings. When they emerge their belly is fat and the wings are tiny and crumpled. They pump the fluid into the wings to stretch them out fully.  There is just a short time to do this before the wings dry. If they can't do that the wings dry all deformed and the butterfly will never fly. 

 (Yes that's caterpillar poop on the right! Only a TINY fraction of what they've produced!)

This is one that fell and I tied up to a branch. I'm not sure what effect the fall will have on the butterfly. It looks ok except for a bit of a flat side. I've also done this with Chrysalis I found outside. You have to very carefully loosen the web like net ABOVE the black "stem". (look closely at the pics above in the hatchery, you can see the stem and the web connected to the board) I use a pin , then tie a thread or string tightly around the black stem. and tie it to a branch in your enclosure. Handle very gently and DO NOT SQUEEZE!
You can see the gold on the chrysalis here. It sparkles! When they hatch it disappears but the black dots remain on the paper like covering.


Whoo boy, now back to the Iris listings. I have about 70 that didn't have listings already typed up so it's slow going.
 This year is so out of whack. Everything is early except me!
I wish we had groc. shopping online. We are out of everything and I don't have time to go get them!

Oh yea...

I forgot one thing I'd been thinking I should post for a couple weeks now. Old lady brain!

 Have you ever had a  flower that made you just HAVE to pet it! Well, this iris is that flower! The beards are so darn fuzzy you just have to touch them. And they are soft and fuzzy like a kitten :D 

These have to be some of the fattest Iris beards ever! (And it's a beautiful flower too)

Did I say Soon? Oops, crazy busy here!

The iris are just about all finished blooming. Only a handful of late bloomers still open. :(   It was soooo hot and bone dry, they were only lasting a day at best. Some new buds weren't even opening.  We did finally get some rain, (and big wind) and then a little more rain. So they are much happier now.  Here are a few pics from the gardens final show...

May 21 0102   

My last picture of Happy and GoLucky together Before the big storm. Happy is still smiling,but he misses his buddy!

I've started my listings on ebay, hesitantly, with their crazy array of rules (like don't communicate with customers..... huh???) and the forever rising hideous fees. (I still can't believe charging 10% fee on shipping can be legal).
  You can find me there at sunshineannie gardens.

I'd rather you came to my web page www.sunshineannie.com , any order over $35 is 10% off with coupon LIKE10.  We still have to try out the new square credit card reader in Dave's phone. The first one wouldn't read the cards. When it's up and running I will add cc payment to my web site without paypal. Seems many people don't like to use Paypal, and I want to give the option.
 Shipping on my website is figured by average weight, not by each extra iris like I have to do on ebay. So it generally comes out very close to actual. Of course, iris rhizomes naturally vary in size from very small to huge so even weight is hard to figure. I have one color that constantly gives me 15 oz rhizomes! That is big!

Speaking of rhizome size, that is a topic many new growers don't understand. There are some big iris growers that stuff their iris with fertilizer and water to plump them up. You can do a search for iris care, and find they will all say "don't over feed or you will get big plants with leaves,but no blooms!".  I've purchased many in past  years from them myself. But I stopped because I had MORE rot with those than any others. And more overwinter losses.
 Bigger isn't healthier, nor will it guarantee blooms.Or bigger blooms. The bloom size is not determined by the rhizome size. What you need to look for is healthy color, green leaves and  fresh roots. I ship mine within 2 days of digging. When you get them , plant them right away and they will take right back off growing. Others that have the roots all dried up and even gone have to start over. Using up precious time to settle in deep roots before winter.

I raise Monarchs in the summer also, and currently have about 60 chrysalis and as many more catapillars to feed! They eat like pigs! But it is sooo fun to release the butterfly, and know I'm helping keep them here for us to enjoy. I'll get some pics of the hatchery for my next post. Sooner hopefully!

Back to my listings, it takes sooooo long. I'm up to the T's,  and then I have all the new ones to do after I go through A-Z. Then update my web page...oh my.  And I really need to get to town, I'm out of laundry soap and that's not good when you get as dirty as I do!