Entry tags:
Raising Gazorpazorp Part 1
A lot happened this week, so I figured I'd better split the post.
On Friday:
Work sucked again. It was basically Tuesday Part Two. I couldn't get a damn thing done all morning because I kept having to handle stuff from last week. Someone in Scheduling was like, could you send that thing from the 21st again with different information? My boss was like, why did you delegate some of your tasks at the end of the day, did you wait until the last minute to do them? Then when I looked into that, there were emails I had written up on Tuesday but hadn't sent. There were captionists that I needed to have meetings with because they hadn't been there last week. And then for whatever reason people are calling in absent AGAIN, so AGAIN there was an impossible amount of stuff to do. I didn't even get started on my tasks for the actual day until after noon. So dumb.
Under all this was running an underlying current of worry about the monarch eggs. Did I close the lid too tight on that tupperware? Was it too moist in there, would mold grow? It was nearly 90F outside, would they cook in there?! I couldn't stop fretting over it.
Right after work I drove out to Lukas Butterfly Encounter, a plant nursery kind-of close to my work. I had hoped to be able to ask about monarch care, but on a Friday evening a week before Easter they were HOPPING and I didn't want to pester them with questions not involving purchases. Instead I found the milkweed and grabbed two that looked especially bushy but not especially tall. They were labeled "scarlet milkweed" so they're probably the tropical variety.
Back home Jameson had already left for his Epcot gig (woot, good for him!) so I ran out to see how the caterpillars were doing.
And this is what I found.
They're here. Already. OMG! Two of the six eggs had hatched.
I counted my lucky stars that I had bought a mesh enclosure immediately after deciding to raise monarchs. It had arrived in the mail and was sitting right there on the porch. I quickly set it up (it's just like a mesh laundry hamper only with a side zipper) and gave the milkweed a good rinsing. Lukas Nursery doesn't use pesticides, but you never know what's riding on plants. Plus the caterpillars can enjoy the water too.
I lined the bottom of the enclosure with paper towels to help catch any poop, put the plants inside, and gently set the caterpillars and remaining eggs on the plants. Now they have a safe, ventilated enclosure and two whole milkweed plants all to themselves. I won't have to worry about feeding them for a while, just checking on them every day to clean the enclosure and provide water. Supposedly they'll be ready to become butterflies in only a few weeks. Wild!
Newly hatched caterpillar with my index finger for scale.
The enclosure. These guys get a luxury suite.
Like an idiot, I joined a facebook group centered around raising monarchs and posted there to show my setup. It always amazes me what snooty prudes people are. Advice is always great, I love to hear from people who know what they're doing, but there are always those who just cannot scroll by without dropping a "you're doing it wrong" or "I'm doing it better". Didn't realize this was a competition, folks. I'm doing this because I give a damn and because it's fun, not for your pleasure. People are no fun. I can't wait to be a hermit.
Anyway, I finished my evening with a quick plant check and found one more caterpillar in the actual pollinator garden, which to me is a minor miracle. Few of the eggs seem to be left and they probably didn't hatch, but were eaten before getting that chance. I scooped up the lone survivor (there could have been more but I only saw one) and put him in the enclosure too. Why not? What if my other four eggs don't hatch? At least I've definitely got three, for now.
Saturday:
Another stressful workday, although less stressful overall because I managed to find my Give A Shit button and switch it OFF. I did what I could do. I'm sorry the workload is so crazy right now, but I can't make up for the fact that more than half the supervisors chose to unprofessionally call in absent this month because it's spring break and they couldn't get the vacation time they wanted. I put my stupid head down and did what I could do, and didn't stress about it. And that's how I'd like the rest of the week to go, too.
Of course I was worrying half the day about whether the caterpillars are all right. Today's big fear was whether I had accidentally sprayed my milkweed seedlings with spinosad at some point. It's something I would do...armyworm caterpillars piss me off so much that I spray like crazy whenever I do spray, sometimes not thinking about WHY I'm growing the milkweed, and how close it is to my vegetables. I definitely need to take more care with that from now on.
When I got out to my car to head home from work, this was on the windshield:
Good lord.
Look, I'm all about unions. I was in the musician's union, and it wasn't so bad. I've got a lot of thoughts about this, but the main one is, if employees can't be bothered to put a question mark at the end of a sentence while captioning, how TF do they figure they get to make demands? Also, do they realize we're partially funded by the FCC? What makes anyone think the FCC is going to be transparent with a high-turnover lot of teenagers? Finally, I want to say to them: you DO realize that our job right now is essentially to train an AI to replace us in a decade or less, right? smh. No, I will not be joining this "union".
On the way home I got a weird urge to buy another milkweed. Don't ask why, I've no idea. So I swung by Lowe's and got a nice-looking one before picking up dinner.
At the house I immediately wanted to see the caterpillars. After several minutes of desperately straining my eyes and worrying that they were dead somewhere in the dirt at the bottom of the plant, I finally found two of them. One was actively nomming on a leaf, the other was cuddled up among the new growth at the heart of a milkweed stalk.
They are already significantly larger, and the stripes are more prominent.
I didn't see the third one, but I'm trying not to worry about it :/
I did find a new hatchling though, so there are still at least three, maybe four now. Some of the other eggs seem like they're not going to hatch and the leaves they were laid on are getting gross, so I took them out. Not all eggs that are laid are fertilized, so this is normal.
In the yard, I was amazed and surprised to see a lot of my milkweed leaves looking like this:
More caterpillars survived than I thought! I turned a leaf over and found these two, and decided to add them to my enclosure. Why not.
Looking over the plants, I found at least four more caterpillars and some eggs that could still hatch. Crazy. I'm so glad they survived after all! And also patting myself on the back for separating this project into hand-raised and wild-raised, so that the milkweed wouldn't be compromised. Also maybe this is why I wanted that extra milkweed plant. I stuck it in the ground and went back inside to eat dinner, practice steno, and go to bed early since all these caterpillar worries have me up at night :p
Sunday:
It was a little more chill at work. There was still a lot to do, but at least enough people showed up that the workload could be addressed. Apparently it was my day to be clumsy, because I cut my hand on a bottle cap and spilled scalding coffee over my hand. Sigh.
After work I managed to see Jameson for a few minutes (I tend to get home a little earlier on Sundays, lighter traffic) before he left for his gig. Since we're eating dinner separately this week I treated myself to Chinese takeout, something he avoids due to his Meniere's Disease.
After dinner I checked on the caterpillars and was surprised to find that they were all on one of the milkweed plants, and not the other. Uh oh. Suddenly I realized that the other milkweed plant was covered in brown dots. WTF! Google was not very helpful, but I think it's some type of spore or fungus. If the caterpillars won't eat it it doesn't matter what it is, it's got to go. I did keep the plant, but put it in the yard away from the rest of the milkweed to see what happens with it. Then I made an emergency run to Lowe's for a new plant.
Look, I know Lowe's is supposedly some evil corporation that sprays pesticides on everything and murders poor innocent butterflies, etc etc. That may be true. But it's also true that Lowe's agreed to stop using neonic pesticides by 2019. And they're the closest to my house with loads of milkweed. And the milkweed in my yard was bought from them, and I see caterpillars out there eating it. So I'm going to give them a chance. I bought a milkweed that I carefully inspected for signs of disease and hitchhiking predators, and when I got it home I rinsed it pretty roughly with the garden hose in an attempt to remove anything bad. This is the best I can do for now. I transferred four caterpillars onto the new plant (there are now NINE(?) crawling around) and will hope for the best. Steno, an hour of goofing off online, bed.
Monday:
There was an armadillo digging in the dirt outside my office, I couldn't resist sneaking up on him. He didn't seem to mind actually, so I got some great video of his doings.
Work felt normal for once. I came in to find that some angel had done a lot of tasks in the early hours, leaving me time to play catch-up with my own stuff. It was still busy enough that the day went by quickly. During lunch I was browsing a Raising Monarchs facebook group and someone metioned "giant milkweed". I was like...what??? Apparently it's milkweed that grows 10 feet tall and has huge leaves! I was like, wow, that's insane. People were saying, if you can find it in Florida, get it, it'll be a great supplemental feed because of the huge leaves. Out of curiosity I searched facebook marketplace. And someone was actually selling some! Eight bucks a pop!
The catch was that they're located in Lakeland, an hour and a half away from me.
OH WELL GUESS I'M DRIVING 1.5 HOURS AFTER WORK FOR AN $8 PLANT!
Yes, I'm absolutely insane. But come on. I can't eat out. I can't spend time with friends in person. I can't go to the gym. I can't travel.
Life is short, and so what if it's a long drive. So what if people think I'm crazy. I'm caring less and less about that lately.
I got the plant and met a really nice lady in the process, she was very knowledgeable about all kinds of plants.
The giant milkweed is absolutely massive, I can tell already. Right now it's only as tall as a young tropical milkweed, but it's way WAY thiccer with much larger leaves and will clearly get pretty big. Now I need to find a place to put it.
When I finally got home I checked on the caterpillars and had a small heart attack because I could only find five (wasn't it nine yesterday??). After searching exhaustively for nearly an hour and digging frantically through the plant dirt to hunt for potential predators, I gave up. Either they've hidden themselves well, or they were eaten by something. I still have five for sure, and two of those had molted. They're now in what's called the "second instar" and have some more prominent features.
I was supposed to do some chores before going to bed early tonight, but going to get the giant milkweed was unplanned and so was a panic-stricken hunt for caterpillars the size of an eyelash. I'm typing this up, then ACTUALLY going to bed, because tomorrow I have an internal job interview and I want to at least be able to form comprehensive thoughts.
So I leave you in suspense until part two.
How many caterpillars will survive?
Will Megan get a new job?
What other adventures await? Stay tuned!
On Friday:
Work sucked again. It was basically Tuesday Part Two. I couldn't get a damn thing done all morning because I kept having to handle stuff from last week. Someone in Scheduling was like, could you send that thing from the 21st again with different information? My boss was like, why did you delegate some of your tasks at the end of the day, did you wait until the last minute to do them? Then when I looked into that, there were emails I had written up on Tuesday but hadn't sent. There were captionists that I needed to have meetings with because they hadn't been there last week. And then for whatever reason people are calling in absent AGAIN, so AGAIN there was an impossible amount of stuff to do. I didn't even get started on my tasks for the actual day until after noon. So dumb.
Under all this was running an underlying current of worry about the monarch eggs. Did I close the lid too tight on that tupperware? Was it too moist in there, would mold grow? It was nearly 90F outside, would they cook in there?! I couldn't stop fretting over it.
Right after work I drove out to Lukas Butterfly Encounter, a plant nursery kind-of close to my work. I had hoped to be able to ask about monarch care, but on a Friday evening a week before Easter they were HOPPING and I didn't want to pester them with questions not involving purchases. Instead I found the milkweed and grabbed two that looked especially bushy but not especially tall. They were labeled "scarlet milkweed" so they're probably the tropical variety.
Back home Jameson had already left for his Epcot gig (woot, good for him!) so I ran out to see how the caterpillars were doing.
And this is what I found.
https://instagram.com/p/CM5nUo7sJVW
They're here. Already. OMG! Two of the six eggs had hatched.
I counted my lucky stars that I had bought a mesh enclosure immediately after deciding to raise monarchs. It had arrived in the mail and was sitting right there on the porch. I quickly set it up (it's just like a mesh laundry hamper only with a side zipper) and gave the milkweed a good rinsing. Lukas Nursery doesn't use pesticides, but you never know what's riding on plants. Plus the caterpillars can enjoy the water too.
I lined the bottom of the enclosure with paper towels to help catch any poop, put the plants inside, and gently set the caterpillars and remaining eggs on the plants. Now they have a safe, ventilated enclosure and two whole milkweed plants all to themselves. I won't have to worry about feeding them for a while, just checking on them every day to clean the enclosure and provide water. Supposedly they'll be ready to become butterflies in only a few weeks. Wild!
Newly hatched caterpillar with my index finger for scale.
The enclosure. These guys get a luxury suite.
Like an idiot, I joined a facebook group centered around raising monarchs and posted there to show my setup. It always amazes me what snooty prudes people are. Advice is always great, I love to hear from people who know what they're doing, but there are always those who just cannot scroll by without dropping a "you're doing it wrong" or "I'm doing it better". Didn't realize this was a competition, folks. I'm doing this because I give a damn and because it's fun, not for your pleasure. People are no fun. I can't wait to be a hermit.
Anyway, I finished my evening with a quick plant check and found one more caterpillar in the actual pollinator garden, which to me is a minor miracle. Few of the eggs seem to be left and they probably didn't hatch, but were eaten before getting that chance. I scooped up the lone survivor (there could have been more but I only saw one) and put him in the enclosure too. Why not? What if my other four eggs don't hatch? At least I've definitely got three, for now.
Saturday:
Another stressful workday, although less stressful overall because I managed to find my Give A Shit button and switch it OFF. I did what I could do. I'm sorry the workload is so crazy right now, but I can't make up for the fact that more than half the supervisors chose to unprofessionally call in absent this month because it's spring break and they couldn't get the vacation time they wanted. I put my stupid head down and did what I could do, and didn't stress about it. And that's how I'd like the rest of the week to go, too.
Of course I was worrying half the day about whether the caterpillars are all right. Today's big fear was whether I had accidentally sprayed my milkweed seedlings with spinosad at some point. It's something I would do...armyworm caterpillars piss me off so much that I spray like crazy whenever I do spray, sometimes not thinking about WHY I'm growing the milkweed, and how close it is to my vegetables. I definitely need to take more care with that from now on.
When I got out to my car to head home from work, this was on the windshield:
Good lord.
Look, I'm all about unions. I was in the musician's union, and it wasn't so bad. I've got a lot of thoughts about this, but the main one is, if employees can't be bothered to put a question mark at the end of a sentence while captioning, how TF do they figure they get to make demands? Also, do they realize we're partially funded by the FCC? What makes anyone think the FCC is going to be transparent with a high-turnover lot of teenagers? Finally, I want to say to them: you DO realize that our job right now is essentially to train an AI to replace us in a decade or less, right? smh. No, I will not be joining this "union".
On the way home I got a weird urge to buy another milkweed. Don't ask why, I've no idea. So I swung by Lowe's and got a nice-looking one before picking up dinner.
At the house I immediately wanted to see the caterpillars. After several minutes of desperately straining my eyes and worrying that they were dead somewhere in the dirt at the bottom of the plant, I finally found two of them. One was actively nomming on a leaf, the other was cuddled up among the new growth at the heart of a milkweed stalk.
https://instagram.com/p/CM8MSH1Mqf3
They are already significantly larger, and the stripes are more prominent.
I didn't see the third one, but I'm trying not to worry about it :/
I did find a new hatchling though, so there are still at least three, maybe four now. Some of the other eggs seem like they're not going to hatch and the leaves they were laid on are getting gross, so I took them out. Not all eggs that are laid are fertilized, so this is normal.
In the yard, I was amazed and surprised to see a lot of my milkweed leaves looking like this:
More caterpillars survived than I thought! I turned a leaf over and found these two, and decided to add them to my enclosure. Why not.
Looking over the plants, I found at least four more caterpillars and some eggs that could still hatch. Crazy. I'm so glad they survived after all! And also patting myself on the back for separating this project into hand-raised and wild-raised, so that the milkweed wouldn't be compromised. Also maybe this is why I wanted that extra milkweed plant. I stuck it in the ground and went back inside to eat dinner, practice steno, and go to bed early since all these caterpillar worries have me up at night :p
Sunday:
It was a little more chill at work. There was still a lot to do, but at least enough people showed up that the workload could be addressed. Apparently it was my day to be clumsy, because I cut my hand on a bottle cap and spilled scalding coffee over my hand. Sigh.
After work I managed to see Jameson for a few minutes (I tend to get home a little earlier on Sundays, lighter traffic) before he left for his gig. Since we're eating dinner separately this week I treated myself to Chinese takeout, something he avoids due to his Meniere's Disease.
After dinner I checked on the caterpillars and was surprised to find that they were all on one of the milkweed plants, and not the other. Uh oh. Suddenly I realized that the other milkweed plant was covered in brown dots. WTF! Google was not very helpful, but I think it's some type of spore or fungus. If the caterpillars won't eat it it doesn't matter what it is, it's got to go. I did keep the plant, but put it in the yard away from the rest of the milkweed to see what happens with it. Then I made an emergency run to Lowe's for a new plant.
Look, I know Lowe's is supposedly some evil corporation that sprays pesticides on everything and murders poor innocent butterflies, etc etc. That may be true. But it's also true that Lowe's agreed to stop using neonic pesticides by 2019. And they're the closest to my house with loads of milkweed. And the milkweed in my yard was bought from them, and I see caterpillars out there eating it. So I'm going to give them a chance. I bought a milkweed that I carefully inspected for signs of disease and hitchhiking predators, and when I got it home I rinsed it pretty roughly with the garden hose in an attempt to remove anything bad. This is the best I can do for now. I transferred four caterpillars onto the new plant (there are now NINE(?) crawling around) and will hope for the best. Steno, an hour of goofing off online, bed.
Monday:
There was an armadillo digging in the dirt outside my office, I couldn't resist sneaking up on him. He didn't seem to mind actually, so I got some great video of his doings.
https://instagram.com/p/CNAbPhlHAW8
Work felt normal for once. I came in to find that some angel had done a lot of tasks in the early hours, leaving me time to play catch-up with my own stuff. It was still busy enough that the day went by quickly. During lunch I was browsing a Raising Monarchs facebook group and someone metioned "giant milkweed". I was like...what??? Apparently it's milkweed that grows 10 feet tall and has huge leaves! I was like, wow, that's insane. People were saying, if you can find it in Florida, get it, it'll be a great supplemental feed because of the huge leaves. Out of curiosity I searched facebook marketplace. And someone was actually selling some! Eight bucks a pop!
The catch was that they're located in Lakeland, an hour and a half away from me.
OH WELL GUESS I'M DRIVING 1.5 HOURS AFTER WORK FOR AN $8 PLANT!
Yes, I'm absolutely insane. But come on. I can't eat out. I can't spend time with friends in person. I can't go to the gym. I can't travel.
Life is short, and so what if it's a long drive. So what if people think I'm crazy. I'm caring less and less about that lately.
I got the plant and met a really nice lady in the process, she was very knowledgeable about all kinds of plants.
The giant milkweed is absolutely massive, I can tell already. Right now it's only as tall as a young tropical milkweed, but it's way WAY thiccer with much larger leaves and will clearly get pretty big. Now I need to find a place to put it.
When I finally got home I checked on the caterpillars and had a small heart attack because I could only find five (wasn't it nine yesterday??). After searching exhaustively for nearly an hour and digging frantically through the plant dirt to hunt for potential predators, I gave up. Either they've hidden themselves well, or they were eaten by something. I still have five for sure, and two of those had molted. They're now in what's called the "second instar" and have some more prominent features.
I was supposed to do some chores before going to bed early tonight, but going to get the giant milkweed was unplanned and so was a panic-stricken hunt for caterpillars the size of an eyelash. I'm typing this up, then ACTUALLY going to bed, because tomorrow I have an internal job interview and I want to at least be able to form comprehensive thoughts.
So I leave you in suspense until part two.
How many caterpillars will survive?
Will Megan get a new job?
What other adventures await? Stay tuned!