Summer Plans

School's been out for a few weeks now and my family is settling into a summer routine. The end of the school year was extra chaotic as I had to pack up all of my belongings and resources from both of my schools and haul it home until I can move into the art room at my new school. My garage is at capacity with all the "stuff" from two classrooms and everything that was in my art room at home while we wait for the necessary furniture to finish the remodel.

I don't know how typical this is for other people, but sometimes it's hard for me to relax as soon as something is over. I think it's just part of me being a Highly Sensitive Person. So for me, it's not like walking out of school singing along with Alice Cooper and leaving it all behind. This year was a little harder to transition into summer with leaving behind two schools I've loved and lots of work friends whom I will miss, but I'm glad Facebook will help me keep in touch with them and their families. I came home after the last day of school and started painting that night. It was my little art therapy session and after I worked maniacally to finish it, I felt a lot better! I only wish I'd been able to get to my watercolors in the garage. I really enjoy watercolors, acrylic, and oils, but I would have preferred watercolors for the translucent poppy petals.

So now, my summer plans...

Curriculum- I decided not to take a graduate course this summer so that I can focus on preparing for my new gig. I've spent the last 6 years teaching about 800 K-6th grade students a year and will be moving to a much smaller school district where I will have PreK-12th grade, but less than half the students. Most of my day will be spent with high school- 5 high school classes a day, 1 middle school (7th grade one semester and 8th grade the other), and 1 elementary class a day. I took notes on what the previous art teacher covered so I'm kind of working on a transition with what she's covered, what I want to cover, and what the new Core Arts Standards include as my state is working on adopting those.
Be an artist- I also plan to keep working on my own art and doing some small photography and design jobs. My husband works nights so on the nights he works, after I get my kids to bed I spend a couple hours working on something. Sometimes I go paint, sometimes I put something on Netflix and work on my computer. I've also designed a mural which will be painted on the practice board at the tennis courts in my hometown in the next few weeks. That will be done in the mornings before it get too hot and humid!
READ!- I love to read. In the school year I don't usually allow myself to read a physical book because I get kind of obsessed and want to read instead of doing things I really need to be doing. I've listened to a few audio books while working and read a few hardbacks so far. I have a couple of academic books I want to try to read and take notes on to start working on research I may use for my final semester of graduate school including Classroom (Jaquith & Hathaway, 2012) and Engaging Learners through Artmaking (Douglas & Jaquith, 2009).
Garden- I'm excited to watch the progress of my butterfly garden and the vegetables in my raised beds. This is just the second year I've grown food and though the excessive rain fall has made this not a typical year, I still keep learning things I should do differently next year. The trick will be to remember it...
Family time- Most importantly, spend time with my awesome family. They are one of the biggest reasons I applied for my new job. I will end up with almost 2 extra hours at home during the school year. Though nobody ever said that taking care of 2 kids was easy, it's pretty great to have the opportunity to be a stay at home mom 2 months out of the year.

Raising Butterflies

Black Swallowtail butterfly laying eggs on fennel.

One of my favorite things about summer is butterflies! The first summer we were in our house, my landscaping priority was to create a butterfly garden. It's pretty simple to do- pick a few species you'd like to attract and provide nectar plants for the adults and host plants for the caterpillars. Most caterpillars can only survive on certain plants. The two species I decided to focus on because I think they are the easiest to attract, are Black Swallowtail and Monarch butterflies.

This post is mainly about black swallowtails because it's too early for peak monarch season, but let me talk briefly about monarch butterflies anyway. Monarch butterflies need our help! Monarch populations have been declining in recent years for many reasons, most notably loss of habitat. Monarch caterpillars depend on milkweeds for survival as they are the only host plant. Milkweed has a bad rap, I grew up with my grandpas telling me not to spread the seeds because it was just a weed. Now we know how important milkweed is for monarchs and other pollinators. If you have a garden, consider adding some milkweed. You'd be helping to support monarchs and their awesome migration (they fly south to Mexico every fall) which is at risk. If you want to learn more about it, check out Monarch Watch, a great educational site that even has information about free milkweed for schools and organizations. 

Click here for a Monarch lesson from a few years back.

Rethink weeds: Butterfly weed is a milkweed with beautiful flowers that will also host monarch caterpillars.

I've already had a bunch of black swallowtails. Host plants for black swallowtail butterflies include fennel, parsley, dill, and carrots. I started with parsley and dill but now that I have fennel, it seems to be the favorite. Some good choices for easy to grow nectar plants are coneflowers, black-eyed susans, sunflowers, cosmos, and zinnias.

Several stages of the Black Swallowtail caterpillar starting with an egg on the left and ending with a chrysalis on the right.

Black swallowtail caterpillars are really fun to watch because they go through so many changes. Black swallowtail caterpillars have 5 instars, or stages they go through when they shed skin they have outgrown and take on a new appearance. I've been trying to get a photo with a caterpillar at each instar and always seem to be missing one. Above is a sample of all the different stages I had a couple days ago. The two in the middle are in the same instar but the one on the right is a day or two older. On the far right is a chrysalis hanging on a twig. Black swallowtail can pupate into a bright green or a brown chrysalis. Some say it depends on their setting, they may turn the color most likely to camouflage them, but I've had both colors in the exact same setting.

Black Swallowtail caterpillar eggs

I started paying attention to my fennel and found my first caterpillar egg this year! Since then I've seen females laying eggs (see first photo) and have found several more to bring inside. I found 9 eggs alone this morning just perched on the edge of the fennel. Whenever I try to get a photo of eggs on the fennel outside, it ends up being too windy, so here is a picture taken in my small enclosure inside.

Black Swallowtail caterpillar stretching to enjoy some fennel.

I've brought a few caterpillars inside each year, but never as many as this year! My oldest son is old enough now, 3 1/2, to really appreciate what's going on. He checks on the caterpillars and talks to them all the time. This is a GREAT early science experience. He's been able to see every stage of the butterfly life cycle and can even tell you about the "chrysalis".

Let me tell you something REALLY cool about black swallowtail caterpillars. See that orange blob in the picture? It's called an osmeterium and the caterpillars push it out when they feel threatened. It also releases a scent. I don't think it smells bad, it's just noticeable. You can also see that the caterpillar above has just shed it's skin from the 4th instar (on the stick behind it) and is in the last stage before pupation.

Close up of Black Swallowtail Butterfly wing.

I've always just rigged something up to keep a couple caterpillars in, but this year I wanted to find something larger so I could raise more caterpillars. My grandpa had an old fish tank in his barn so my kind mother cleaned it up for me and it's currently housing my larger caterpillars, including one getting ready to pupate. It will be nice so that the butterflies have a bit more room to move around if I don't happen to be home to release them as soon as they emerge. Did you know that when a butterfly comes out of his/her chrysalis it has "eclosed"? I just learned that word. :)

After some time has passed (usually around 2 weeks) the chrysalis will turn black and you know that the butterfly will eclose soon. When the butterflies emerge, they hang around for a while, pumping fluid into their wings and letting them dry out. Once the wings are totally dry, it is safe to release the butterfly. I let this one go after my kids went to bed because I was afraid of waiting until morning, not having my larger enclosure yet. If a butterfly starts getting agitated and trying to fly away but it's not a good time- bad weather, etc., you can keep them in the dark and they usually chill out.

A Black Swallowtail butterfly at the top of a twig that also holds a chrysalis 

To finish off this post, I'd like to share my Top 5 Reasons to Raise Caterpillars, followed by a plea.

Top 5 Reasons to Raise Caterpillars

1. Get your kids excited about science.
2. Observe a miracle of nature.
3. Photo Opps!
4. Support pollinators. (butterfly gardens will also support bees and other pollinators)
5. "Teaching a child not to step on a caterpillar is as valuable to the child as it is to the caterpillar." -Bradley Miller

And now the plea. If you do find a caterpillar and decide to raise it, PLEASE identify it and make sure that you have the correct host plant. You can't get away with just throwing some random leaves in a jar with it and hoping it will make it. Your kids would be really disappointed to wake up to a dead caterpillar. Don't know what kind of caterpillar you have? Check out this FREE Caterpillar Identification Tool from Discover Life!