Love Is Like A Monarch Butterfly

I have a kitchen full of butterflies at the moment. The monarch grubs that I raised on pumpkin after they decimated my three large swan plants have all morphed into chrysalis, some more successfully than others (the casualties shrivel up after the first couple of days). Over the past week these have begun to hatch out into beautiful gaudy monarchs, tame enough that I can let them crawl onto my fingers.


Someone told me last week that the DNA of the caterpillar is completely different to the DNA of the butterfly that emerges from the chrysalis making the whole process even more surreal. I have watched as these greedy little grubs in their colourful striped footie jerseys ate themselves into a stupor before heading northwards to sit in a trance for a couple of days before they shot silk out of their backside, hung in a half hearted J and shed their skins, turning into a hard green shell decorated with golden dots. For a couple of weeks they remained like that before a touch of black at the top of the chrysalis announced something amazing was going on inside. Within a couple of days the whole thing would turn black and orange and suddenly a butterfly would emerge so quickly that it was hard to catch them in the act.


Their wings all crumpled at first they hang from their broken home with a huge body that gradually shrinks as fluid is pumped into their wings making them unfurl in glorious technicolour. At this point I usually leave them a few hours before popping them onto a plant in the sun to dry out a bit further before they take off into the sky and flutter off into the distance. So far I have watched this happen 16 times and each time it seems just as incredible.

The Mean Cat From Next Door

World War III broke out here an hour ago when next door's mean cat paid a visit. This grey and white bully lives across the paddock in the farm worker's cottage but apparently this is a part time arrangement as every few days she walks a few hundred metres to the shearer's quarters where she spends a few nights with her owner's brother before returning and beginning the whole process over again. She usually take a short cut through my garden and this morning I heard a thump and some serious growling before I saw her sitting calmly on the front path with her ears flattened, standing on tippy toes glaring at Kit who was crouched on the front door step. I let Kit inside and yelled at Mishka to wake up. It took him a while to get his bearings and then realising he was on duty he strutted outside to sort the situation. However the cat went back up enpointe and growled at him so he turned tail and shuffled back inside.

By this time Demelza was in the loop and she sat by the armchair looking out the dining room window with her fur on end ala Adam Lambert. Kit (not a light weight in any shape manner or form) was walking around wailing. I opened the door and did the shoo thing but the cat just growled at me as well. She even let me take her photo to record her vistory. However I discovered her nemesis in the form of Mr Water Jug and hopefully by now she's back on the road to or from home. Now I'm left with three cats on duty in various windows while the dog has calmly gone back to sleep content in the knowledge that he saved the day...

Fowl News

A flock of Daffies, Donalds and Jemima Puddleducks have been living on one of the back paddocks the past few weeks. The noise of their arguments and chatter intersperse occasional bursts into flight when they take off and do a circuit before landing back down where they started. There surely is a fair amount of gossip going on and I am sure there are some interesting relationships too. When they fly overhead you can imagine what these are by the formations: two ducks are a devoted old married couple, three ducks are a threesome and a group of them are the swingers of the flock.


Gine leaves her babies at night to roost with the rest of the bantams in "the big house". Of her eight chicks five have survived, one male being taken by a rooster and the two white pullets having committed heni kari. Sarah is still taking care of her two offspring although they're nearly three months old. If she were human she'd be the sort of mother who is happy to have her kids living with her when they were in their fifties. Of these Twizel I am still undecided to as whether is a male or female. In the meantime the rest of the fowls are on strike and refusing to lay eggs while they have their annual moult. Threatening them with the pot has no effect as they already know I'm a vegetarian.