Sex life of the Painted Lady

There are MILLIONS of butterflys here now. You can't drive a block in any direction and not kill a bunch of them. I hate that. The poor things. Anyway...on the evening news, one of our bright newscasters said the painted lady butterflys are migrating up from Mexico, headed north. He made it sound like they were going all the way to Canada. What? My goodness, how far can a butterfly fly? In fact, how long does a butterfly live? So I googled Painted Lady Butterfly to see what the truth about them is.

Here you go. A butterfly egg takes 5 to 10 days to hatch into a caterpillar. The caterpillar eats like crazy and will change skin 4 times before it is fully grown. After 3 weeks the hairy, black and yellow caterpillar stops growing and is almost 2 inches long.

The caterpillar finds a safe place to rest and spins a chrysalis. Inside the chrysalis the caterpillar becomes completely liquid and reforms into a butterfly. 2 weeks later the butterfly emerges. The Painted Lady Butterfly has a 2 week life span. During that time, it's main goal is to reproduce and lay eggs so the cycle can begin again!

From start to finish that's about a 6 week ordeal. After watching these things flitting around here I figure it must take quite a few generations to make it north. I guess they look so frenzied in their flitting about because they know their time is running out and they haven't finished their bucket list.

What moves!!

I'm surprised he doesn't fall off his perch.

I'm so happy!

How happy does this guy look?! I want a goat like this. You just couldn't help but smile every time you see him. He just looks so darn happy.

It's that time again!

Wow!! Where does time go? I am working hard with the choir and our first performance this year is December 7th! That is not very far off. In fact, week after next ( the 24th ) we are recording. The good news is, they sound GREAT. Monday night at rehersal they took my breath away. Awesome. I have 80 people signed up this year and it's going to be wonderful. I just have to keep myself focused and on track through the 14th of December. And....in the middle of all this I am organizing our women to go to Phoenix next week for Women of Faith. I have made the hotel reservations, got the tickets, arranged everyone's transportation and I am looking forward to getting away for a few days with all my girlfriends and having fun. There are 30 of us going and we have great seats. Can't wait.

Since we will be in Phoenix we will shop. Oh yea, that's a great side feature of the trip. We go up a day early so we can shop and play. Phoenix has REAL malls. Yuma is mall deprived. You haven't seen anything until you've seen 20 or 30 women from Yuma unleashed in a mall. I consider myself a power shopper. My endurance isn't what it once was and I can't do it for very long so I've become a pro at spotting what I want in a heartbeat and getting in and out. I am not a great browser. I will also admit most of my Christmas shopping is already done. Yep I got on it early this time. Except for John. I really struggle with what to get him.

I wish you all the best as you head into the holiday season and I pray you make blessed memories.

I got it!

I was driving in to town yesterday and I suddenly realized what the first sign of fall in Yuma is. When it is 105 it is hard to feel fall. Well anyway, my revelation was ...... a yard sale sign! Yep, that's it. Yuma doesn't have yard sales in the summer and when they do have them they are held on Friday and Saturday. Almost never on Sunday. I passed a half dozen yard sale signs in my neighborhood alone. Snow birds love yard sales. I think they haul stuff down here with them just so they can have a yard sale. Which brings me to the second sign, snow birds ( or winter visitors ) are arriving in a steady stream. The grocery store is much busier and the street traffic has really picked up. Time to leave the house a little earlier to get whereever I'm going on time. And for me the final sign of fall is the start up of rehersals for the Christmas tree program. John is so sure that since October is just a few days away, he will be sitting out on the deck in the evening watching tv, so....he is right now out cleaning off the deck and furniture out there getting ready. He plans to watch Monday night football out there. I think the forecast for Monday is 101 which means it might be down to 98 by kick off. But, that's his plan. It's fall alright. I'm thinkin I need to go buy a new outfit for fall.

Benefits of 4 Seasons

I loved being up in the northwest for a vacation. You could feel fall in the air. On our drive over the mountains from Seattle to Yakima there were even some noticeable changes starting in the trees. In Yuma we miss that. On the way home Monday, there was fresh snow on the mountains around Salt Lake. How pretty. While we were in Yakima I went shopping with my mom and aunt. I loved the fall and winter clothes in Macy's! Love the fall colors and I have always loved sweaters. I just can't buy that stuff to wear here. It doesn't get cold enough here for them. That got me to thinking about the seasons we have here. We basically have 2 seasons here.

1. Way to freaking hot! and...
2. Pretty comfortable.

The summer is the way too hot and my summer wardrobe consists of sandals, cool short skirts and tank tops. Oh and a cardigan to wear in restaurants and stores where they keep their thermostat on 60. My winter wardrobe consists of longer skirts, jeans, tee shirts, and a sweater to wear in the restaurants that still keep the thermostat on 60. Those guys must love the power company. We don't really have much in the way of spring or fall here, it just sort of jumps from summer to winter and back again. The trees here don't lose their leaves or change color so we don't see a change there. There are no daffodils or crocus popping their heads up early to let you know warm weather is coming. I miss the 4 seasons. I slways liked the change and I love to sit inside and watch it snow.

However, all is not lost. I buy clothes in the new fall colors that are light weight. I know it's fall when I start practices for the Christmas program, and when my friend start returning. I know it is winter when there are so many people here you can hardly move, I know it's spring when my Easter choir performs and I know summer is almost here when the neighbors all leave. So I guess whereever you live you still see the benefits of 4 seasons.

Love the green!

So far on our vacation we have only had one rainy day, yesterday. Today we are in Lynden and have been out seeing the town. We had a great lunch at a dutch restaurant and I got to visit a couple of quilt shops. I bought the fabric to make a snowman wall hanging that is cute. John, bless his heart, just patiently follows us girls around. He doesn't try to hurry us or anything. I'm sure he was more than glad when we decided to check out the restaurant. We also bought a dutch apple pie at the bakery for desert tonight. Ymmm....Teresa and Christy just went to the store to get ice cream to go with it. Maybe we'll just have pie and ice cream for dinner! So you see, this vacation is involving a lot of eating (as usual) and when we get back home it will be diet time.

Aside from the great food, the flowers here are just beautiful. All of the green lawns and trees plus beautiful flowers everywhere make this a nice change of pace for a desert girl. I even enjoyed the rain yesterday.