Action #2: Butterfly Garden

Howdy everyone! Winston here with some more ecological actions that YOU can do to make the world a better place!

We started off the week by collecting and donating monarch caterpillars to our school so that young humans can observe their transformation into butterflies. We carefully researched the topic before collecting them and decided that:

a) We would leave the caterpillars in their native environment until the last possible minute;

b) We would transplant the milkweed, root and all, since we had milkweed in the middle of our yard that we wanted to keep mowed;

c) We would provide lots of interesting habitats for the caterpillars to choose as their nestling spot as they undergo metamorphosis inside of a chrysalis.

The caterpillars were successfully donated and we are looking forward to updates.

But we didn’t stop there, because we realized a couple things with this experiment. We realized the importance of having plants that butterflies and bees appreciate in our garden, and we realized the importance of showcasing cool scientific phenomena for young humans to observe. It is important to inspire the young generation because they are going to transform society! We should educate them and expose them so they may develop their awesomeness and be very aware of nature around them.

For example, when we talk about monarchs, we can also remind people that milkweed is vital for monarch butterflies, since the caterpillars eat exclusively milkweed. You can help the production of milkweed by not mowing it down if you see it, planting it in butterfly gardens, and avoiding the use of chemicals and pesticides in your gardening.

We can also talk about how instead of using chemicals to remove a paper wasp’s nest, we opted to leave it alone since it wasn’t bothering us. By not using chemicals, we are helping the insect life in our neighborhood, increasing pollination, helping species that are on the decline like honeybees and butterflies, and improving our water quality.

We also have added these species to our spring wish list: coneflowers, black-eyes susans, and butterfly bush. We are interested in planting these species in the spring to promote our butterfly life.

If you learn to love something, like nature, you’ll do more to protect it. You can’t force someone to love nature. But you CAN talk about how beautiful it is, take people on inspiring hikes, take beautiful pictures, and be a wonderful dog or human that makes people wonder – wow, maybe there IS something to loving the environment.

We believe that showcasing nature’s beauty is one way to accomplish conservation by merely being exciting about nature’s stunning transformations. What do you think?!

Happy nature inspiration to all of you!

Love,

Winston

 

 

September 2nd Monarchs

Good morning everyone!

It is a gorgeous though rainy morning here in the Catskills with warmer temperatures (66°F this morning!) and rainy. Our new weather instrument, the rain gauge, has not accused any levels of significant precipitation however during the last hour (from 6:30 to 7:30 a.m.). We call this type of accumulation a “trace”. We are very excited to use it for the first time though since we got it in August!

Winston and I think it is wet, though. I do NOT like to get wet, so when I feel the water starting to hit me, I freeze. (Weirdly enough, I like baths better than Winston does – I’m a very good boy when it comes to staying in the bathtub. Winston, at half my size, is a bigger challenge!)

Today we inspected the property for our resident monarchs and milkweed. We’ve been doing a lot of research on monarch butterflies because we are interested in bringing these to school, but we want to do it in the most ecologically correct manner. We are going to collect the butterflies today as their only milkweed is running out of leaves, and we are interested in saving other milkweeds that are in our field by transplanting them, so they don’t get mowed over. The idea is to eventually create a butterfly garden, but we’ll let Winston talk about that on Saturday.

We think that seeing the monarchs develop into their chrysalis and then butterflies will help young children appreciate and preserve nature, so in our mind we are “helping” in one way (and of course releasing the butterflies). We are however leaving the caterpillars the longest time possible in nature and only collecting them at the very end of their cycle. Stay tuned for Saturday’s post to read how we are going about this project and what you can do to help!

Hurricane Dorian is now a Category 5 hurricane and it has made landfall three times in the Bahamas. Just a side note on hurricanes – there have been 35 Category 5 hurricanes in recorded history (since 1924). Four of them have formed since 2017. Dorian is now tied for the second strongest winds at 185 mph, behind Hurricane Allen. It has the strongest winds that have made landfall in the Bahamas and is tied for the strongest winds to make landfall, ever (tied with none other but Labor Day hurricane, of 1935!).

It is still moving very slowly, which is more reason to believe that it will continue to have strong winds and dump lots of water on its path.

Meanwhile, our rain is not hurricane related, but caused by a warm front that moved across the US and met with a cold front coming from Canada. We can expect today to be rainy, and then for the temperatures to drop as another cold front is coming down from Canada.

It will be interesting to see how a high-pressure system to the East of Dorian and a cold front to the NW will affect its trajectory.

Enjoy your Labor Day everyone!

Love,

Mack