Anniversaries and Backyard Business

Two early September anniversaries warranted a quick trip to the stamp cave a couple of weeks ago, but since the anniversaries had yet to happened I've held back on posting these.  One of the couples was leaving on a two-week trip to Hawaii and I wanted them to have it before they left.  The other couple has moved out of state and I wanted to make sure that they got it in time.  So for once, it wasn't exactly last minute for me to put these together.  

I got my inspiration from a card I had seen on a Facebook group and put my own spin on it.  I was so glad that I rememberd that I had the butterfly embosslits which gave me a collection of different sized butterflies to add to the card front.  They're in wedding white.  

HWNSNBP called me to the backdoor the other day and told me to bring my camera.  He came across this bright green caterpillar on the walkway on its way somewhere.  I grabbed a container to corral it so I could look it up and found out that it is a Luna Moth caterpillar.  I thought that I would offer it to anyone in our community that had a butterfly tent that might want to raise it, but before I got any responses it started to spin it's cocoon in the container.  I didn't get any takers on my offer so now I have this cocoon in a potato salad container in the kitchen.  The question now is whether this cocoon will go through its metamorphosis or enter diapause?  Yeah, I had to look that up.  Not to be confused with hibernation which is what animals do in winter, insects enter a state of diapause which is a delay in the development of the next stage under environmental challenges (weather).  

I dampen a paper towel in the evening and hang it over the side of the container and just place the lid over that without closing the container up.  The towel is dampened to help keep moisture in there so the cocoon doesn't dry up.  In 2-3 weeks we should have a luna moth.  If it takes longer than that it's either dead or in diapause.  And when it does emerge, it will only live for 4-7 days.  Luna moths do not have mouthparts and do not eat - their sole purpose to reproduce.

My swallowtail caterpillars have devoured the parsley and there are about 6 chrysalis' that I have been able to find in our make-shift butterfly nursery.  We'll have to see if they will hatch also.  

So for my word loving friends out there here something more for you that I found in my investigating.  Torpor involves physiological changes related especially to body temp, metabolism, and water balance. Hibernation takes place during the winter and is a long-term multiday torpor. Estivation (or Aestivation) takes place during the summer and is a prolonged torpor during a hot or dry period.  And Stasis is a period of inactivity.   Not that any of that was necessary to know, but we're never too old to learn something, right?