Our Monarchs from Caterpillars to Nose Hangers

My apologies about being so lax on my postings. I've privatized the blog now, and I can have up to 100 readers. This way I know who is reading about and looking at our family pictures. Not a big concern, but now I can finally talk about Hawaii without our neighbors or some of our customers getting overly concerned. We've told a lot of people, but since we do not know exactly when we will be moving we don't want to tell the whole world just yet.
Right now it looks like Spring/Summer 2011. We wish it were RIGHT NOW!
Catching up...I've posted 122 pictures to our Flickr page...which is also by invite or only visible to Family & Friends of us on Flickr. That was easier than posting all 122 pictures to the blog, and I think it might be easier for you to print the pictures. I haven't written any details on the pictures yet, but I plan to do that. My computer time is fairly limited these days :) The link to our Flickr page is here. If you are able to see this blog, but you can't view the Flickr pictures, then just send me an email.

Okay waaaayyyy back in the beginning of August Kyle went on a mad mission to find Monarch caterpillars in our yard on the copious amount of milkweed we have let take over...just so we could have lots of butterflies flying about. Monarch caterpillars are very particular little fellows and they will only eat milkweed.                      

When Kyle first found them (he found 5!) they were sooo tiny we could barely see them. We made net houses that hang from our center beam so we could watch them grow.

And grow they did! In the beginning we only need to pick fresh milkweed once a day. Kyle or Reeve (sometimes me & Stella) would go out and find the most tender looking leaves. Then those caterpillars start to eat, and they eat, and they eat. Pretty soon we thought they were going to be as large as a dinosaur!

Stella got a real kick out of watching them eat. We kept telling her that they were baby butterflies. She could climb up onto this chair to watch. I know, I know...climbing chairs is "dangerous", but it's over carpet (for the most part) and there is NO stopping Stella from climbing!

When they have gorged on milkweed for about a week...and I do mean gorge...towards the end we have to pick the milkweed several times a day and clean out the castings...so when they are done eating, they travel up the net to the top and find a suitable spot on the cardboard to "hang".

They somehow attach themselves and move into a "J hook" position. It really looks like they are praying and chanting because they kinda gently move up and down. They do this for about a day and then they shed their skin and face and antennae and form a chrysalis. It is hard to see in the pic below, but there is one caterpillar in the "J hook" and one that has formed the chrysalis.

They chrysalis is truly amazing and I was not good at capturing the details on it. There are shiny golden and black bead dots decorating it. They remain in the chrysalis for a little over a week.

Then the chrysalis becomes transparent and we can see it turn black. It doesn't take long after the color changes to black for the butterfly to break out...I'd say less than 5 hours. When we see the change we watch it constantly and have seen them emerge...I never have the camera quite ready and it is really hard to take a close up picture through the net.

When it does first happen their wings are still all folded up and very very wet.

Then they slowly unfold and start to air out. We know to wait about 30 minutes before we take them outside for pictures.

This is Kyle's favorite part! The butterflies are super friendly at this stage and they will walk all over you without flying away.

Little Stella was amazed!

She did not want that butterfly on her! She did love to see them on her brothers.

There are LOTS more pictures of butterflies on the kids at the Flickr page.

Now I'm off to wake up Reeve and get him ready for school! Kyle gets up too, and if Stella is up then we all walk to the neighbor's house and they drive him to school (they teach at the school).

Sand Pile and Solar System

Well I took a month off because I've been adjusting to our new family schedule, and it's all centered around Reeve going to public school. He's in the 5th Grade now, and although he was pretty bored at first he is really enjoying the whole process. We all get up early and walk him over to our neighbor's house. They teach at the school and give Reeve a ride each morning, and then Reeve takes the 50 minute bus ride home.

At any rate, Reeve's new schedule, and Kyle's home schooling, have thrown me a bit off.

Her are some sand pile pictures. Tom ordered a truck load of sand for the solar pipe "ditch" for where the pipes go underground from the the house to the solar hot water array.



The pictures speak for themselves. Reeve and Kyle both had a blast. They love to get dirty.

 Below are pictures of the solar hot water system...now fully functional. This was when there were 8 panels in place, now there are 10!

 Reeve helped test the system by running cold well water through the panels and it came out the other end over 200F degrees in minutes!

 Stella loves the water, and had to get wet...this was not the 200F degree water, thankfully!

Reeve...He's 10 and Independent!

Reeve has undergone some huge life changes this past year. I remember last year when he was so different from the boy we have today. He was shy and didn't want to do anything new. We went to a homeschooling potluck and he refused to get out of the car because he wore his swimsuit and it was too cold for swimming. The other kids he saw he did not know and no one else was wearing a swimsuit...that he saw. We finally coaxed him out of the car and he ended up having a blast.
Now? Well now he has decided, all on his own, that he wants to go to public school. Whoa! He's really excited about it too! This is huge for him and for our family, but overall I'm hopeful that it will be a good change and he will not be too disappointed. He says he wants to learn more, so hopefully he will!
At the beginning of the summer I gave him a watch that had a 'stop watch' capability. This coincided perfectly with the library's summer reading program. Each week the kids log their reading time and then record that at the library. It takes FOREVER, but Reeve was very into it. They get so many bingo numbers called for x minutes of reading. Each week Reeve would have 50+ bingo numbers...that takes a lot of time, and with little Stella in a library full of books to topple off the shelves it's kind of no fun for me...but I'm a patient girl and I patiently waited for Reeve and Kyle to log their hours. BTW Kyle got a stop watch too and he did an amazing job logging 29 hours of reading this summer.

Above is Reeve with the Librarian. Reeve logged 109.75 hours in the month of July. The librarian said he blew everyone else out of the water. We are very proud of both our boys! Any good book suggestions for a 5th Grader? Reeve has decided to read the Harry Potter series again for the 4th time...um let's see he started book 1 on Tuesday...finished it Wednesday...now it's Saturday and he's on book 3. He's read the Artemis Fowl series 3 times. He likes mystery (but not too scary), he likes action (but not violence), he likes historical fiction (but it better not be boring), and of course he loves pirates. He's read Treasure Island 3 times too, and I've read Peter Pan too many times to count. He like's series books...he didn't really like the Redwall series...they kind of bored him. Any other ideas? Kyle is easy to please...give him an Almanac or even a dictionary...that kid is happy reading anything!
Reeve's other new passion as of late is making breakfast muffins. I'm not a big breakfast eater...give me a hot cup of tea (or coffee with plenty of soymilk, a touch of maple syrup, and a dollop of cocoa mix) and I'm good to go until 10am or so...this isn't so good for a hungry, growing boy who doesn't like cereal. I've been making granola which is good, but nothing beats hot muffins in the morning. We had some ripe bananas and Reeve got out my FAVORITE cookbook by Crescent Dragonwagon (yes that's her real name!), The Passionate Vegetarian (thank you Elena!!!), and looked up a recipe for banana spice cake.

First thing he did was to organize my kitchen as best as he could. So cute the way he was prepared by getting all the measuring devices he could find.

So serious! Then he set to work reading the recipe. I try to stay back and let him do it all! He doesn't want my help anyway...he prefers to do it all on his own.

He's a very precise at measuring! I'm bummed because I didn't get a picture of the 2 beautiful loaves of banana bread that he made. They did not stick around long!

Kickapoo Country Fair & Stella in the Highchair

This year we took a Sunday off and went to the Kickapoo Country Fair at the Organic Valley Headquarters in La Farge, WI (about 45 miles from us). It is probably the coolest fair we've ever been to...organic food, organic coffee, maple syrup cotton candy, excellent speakers, cool vendors, great music,Wisconsin made beer...it was awesome!

Stella was enamored with 2 things at this fair...#1 was the "Ladies on Stilts" walking around the fair all weekend

and in the children's parade...

#2 was carrying around Shannon Hayes book Radical Homemakers...I bought the book and got to have Shannon personally sign my copy and Stella did not want to let go of the book. My favorite parts about the fair: The feeling that I knew most of the people I saw...even though I might not have ever met them; the great food; being able to let the kids run around and do as they pleased; AND, most of all, meeting Shannon Hayes and listening to her talk about her book. I'm almost halfway through the book now, and I LOVE it. I agree wholeheartedly with every word she has written. In my opinion this is a MUST READ book! Tommy had fun talking to folks about raw food and tasting some DELICIOUS pro-biotic, raw fermented, foods like Sauerkraut made locally.
Reeve and Kyle's favorite part was running around with their friends AND building the most AMAZING sandcastle ever.

It was very strategically placed under a couple of awesome shade trees...so the kids weren't baking in the sun.

All the kids worked so well together! They were all busy creating, digging, building...together. It was wonderful to see.

and what blog post would be complete without a set of Stella pictures? Stella pretty much keeps us all laughing and giggling all the time. We all get a kick out of watching her eat. She has such enthusiasm for the food I make, that it's hard not to smile. Can you believe she's never had a jar of baby food? Neither did Reeve or Kyle...we had a baby food grinder in the beginning, but now she doesn't need it.

Yum! Yum!

Look at that smile!

Breeze Break...(that's when it's very hot, and you feel a breeze blowing by, and you lift your arms up and stop what you're doing, and say Breeze Break!)

Now she's ready for her bath, and saying, "will someone get me out of here?"

Solar Hot Water System Progress, Pool pics, & Stella Cleaning

Our 10 panel Solar Hot Water System is coming together nicely in the backyard.

Kyle has really enjoyed being a helper on this system, and we've enjoyed his focus on it. We've also enjoyed the help from BEC Solar's intern Jeff. What's that huge tarp doing hanging from the deck? It was the only place for shade during the day on this east side of the house.

Tom designed the racking system...we're pretty proud of it.

Panels in place...ready to be mounted on the rack.

Up they go! Two up...10 more to go.

Our daily hot day pool routine...can't get enough of that backyard pool.

Happy Baby!

Kiss for ducky!

Mmmmwahh! Ducky blows a kiss to you!

After a refreshing dip in the pool Stella is ready to work...meet Stella the Cleaning Toddler!

What can she clean? Oh, Papa that fridge is dirty...let me in there...

All done...time to move on to the next cleaning task...

Kyle & Reeve's room...