a work in progress

I have the most wonderful group of people I work with in the new location and I've been fortunate enough to create friendships with many of them. You never know when you take a new job and move as to how things will work out.

So far, so good.

Two people in particular have been wonderful to me and I've been lucky enough to develop a friendship. One was recently in China and even brought Magpie home some books with him. That's pretty cool.

But today's post almost didn't get written, it's not about books, but about 'bugs'. The flying kind, the pretty kind, but to get there, they all start as caterpillars. One of the two of them has recently started a website with photography from the Quiet Corner of CT, which is actually the northeast corner of CT, it's the geographic term for it in the state tourism literature. He is, thus, a nature lover, of all sorts of creatures. He and my other colleague have introduced us to critter cameras, local flora and creatures great and small.

It's butterfly season and they've introduced us to this too. The 2 of them have given me on 3 separate occasions the caterpillars that turn into Black Swallowtail Butterflies. The reason this post almost wasn't?

My angst is over the fact that I 'lost' all 3 of those caterpillars. finding food for them was hard enough (surprisingly it's parsley, not the crap in the grocery store either I found out), keeping them alive... much harder.

The first one made grew and grew and grew, note the first picture. That's it just about ready to head into a cocoon, he was big... until he escaped that is. I searched the driveway by the makeshift cage when we got home from the drive in... I found him several days later as when it escaped it got caught under a bag of rocks...

The second one, he committed Hari Kari, literally, found him belly up in the plant, this is about the time my motherhood complex kicked into high gear. Damn Caterpillars gave me a freaking complex.

The third one... when we got home from a day trip somewhere... he had escaped. I like to think that one made it.

The problem is, that caterpillars, when they go to the cocoon phase really really want to be far from their feeding grounds... hence the escape act. After the 3rd Black Swallowtail, I gave up, but it was quite the joke at work that I was unable to care for the butterflies. I took it in stride as you sort of have to laugh at it... it even went so far as people swearing not to tell the Chinese about my 'issue' with killing butterflies.

I was granted my 4th, 5th and 6th attempt last week when both showed up on the same day with a total of 3 more caterpillars, this time Monarchs. Not quite as stunning as the Black Swallowtail, but still, I was filled with hope. One was ready to head into a cocoon, I'm sure it was 'held in safe keeping' someplace and given just in the nick of time to me as it's the one hanging (literally) by a thread, though this was a new development this morning so he did survive the weekend :)

The other 2 were MUCH smaller when given to me, about the lengthy of a pinkie nail, and thin like a couple of pins lined up together. Now they are the diameter of a narrow straw and double the length, (the pictures are deceiving, they are about 1/4 the size of the large one) it's awesome seeing them grow.... time will tell how far the 3 of them get.

So what does this have to do with Magpie and adoption... it's a stretch but with the luck we've had with parenthood, it sure would be freaking great to be able to nurture something to life... yes, part of me is laughing, I said part, not all!

Hopefully more pictures to come.