The Life of a Monarch, Part 10

{continued from part nine}

*UPDATED*

It seems fitting that Part 10 be the last of the series. :)

In Part 9, I left off saying that we had three caterpillars in their chrysalises, and still lots of caterpillars outside. Since then, the weather here got cold, and it started dropping below freezing at night. My Mom and I brought the caterpillars into the garage, where it's warmer, and they stayed there for a few weeks. Tuesday of this week, we took them all up to a park that has a butterfly house because we knew we couldn't keep them in our garage forever. The butterfly house was warm and humid, with lots of milkweed for them to eat. The butterfly keeper was very kind to let us bring them there, and we're hoping to go visit them soon. ;)  

As for our three chrysalises, one of them started to get some black splotches on it. I don't think that one will ever open up. We're not sure what happened- but we are sad to see it. 


*UPDATE* That chrysalis surprised us all and did become a butterfly! We were all very excited about it. :) We took him to the same place we took his buddies, and they seem to be enjoying life at the butterfly house. :)


As for the other two, (turned "green" Nov. 18) they both emerged yesterday! I was very excited. :) We had started to wonder if they would ever emerge, because the usual amount of time for them is two weeks. Obviously, it was more like five weeks, so they must have something that tells them it's too cold out to emerge. :) 



We decided that instead of releasing them into the wild (knowing that there will be lots of cool weather and not many flowers), we will take them up to the same park where we took the caterpillars. I'm sure they will live a happy life there, and they will be great for little kids to see when they walk in there. :)


Enough talk- now for some pictures. 

The chrysalis starts to thin out, and you can see the butterfly's wings

This is my favorite picture of a chrysalis. :)

Now it's very thin, the butterfly is almost ready to emerge.

He's out!

When they first emerge, their wings are all crinkled up from being packed in there so long.

They start to pump fluid into the wings.

And now they're a perfect set of wings! ;)

 I'd love to hear what you all have to think about the Monarch life cycle! I hope you've enjoyed reading about it!

abby

The Life of a Monarch, Part 9

{continued from part eight}

I honestly never thought my series would still be going now, but I was wrong! :)

isn't it amazing how tiny they are? :)

The Life of a Monarch, Part 8

{continued from part seven}
{To catch up on the rest of the series, here is part one}

Yesterday I posted about how two of the caterpillars had already hung themselves in a "J" shape (in preparation for their chrysalis). Later yesterday, after I posted, the first caterpillar molted, and formed his/her chrysalis. Sadly, I wasn't there to get pictures or video since I was in a class. :) But here are some of the pictures I did get.

The Life of a Monarch, Part 7

{continued from part six}

If you look back to Part 6 of my little series, you will see all the caterpillars that used to live on our plant. Since then, the caterpillars disappeared, and hopefully walked away to form their chrysalises. The milkweed plant we had, was eaten right down to the stem, because we had so many caterpillars. But the foliage has grown back, and despite the cooler weather, more eggs have been laid.

At the moment, we have three caterpillars who are alive and well. I'm sorry to say that the cold weather might have frozen the other eggs, because none of them have hatched yet. But we do have three, who have had the plant all to themselves, and have grown very quickly. :)

We put the caterpillars in a little "house" with some milkweed so we could bring them indoors on the cold nights. Two of our caterpillars have already climbed up to the ceiling of their container, where they hang in a "J" shape. After they stay in a "J" position for a while, they molt their skin for the last time, then they start forming a chrysalis around them. It's a very neat thing to watch, so I will try to get pictures and video. :)

So things seemed to work out just right; I can continue my telling of the monarch life cycle, even if it is with a new set of caterpillars. ;) The two of ours are still hanging "J", and the third is happily eating his way to being a butterfly. Lord-willing, I will post some more pictures soon!

abby

{continue to part eight}

25 Secrets

I know I haven't posted here in...quite a while. Oh well. I've been posting on my other blog hoping my dad or sister would help out a little with this one, since it's technically a "family blog". Oh well. Maybe I'm just too technical.

But, Miss Emilyann tagged me to list 25 Secrets, or as she said, "25 Things About Yourself That Very Few People Know, and Very Few People Care About." But, I decided I would post it on my personal blog. So you may go here to read it. :)

I might try to post about the caterpillars soon, since we recently discovered more (even as the weather is getting chilly). So if I don't get around to it this week, I might get to it over Thanksgiving Break. ;)

Happy Sunday!

Abby

Doxology

Praise God from Whom all blessings flow,
Praise Him all creatures here below,
Praise Him above ye heavenly hosts,
Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost.
Amen.

Moving out.

Well. Not really. I've actually, finally started my own blog. Exciting, right? I'll still be posting here occasionally, but since this blog is technically for my family, I'm going to keep most of my posts on this blog. So, hop along over there and check it out! :)

AO

It's Me Again!

Yes, I know it's been a while. And for those of you from my mom's science class, sorry, but I can't blog about caterpillars ALL the time. So this will be a non-caterpillar post. I'll try to do that one later. :)

I've been doing soooo much school, but I'm glad some of it is fun. I love all my classes this year, and of course my teachers are great. :)  I only do some of my school online, so I've still got things to do outside of my classes, but I think I'll be ok. 


I'm also playing on a volleyball team with my Dad this season, but it's through a church league, so it's not hard core competition. And I've found through playing that I really am not a competitive person. Oh well. :) It's fun and it's great exercise. 


So. To catch you up on the doings of the Owens family, two Saturdays ago was the first "Family Fun Day" of my Dad's engineering company. He is one of five principals, and the company is coming up on their 2-year anniversary! It's very exciting because God has blessed them tremendously in the past two years, being a start-up business in this economy. So that Saturday was a blast! The company's office is on an old navy base about 5 minutes from our house, and it is a beautiful area. If you ever come to Charleston, you need to see it. :) Here are some pictures:

You're probably wondering what that's supposed to be. Well, I'm honestly not sure, but it was a little white, seemingly fluffy bug that was flying (or floating) through the air and landed on my Dad's glasses. I thought it was cool so I took a picture. :)

At this "Family Fun Day" we had some of our neighbors from our street come, since the company actually worked out of our old house (right down the street from where we are now) for a few months, so we wanted to thank them. Most of our neighbors are older, but the Saturday showed me that older doesn't mean not funny anymore. ;) Old people are cool. That's all there is to it. :) I walked around the park near the office with one of our older neighbors who grew up around here, and I'm positive he enjoyed it very much. :) It's sad how many people my age don't respect older people. So, if you're reading this, go out and visit with an old person. They were once your age too. ;)


So that's it from that Saturday. But, this recent Saturday, I completed my drivers ed course! I'm super excited. :) And if you could pray for my sister who had a blister-like thing lanced on Saturday as well. They think it was a bug bite that got infected, but it had been bothering her for a while, so if you could just pray it will heal up and not be very painful. :)

AO

The Life of a Monarch, Part 6

{continued from part five}

The caterpillars are doing fine, but we're discovering that wasps eat, or at least kill the caterpillars, which is sad. But that is probably why there were so many eggs laid. We still have a fair amount of caterpillars (including Tallulah) that are still happily eating their way to becoming butterflies. :)

The Life of a Monarch, Part 5

{continued from part four}

Well, the caterpillars have still been eating, but while Tallulah and her friends are eating, there are still more eggs being laid. Not as many eggs as earlier, but I've counted at least three more.

The little yellow things are called aphids. Aphids are sap suckers. :)

The Life of a Monarch, Part 4

{continued from part three}

I know I haven't said much of what the caterpillars have been doing, but they truly haven't been doing anything but eating. One of these days we're thinking Tallulah will make a chrysalis, just because she's getting so big. So, here are some more pictures from yesterday and today. :)

The Life of a Monarch, Part 3

{continued from part two}

I haven't checked on the little caterpillars much in the past few days, but when I went out today, one is definitely getting large. Maybe a few more days until it stops eating and makes its chrysalis.

The Life of a Monarch, Part 2

{continued from part one}

I meant to post a yesterday and the day before, but time got away from me. This morning I did a thorough caterpillar count and came up with 109. Isn't that crazy? I hope there's enough foliage on the plants for all of them caterpillars. Of course that number is excluding eggs, which there are still quite a bunch of. So here are the most recent pictures.

The Life of a Monarch, Part 1

Throughout my homeschooling experience, I've learned a great deal of things. My mother has a PhD in Microbiology, and is always eager to teach us about things in Creation. One thing I've been able to witness is the metamorphosis of a Monarch butterfly.Metamorphosis is the process where the caterpillar turns into the butterfly; an amazing change. In the past, we've grown milkweed plants (the only plant Monarch caterpillars eat, and the one adult Monarchs lay eggs on). We watch for the butterflies to come, then if we see one, we run out and check to see if there are any eggs.

Oops, wrong pedal...

My Mom really doesn't like hearing that when I'm driving. :P I have my permit now, and I took a drivers ed class, and now only have a few more drivers ed sessions to do until I'm done! It's all very exciting, but a little scary.


School is back! I've been trying to get back into the groove of doing school, so that when my online classes start, I'll be able to handle them along with my other stuff. I'm super dooper excited about an art class I'm doing online. The teacher is really really really good. And my friends who've had his class say he's the bomb. :D So I'm really looking forward to that. :) I'm also doing Spanish 2 with the best Spanish teacher in the world. :) Then I'm taking Rhetoric 1, which gets my stomach churning a little; I've never been to great at thinking things out in a way that makes sense to others, but maybe my teacher will cure me of that. ;) And then there's Omnibus. With the greatest teacher ever. It will be awesome.


So with school and driving, lots of things have been changing! It is so hard for me to believe that I (Lord-willing) will be in college in three years. I don't know where I want to go, or what I want to study. And even though three years seems like a long time, it will fly fast for me. The few colleges I've been thinking about are New Saint Andrews, Hillsdale College, and Patrick Henry College. I need to expand my horizon, because I'm sure there are a lot more respectable colleges out there. But seeing as I don't know what I want to do, it makes a decision hard. I truly have so many interests I don't think I could pick one to major in! The major that's been on my mind lately is architecture... but I don't know if I really want to do that. :)


Talking about colleges brings up the subject of whether or not girls should go to college. Some families (homeschoolers usually, but not always) say boys should go to college in order to have a way to provide for their families. I agree with that. But then they say girls really don't need to go to college, because they'll probably get married before the time comes and not need to worry about an education. I think that it is important for girls to go to college (and not for the purpose of finding a husband). When a girl gets married and has a family, the husband should be the one providing for the family. But there is no guarantee that something won't happen, prohibiting your husband from working. What would you do? It's hard to depend on others for help in a situation like that, but if you had a college degree, and were able to get a reasonable job to provide, that's a good thing. I do not think that moms should work if dad has a decent job that supports the family though. Mom should be home, where her main duties lie. Hopefully that makes sense. :)


Anywho, it's getting late, and I need to be up earlier tomorrow than I have been the past few days. :)


AO

Short Trip to the Mountains

This past Sunday my Mother, sisters and I left for the lovely mountains on NC to visit my aunt and cousin. My aunt has a farm up there where she keeps her horses, and has over 200 acres of grass, trees and trails. I got to go on the most exciting trail ride ever while I was there. My aunt has a hired helper to take care of the horses when she leaves, and this helper is an endurance rider. That means, she rides her horse in races 50 miles long, and she even did one 100 miles long. It's amazing. I don't know how she does it. But she offered to take me on a trail ride while I was up there, and it was really fun. I rode one of her two horses, Nacho, and he's a very sweet horse. He is an Arabian- bred for endurance and speed. Most of the time we walked or trotted on the trail, but her horses kept wanting to canter. And once, on a very steep hill going up, the horses started going really really really fast and the horse in front of me was kicking up clay (so I had clay on my face when I got back) and she yelled to me to grab hold of the mane while we were going so fast so I did. I could hardly see anything because I closed my eyes so they clay wouldn't get in them, so I really had to trust the horse to not let me fall. :) When we finally got to the top of the hill, she said we had just galloped. So of course I was super excited that I galloped; I'd never done it before. That is definitely the highlight of my trip. The rest of the time we were just walking around, eating, or just talking with family. :) It was such a fun trip!

her beautiful driveway

the buds

the bloom

a little mushroom. i like mushrooms lol

an old graveyard on her property. a little creepy, but i think it's cool. :P

our dog Maggie slept in my room, and one morning she couldn't stop looking at the cat

a bit of her property

my aunts horse Crystal

my cousins horse Bugsy

my aunts helpers horses, Nacho on the left, Shadowfax on the right

Some of the pictures aren't that great of quality, but at least you know what it's about. :P I'd love to hear if y'all have any favorite pics or anything... :)

AO