Take A Good Look.

'Cause it's the last time I'm photographing & filming swallowtail butterflies in the cat house.

Look what happens when you wait too long to release a flitty giant swallowtail:

Yep, a tail fell off her wing while I kept her captive for video & pix. Didn't notice 'til after her release.

Still, upon release, she flew fast, high and free. I've seen many a swallowtail bfly in nature with missing 'tails', which led me to research the tails' purpose.

After poking through a surfboard site (surfer lingo is fun to read. Check this out -

"The swallow tail allows the tail to be wide but still hold well in the face of the wave. Swallowtails basically handle the same as a squaretail, but they look 'way' more ominous, the first one i saw was on Jeff Crawfords singlefin board in the mid seventies(as he was dropping in on me, the punk!), and I've liked them ever since!

Nothing more serious looking than a double wing swallow with 4 channels, but really they don't do anything a squaretail can't do on a 3-fin with the normal modern tail width(13.5"-14.") Now everybody wants a 'wider thruster' called a Fish, and they just kind of go hand in hand with a swallow/dove tail for appearance sake, anyways!")

Then I made my way to an actual bfly site. Seems the 'tails' are designed to disengage in case birds or lizards grab at them. Much like a lizard tail when your house cat grabs at 'em. Eh, felt a little better about her broken tail. Not much though.

And I really must explain how exciting this emergence was.

She had pupated for WEEKS, thought she'd never come out. Then Mother's Day rolled around, we happened to have mom to our place for the day, and YES, the butterfly emerged!

So, enjoy the following photos, check out the Mom's Day video Butterfly Confessions Also Facebook Page, and know all turned out well. Mom's Day good karma made sure she flew beautifully, even without her little tail.

Click Link to BCA Facebook - Mom's Day Video:

http://www.facebook.com/mobileprotection#!/photo.php?v=4094528245916

Surfer lingo credit:

http://www2.swaylocks.com/node/1003424

Names Galore.

Butterfly names may come easily; a thought while tending cats or pupae (such a good model for the camera... 'Calvin' it is), or gleaned from an on-looker's comment ("Looks like bugs." Bugs, cute, hm, Bugs and Bunny... and  "Honey! There's a chrysalis out here that looks like green glass!" Then Honey she shall be.)

Then there are times when names have escaped me, and Confessions Readers have stepped in.  There was Absalom ("if he were blue..."), an orange-barred sulphur; and Lucretia, a monarch that pupated on a garden gargoyle.

Then there's name overload. Nothing sticks, nothing goes away, and I end up with a list that speaks to me on all fronts.

That's who went nameless the past couple of weeks - two bfly pupae-cup purchases from Butterfly World - swallowtails - a tiger and a spicebush.

Spicebush

Tiger

Names... names... names...

Doodle and Bug? (my mother's gift to her dear high-school friend, a spirit-lifting Build-a-Bear named Doodlebug.)

Jonathon and Jennifer? (remember the Harts? Season One and Season Two have been on permanent 'play' at my house lately.)

Flo and Machine? (from Florence + The Machine. Can't get their latest album Ceremonials out of my head.)

The obvious Tiger and Spice, or perhaps Sugar and Spice?

Meanwhile, the tiger has emerged - full, healthy,  and prettily posing for pictures.

Ever seen Dances With Wolves? Remember when the visiting Sioux eyeball Kevin Costner's romp in the field with his pet wolf? That's when Dances With Wolves was born; it's a name bestowed upon you when a spiritual someone, like a noble Sioux, observes your spiritual self.

So, summon your spiritual self, and name this tiger beauty whatever comes to mind, for you, to keep secret or to share.

(Volume up.)

Note: The spicebush emerged as of this writing. See his flittery self on Facebook - Butterfly Confessions Also.

Garden Flame.

Of today's purchases, I know not which brought more joy.

The pupae tucked in cups?

The puff of cassia bush?

The pentas times-two with buds like a spring promise?

Or was it the Mexican flame vine? A first-timer in the garden, this vine is a sturdy climber with intense, orange flowers, like daisies on fire. Butterflies love it, too, like moths to a bright-orange flame.

 

 

For years, I've eyeballed this vine, passing it over for  bushier bloomers, or other  climbers that caterpillars like to eat, like maypop and pipevine. So, this year, it has a home and an invitation to climb the lighthouse weathervane. With its addition, three varieties of vine will play backdrop to the garden.

And its bright orange hue complements the yellow flowers of the cassia and groundcover, and the red of the pentas. It'll be like a desert sunset in a scape of greens and browns.

All the day's planting made me hungry. How 'bout some guacamole with cilantro, diced onion and a squeeze of key lime... and a pork tenderloin with black beans and mango salsa... and sangria with apples, oranges, and lemons soaked in brandy... served on the back porch while the sun sets over the garden.

Like us on Facebook - Butterfly Confessions Also.

Gloom.

I suspect the threat of a South Florida freeze has passed. But this weather, this weather. It's gloomy and putting me in no mood to buy plants for the garden just yet.

And I like gloom.

I embrace gloom.

I have gargoyles in my butterfly garden. I buy red roses for my house on Poe's birthday. I read his poetry every October to honor his death day.

I make road trips to old houses, I visit cemeteries on vacation, and this weekend, I'm driving three hours to see The Woman in Black in the perfect company of a woman once described as "more goth than most goths."

So why is it I need sun to put me in the mood to garden? It's actually better to garden on a gloomy day. It's cooler and there's a chance for rain to water the newly planted.  It's just that...on gloomy days...there aren't any buuutttttterfliiiiiies (read that as whiny as you possibly can.) When I finally bring home some fresh old-fashioned pentas and milkweed, a cassia, a maypop, and a flame-vine, I want bflies to descend immediately like they did on sunny days past that I brought home new plants. That's enough to brighten even the gloomiest day.

                        

Swingin' Swingles.

Meet Citrus aurantifolia Swingle, a.k.a. the  key lime tree. I googled 'swingle.'  Before I go on, why include this tree in my BCA blog, purchased and planted  sometime between last July and the present-day? I'd narrow down the time-frame, but I've forgotten when we bought this fragrant fellow. Key lime trees attract giant swallowtail butterflies. Not GIANT swallowtail bflies (though they are large on the bfly scale), but giant swallowtails, as in, that's their name, like gulf fritillary or zebra longwing or spicebush swallowtail. So, our key lime tree is as much a part of the garden as the pentas and pipevine.

So. A latin name that includes 'Swingle.' So far in my search, swingle is a Colorado landscaping company, a Colorado woman duped out of a monetary donation by a co-worker's false cancer claim, a New Jersey councilman, a 1920's jazz musician from Alabama, a key-lime-pie-on-a stick dipped in chocolate, and a wooden tool for scraping and beating flax and/or hemp.

I added 'botanist' to 'swingle' and found William Tennyson Swingle. And, yes, the man, an American,  had done extensive world-wide citrus research since the early 1900s. He was possessed to collect botanical literature, including 100,000 volumes from China, which you may view in our country's Library of Congress. I'd rather see Eleanor Glanville's collection of dead bflies in England's Museum of Natural History, but that's just me.

So. Though I've not found explicit explanation, the 'swingle' in Citrus aurantifolia Swingle is most likely Mr. William Tennyson Swingle.

Wonder if he's any relation to Lord Alfred...

_______________________________________________________________________________

Those choco-dipped swingles really looked good. Check 'em out here: http://stevesauthentic.com/wpnew/?page_id=23

Fascinated by Mr. W.T. Swingle? Cuz I know you are. Here: http://www.multilingualarchive.com/ma/dewiki/en/Walter_Tennyson_Swingle

The Garden That I Forgot.

By this January, the garden had overgrown so badly that the statuary was hidden by groundcover and the cassia tree overtaken by pipevine. The maypop was nearly dead, one scraggly bit of it hiding under the sprawling dill. It was overwhelming to go out there again. I couldn't fathom where to begin, so I began where someone else might benefit most from a neglected bfly garden clean-up.

That someone was the lawn guy. He surely had to work his way round the gone-to-seed, skeleton of the cassia tree that poked far out over the brick surround. All of it had to come out. It was brittle and leafless, the seed pods like withered alien fingers. One of my favorite photographs for the blog came from that tree. It was like breaking up a... , well, it was like breaking up. I loved it, then I neglected it, then it died, and now I'm cleaning it out. Sometimes it's worth saving, but not in this case. And once it was gone, everything around it could breathe again. Cuz it was a big tree (I am talking about the tree, really.) A tree truly too big for the garden.

Once it was gone, the swamp redbay fluffed up with the fresh air and the angel statue had room to stand again. The pipevine might feel disappointment - it lost a few of its massive tendrils twirled all up and in the cassia. But apparently it thrives on overtaking another life and survived beautifully through all my neglect of the garden.

Next to go, the groundcover. Healthy, blooming, choking, had to go. It was supposed to grow around the bare patches of the garden, filling in the voids between other bloom-ers. It would have worked, too, if I'd kept it in check. But in the months I let it go, it devoured the gargoyles, the solar lighting and my welcome-to-the garden stone. It filled in my spot for milkweed, so I completely missed out on this past fall's monarch migration. By that October, I was completely disassociated from the garden, my camera, and my blog. Butterflies held little meaning anymore, and life went on. Without them. And they went on without me, too. At some point, I'm not sure when, butterflies quit visiting the garden. I figured whenever I got out there again, maybe I'd plant something else, herbs or a simple flower bed, or just let the lawn grow back in again.

Nine years. Nine years I've had a bfly garden in my backyard, and somehow, someway, I was seriously thinking about giving it up. Easy to think that way when I wasn't out there tending it. Then, I went out there. No, not just like that, though the explanation is rather simple. A friend of mine turned me on to what equalled HOURS of new music, and I piled every last ounce of it onto my iPod. Well, I needed something to do while I listened to it, something more than the usual walk or work-out whenever I got new tunes. So, I figured I'd  listen to my new music stash and take on the garden.

Four hours I was out there. Four hours of clipping, digging, trimming, breaking limbs and wondering what song was coming up next. It's like the garden has its own soundtrack now. Then, lo and behold, I dusted off my camera and set up the tripod in the yard. The photographs scattered around here show the fruits of my work.

And, no, I'm not getting rid of the garden. Any thought of that evaporated the second a black-and-yellow polydamas swallowtail timidly brushed the newly freed-up pipevine. Then a zebra longwing stopped in, looking for maypop that wasn't there, and conjuring up my desire for maypop so intensely that I won't sleep tonight. 

I want new plants, too. But not 'til late February or so, when the threat of freeze has passed. But I'll be out there again, oh, yes, I'll be out there.