Caterpillar to Monarch

Last year Adi had the pleasure of keeping a monarch caterpillar for about 2 days. I was afraid that we would somehow mismanage it so I made her let it go and we never saw it again. Then my friend Sacha told me about how her girls had raised a caterpillar to a chrysalis and then to a butterfly. How cool! If Sacha and her kiddos could do it, we could too :)

So when we found our first monarch caterpillar on the wild milkweed growing in our garden we were quick to take it in. His name was Caterpillery.
The photo below shows three others (George, the big one, Pinky and Linky). Can you see all three? They're in a diagonal line.
After we had Caterpillary for about a week or so and he got nice and fat he attached his butt to the bug hut that had become his home and made himself a chrysalis. I had never seen one up close before, it's stunning. There are little gold specks along the rim at the top and two sets of three along the bottom. It looks like real gold, and is so spectacular! I read online that the metamorphosis usually takes about 14 days. Caterpillary, however, is a rock star caterpillar that had lots of love and made the change in just 9 days ;)It took some time for his (or her?) wings to dry and get strong enough to fly. We had a test run outside but it didn't take long to see that he just wasn't ready yet so we kept him indoors for about 8 more hours so he could gain strength safely.
Here he is checking out a flower from our garden. We released him in the garden when he was finally ready but he immediately flew high up into the walnut tree above. We didn't see where he went from there. I was pleasantly surprised that Adi was perfectly content to let Caterpillary fly free.This has been one of the most rewarding, mysterious, exciting, awe inspiring "science experiments" we've ever done. I feel so blessed to even have the chance to see these changes, and we have several more hungry caterpillars munching on fresh milkweed every day. Currently, George is in his chrysalis and Pinky just made hers this morning. Linky isn't far behind and we have another nearly ready as well. And two nameless babies we just brought in over the weekend. I'm going to have to find a place to harvest milkweed to feed all of our little monarch critters. And I'll do it with pleasure!

Summer Time

My first baked blueberry pie was a sucess. Adi told me, "Mommy, this is the best pie I've ever tasted!" What a sweetie. It was pretty good, I must admit. The blueberries came from the local pick-your-own farm Orchards on Sand Road.
This year we managed to grow a few decent heads of broccoli. Adi loves to pretend she's a rabbit and nibble on the leaves while I "look the other way" and then I have to wonder who has been eating my broccoli plant. So cute.

I love growing these purple pole beans. Finding the beans to pick is so much easier since they are a different color. They turn green when cooked but are scrumptious. Love em.

For some reason we planted more than one zucchini plant. Gardeners should just know not to do that. It doesn't really freeze very well and unless you eat a ton of zucchini or have a lot of mouths to feed, one plant is enough. Such a prolific producer. Guess I'll have to get creative with new recipes.

It was so much fun to pick ripe apricots from our tree in the front yard. We just planted it last fall so we were really surprised that we got fruit this summer. A pleasant surprise indeed.

I've definitely been living in chicken land lately, so before I get to that, here's a photo of half of our raised bed gardens. Cam thinks they look great, I think they look like a mess. I don't think I really care for the exact square foot gardening method. One of these years I will find my perfectly artistic gardening style and I'll love it and it will be perfect. I love this too, the learning part and the part where I get to go out in my back yard when I'm hungry and pick something fresh to eat. That's good stuff.

So on Saturday, June 28th we had our screening of Mad City Chickens. We had 35 people come to see the film including city council member Amy Correia. It was so exciting to have even one council member take time out of their day to learn more, I was honored. This photo is of Seth and the film makers Tashai and Robert trying to get the projector set up.

After the film we were lucky enough to have the opportunity to host Tashai and Robert for the night. We enjoyed and incredible dinner of mostly local eats from our CSA: Gooseberry Hill and our own garden. We had so much fun hanging out with Tashai, Robert and our good friend Seth. We were really sad that our dear friend Alicia had to miss the whole thing because she was sick. We missed her a ton but had a really blessed day.

Luckily Alicia was well enough today to come to the city council meeting in which we presented our petition with 676 signatures urging council to consider an ordinance allowing urban chickens. It was a scary experience for me to stand in front of the council and speak, but by the grace of God I did it and they accepted our petition! Next step is showing up at public work sessions to answer questions and concerns about raising hens in city limits, that should happen at the end of July. I'm relieved that the petition is out of our hands now but I know there is still work ahead of us. How do people do this political stuff all the time? It's totally exhausting, but well worth the effort!

Iris Galore

I love irises. They are one of the flowers that I will never forget from my childhood. For as long as I can remember gardens growing up I can remember irises, I remember stroking the hairy "beard" on the petals, inhaling the grape-like aroma and wishing I could eat them. Yep, I'm the weird one who finds flowers so delectable I long to devour them. Ha!

We've been blessed to have been given several varieties of iris by friends and family. We're not even really sure where they all came from exactly but we really are grateful for them. They look so exotic and the colors are wonderful. Three cheers for irises!!!

Mad City Chickens

IC Friends of Urban Chickens and Cedar Rapids Chicken Chat groups are bringing the independent film Mad City Chickens to our cities this June. We're really excited that the film makers will be present at each public screening for an educational Q&A session immediately following the film. I love the idea of community coming together and having a forum available for those who have questions and concerns regarding raising chickens in town. I'd like to say that I could answer all of those questions but the truth is that I'm just a novice myself and everything I've learned has been from research, not actual experience.

Witness if you will Gallus Domesticus…the backyard chicken. A mere few pounds of feather, bone, and muscle; a creature regarded by many as a rather humorous, though not so intelligent agent of food production.

And yet make note of a most singular phenomenon now taking shape across suburb and city. From backyard eggs to the family’s new favorite pet, the urban chicken is forging a fresh place in the pecking order of human importance.

Mad City Chickens deftly weaves multiple stories and contextual issues on city chickens and their keepers in a non-linear fashion that one rarely sees in a documentary. From leading experts to urban newbies, experience the humor and heart of what’s fast becoming an international backyard chicken movement.

Iowa City Screening

IC Friends of Urban Chickens and Iowa City Environmental Film Festival presents

Mad City Chickens

Saturday, June 27, 2009

2 p.m screening with film maker Q&A to follow

Robert A Lee Recreation Center

220 S Gilbert St Iowa City (downtown)

http://www.iowacityurbanchickens.ning.com/

Cedar Rapids Screening

Indian Creek Nature Center presents

Mad City ChickensSunday, June 28, 2009

2 p.m. screening with film maker Q&A to follow

Indian Creek Nature Center

6665 Otis Road S.E. 52403

Cedar Rapids, Iowa

For more information about efforts in Cedar Rapids email greenat50@yahoo.com or join Yahoo Group Cedar Rapids Chicken Chat

I'm into collages right now because I have no time to blog. So here is a collage of some springtime flowers around the Driscoll homestead.
I'm happy to report that Mother's Day this year was the best ever. For many reasons, but one particularly exciting point of interest being that my vegetable garden is now completely planted aside from one 2x8 bed on the south side of the house. I think that will be Adi's special garden this year.

Chicken legalizing efforts are moving along beautifully. I recently met with a group of great folks from the community who are excited to get things moving. We have several events planned, which is why I have very little time to blog about all the other awesome stuff going on around our homestead, such as neighbors directly behind us planting their first garden at that address this year and next door neighbors installing rain barrels! Hurray :)

Hopefully I'll have more time to write about the goings on in chicken world soon - if you are interested in keeping up to date you can sign up for the mailing list on the right side of the page.

Spring Things

It's always fun to see spring flowers coming into bloom. Though we don't have many spring flowers, I did take a few photos to share. I'm not sure what these first flowers are called. The neighbors have some and we never planted them but more and more show up each spring in our yard. Birds must be dropping seeds or maybe seeds blow over, I don't know. We enjoy them either way.These are crocus flowers, some of the first early spring flowers to bloom. I love them, they're so cute.
And of course forsythia. We enjoy the bright yellow flowers on our forsythia bush every spring. They really are a touch of sunshine on a cloudy day :)
I have more photos coming. The magnolia tree has bloomed and is nearly done. Our apricot tree also had wonderful blossoms that attracted many bees. We've been told that it should be self-fertile so we'll see... And we did finally get a second cherry tree, this one is a black cherry called Stella. It will be a cross-pollinator for our Bing tree in the backyard.