Can't beat this weather...it almost feels like California!

Wow, I love days like today.  Sunny, warm with a cool breeze and no humidity.  Its a rare day in Houston when we have days of low humidity.

Today our first monarch butterfly hatched in my monarch cage.  Here's a picture of the chrysalis about 30 mins before she hatched and after she hatched. What a pretty girl!

What the chrysalis looked like when we found it

Before  hatching

I usually catch the caterpillars and put them in the cage to hatch but this chrysalis is one that my husband found while trimming the palm trees in the back yard.  We had thrown all the fronds on the ground and as he was picking them up to throw away, he found this little girl.  I have no idea how he managed to see it with all the vegetation we were throwing away but I'm glad he did!  I still have two more in the cage that should be hatching in the next few days.

I spoke to the Droll Yankee customer service and found out that a raccoon hanging from the bird feeder  (see my raccoon blog) could actually burn out the motor and battery. Hmmmm, who knew!  I suspect the raccoons in my yard are a bit chubbier than usual too considering all the bird food we go through.  We are going to do a little test...They are sending me a new battery and I'm going to take the bird feeder down every night to see if the charge lasts longer than a day.  If the charge doesn't last then the batteries are defective, if it does then the raccoons are defective...

I'm betting on the coons.

So I decided to give Lucy another chance.  I read on the web that her leg paralysis could be from a vitamin deficiency so I'm giving her liquid baby vitamins every day.  I hope she gets better soon!  Considering her disability she still gets around pretty well and is still as bossy as ever.

Miss Lucy hanging in the house

Two expert beggars, Lucy and Angel 

I went out yesterday to check on the veggie garden. Well actually I go out everyday, multiple times a day, to check on the veggie garden but that shows how obsessed I am with it. Signs of mental instability me thinks. ;)  

Anyway, it's really doing well (although I don't know how couldn't be doing well considering my obsession.)

So well in fact that one of the tomato plants has gotten too heavy for the regular tomato cage and it wouldn't hold it up anymore.  So I brought over one of my heavy duty ones to put around it.  Of course I had to do this by myself since I am not one to wait for when someone might be around to help me. :/  To do this I had to try to hold up the plant with one hand, and wrap the cage around it with the other while keeping the other plants out with my foot.  A figured this was a practical use for my yoga however I ended up losing my balance and landing on my kale plant or should I say what used to be my kale plant.  It got harvested a bit sooner than necessary.

Life sure is interesting!

Come on weather....make up your mind!

I've been absent from my blog for a few days....too much to do, too little time!  On Friday, Lucy came out of the coop limping severely.  My poor baby girl.   Her and Roo do not get along and I suspect that he beat her up.  She's staying in my chicken infirmary (actually a cage in my kitchen) for now and I've had to learn how to give her antibiotics.  Shoving a syringe down a chickens throat is not an easy task.  A lot of patience is needed and I'm always scared that it will end up in her windpipe since they are both in the same area.   If I don't do it though, she will for sure not make it.   Since Lucy is out of the coop, Goldie started hanging with Roo.  She's pushed off Pinkie to be Roo's BFF.   Such a follower she is.    I took Lucy out to peck around in the grass when the other chickens were out and Roo again attacked her.   This is not a friendly, "hey, I'm a guy, your a girl, let's get together" type of approach.  He scares the living daylights out of her.   Anyway,  while she is on the mend we have taken Roo to the feed store to be sold.  He's a nice friendly rooster but I cant have him hurting my hens.  It's amazing how the hens have calmed down now that he's gone.

It's been pretty rainy these days.  Cool one day, warm the next.  Typical for Houston in the spring. And spring is definitely here.    All the citrus trees are in bloom and the backyard smells amazing!  My bees are going crazy with all the orange, grapefruit, peach and apple blossoms.  We started planting the vegetable gardens too.   Tomatoes, pepper, yellow squash, zucchini, basil, sage, parsley, fennel, mint, and bush beans so far.  Now let's see how many make it through our summer! These are great days to do that since it's nice and cool.  I bought a flat of milkweed plants for the monarchs who come through every year.  I've created a Monarch butterfly cage to protect the caterpillars until they can become butterflies.

  Every morning I check the milkweed plants for baby caterpillars.  If I find one I put it in the cage so they are not bothered by the multiple predators
that we have around here.  The wasps and lizards are the worst but if I can get out there early enough I can save the baby caterpillars before they get to them.  Last year I was able to release 15 butterflies.  I figure that's 15 more than we would have had otherwise.