Butterflies

April 19, 2022

We are pet sitting again. This time for neighbor Mike who is visiting with his daughter and her family for Easter. He belongs to the Villages butterfly club and plants milkweed in his yard to attract Monarch butterflies. He then pulls the caterpillars from the dangers of the outside and places them in a netted enclosure in his house. He maintains pots of milkweed plants in the enclosure for food. Eventually they are hanging in their cocoons and he waits for them to hatch. These are his 'pets' and we are in charge while he is gone and moved the enclosure into our lanai. He will be back tomorrow night but this morning we watched five butterflies emerge from their cocoons, expand their wings and wait for them to dry. This afternoon, once they started to move around, we took the enclosure outside. One by one, Alesa removed and released them. Most flew away but a couple she placed on plants and they eventually flew away. Quite an experience but I think we will leave the butterfly wrangling to Mike. Been busy with golf, coordinating flights for our November cruise and preparing for our trip to Arizona for a 5 week stay. Steve and Laura are driving here from the Atlanta airport and should be arriving here around 6 for a short stay before heading to Ormond Beach to visit Laura's sister. We have scheduled a round of golf with them at the Arnold Palmer course here in the villages for tomorrow afternoon. The last Erie club meeting of the season is on Thursday night, Pizza and Bunco. Ordered the pizza and bought the necessary supplies. Cut a number of folding table covers in half to fit the card tables we will be using.