My husband John and I spent a wonderful day exploring the Island of Saint Lucia. When we returned to the ship, I told John that my legs were sore and he offered to give me a leg and feet massage before we went out for the evening! He did a great job and I felt refreshed and ready to party!!
Today my husband John and I released our last 4 Monarch Butterflies. We had a wonderful season and released 175 Monarch Butterflies! This season was a great learning experience for me and hopefully the Monarch Butterflies will return to our gardens next year. We have planted a lot of milkweed plants in our garden and have made room for more nectar producing plants to be planted this spring! Thank you, everyone, for watching our videos and for the wonderful comments you left on our pages!
Today my husband John and I found a lot of butterflies flying around our enclosures this morning. John counted 14 Monarch Butterflies before we brought our coffee out to enjoy on our patio. Within one hour, we had another Monarch Butterfly eclose! We released 15 Monarch Butterflies today which makes the total Monarch Butterfly released to date at 168!
Today, my husband John and I were fortunate enough to be able to watch several of our Monarch Butterflies eclose. We will release them later this afternoon. We have several errands to run but are expecting many more monarch eclosures today when we return.
On October 30, my wife Geralyn and I attended our first Broadway Theater League play of the season here in Lafayette, Louisiana. This was one of our favorite plays and we did a really crazy video to see if you can guess what play we saw!
It was a sunny, hot day in south Louisiana and my wife Geralyn and I enjoyed going to the International Rice Festival in Geralyn's hometown of Crowley, Louisiana. The town is noted for their production of rice and always has a large and fun-filled festival at the end of harvest season!
This morning my husband, John. was very happy to see his favorite butterfly had eclosed. Although they're all beautiful, John is very partial to the Black Swallowtail butterflies. While John was taking pictures and videos, a Giant Swallowtail butterfly visited our gardens for a nectar refreshment! It is a beautiful, sunny day, the temperature is below 90 F with reduced humidity!
Today my husband,John, and I released our 7th Giant Swallowtail butterfly. It is a huge female Giant Swallowtail butterfly that I raised from an egg. She has been happily flying around the garden while another Giant Swallowtail butterfly has been laying eggs on our orange tree and enjoying the nectar from our flower gardens. This morning, while I was collecting fresh leaves for our Giant Swallowtail caterpillars, I found a tiny caterpillar on our orange tree. The egg must have been laid about a week ago and somehow John and I missed it when we were hunting for eggs on the trees.
While we were in the kitchen, my wife, Geralyn, looked out the window and saw a Monarch butterfly in our flower garden. She thought something just didn't seem right about it so I suggested that she go outside to investigate. While I watched through the window, Geralyn picked up the butterfly and brought it inside the house. She told me that it couldn't fly because it had a broken wing and she knew how to mend him! Watch the video of Geralyn, the Butterfly Doctor!
Yesterday we had 19 Monarch butterflies that eclosed. My husband, John, videoed each release! We had one remaining Monarch butterfly and it eclosed this morning! We decided to add its release to yesterday's releases. I know this video is a bit long but it is interesting to see how each butterfly reacted to its release! Female Monarch butterfly #10 didn't want any flowers and didn't want to fly away. She was very interested in hanging onto John. We hope you enjoy the video as much as we enjoyed releasing so many beautiful butterflies!
This morning, my husband and I released two or our Queen Butterflies. They are very beautiful and my husband was able to take some very good pictures and videos of our two Queen Butterflies. By the way, they are both males!
My husband and I had a very busy day today. After running all of our errands, we decided to fry chicken wings for supper. Because they take so long to cook, I thought I'd go outside and water my milkweed plants on the patio. Imagine my surprise when I looked outside and saw a Black Swallowtail butterfly inside my butterfly enclosure! We had supper and, after supper, decided it was time to set our butterfly free. I hope you enjoy the video as much as I enjoyed finding my first Black Swallowtail butterfly!!
Yesterday John and I had 4 Monarch butterflies to release. John just said "4 on the 4th"! When John was filming the 1st butterfly release, he didn't realize his camera was on so when I was ready to release my 1st butterfly, he actually turned the recording off! Butterfly #1 and butterfly #2 flew away immediately. Butterfly #3 and #4 stayed for their photo opportunity!!
This morning I won the bet. John predicted that more Monarch chrysalises would eclose on July 4th. I thought more would eclose today. We had 10 chrysalises yesterday. Today there are only 4 left to eclose. All of the butterflies are female which is nice because most of my prior releases were male. The following video shows each butterfly being released! Some flew away immediately while others remained in our garden for a short time.
Geralyn and I saw the Temple of Venus and Roma (from the top of the Colosseum), thought to have been the largest temple in Ancient Rome. The temple remains are located on the Velian Hill, between the eastern edge of the Forum Romanum and the Colosseum. This temple was dedicated to the goddesses Venus Felix ("Venus the Bringer of Good Fortune") and Roma Aeterna ("Eternal Rome").
This morning John​ and I found our first butterfly of our current brood had eclosed. There are eleven more chrysalises left. After allowing the butterfly to dry its wings and rest, we released a beautiful, big male butterfly!
Geralyn and I toured the Colosseum or Coliseum. Also known as the Flavian Amphitheater, itis an oval amphitheater in the center of the city of Rome, Italy. It is the largest amphitheater ever built. The Colosseum could hold, it is estimated, between 50,000 and 80,000 spectators, having an average audience of some 65,000. It was used for gladiatorial contests and other public spectacles.
Last evening John and I released our 3 butterflies. The 2 males were happy to be released and left quickly. The female stayed on my hand so I then put her on a nice flower so she could drink some nectar. She must have needed some nourishment because she stayed on the flower sipping away for quite a while. It was an enjoyable sight!
Geralyn and I strolled along the Capitolium or Capitoline Hill, located between the Forum and the Campus Martius. This is one of the Seven Hills of Rome.
The hill was earlier known as Mons Saturnius, dedicated to the god Saturn.
