Handsome's Gift...

Although I'm able to walk along once in a while, most days Handsome takes the dogs out first thing without me - especially since my surgery. (Takes me a little longer to get going right now.) 

Yesterday morning, he called up the stairs to tell me I needed to come downstairs, as he "had something for me". I walked down to see his cupped, outstretched hands. (Does that make anyone else nervous?) I did a quick inventory of anything that might freak me out to have dropped in my hands and simply asked, "Is it alive?", to which he responded, "Yes.".

I put out my open hands and he dropped this monarch into my palms. The poor thing had one completely crumpled wing. I asked where he found the butterfly and was told that it was struggling in the grass in our backyard. 

The first thing I did was sent a text message to our younger daughter-in-law because she's raised them from the chrysalis to caterpillar to butterfly stage in years past for our granddaughters to watch, and I thought she might have some advise for how to help it.

The second thing I did was an online on "how to care for a monarch with a crumpled wing". What I learned is that there is really no way to help them, and that offering them the comfort of sugar water and/or flowers would give them some nourishment as they faced the inevitable.

I picked a couple of my marigolds from the garden, some honeysuckle that the bees are currently enjoying, a few dandelions and clover I found in the yard, and a few other wildflowers, along with a saucer of sugar water (same proportions as what I feed the hummingbirds), and placed the butterfly in my raised garden stock tank under the squash plants. My idea was that the cats wouldn't stumble across it there and hurry its demise.

When I went out later to check on it, I saw that it was trying to reach the topmost leaves of the squash plant, moving toward the sunlight. I left it there for the moment and went inside to think.

I don't know whether or not this is a male or female. I know there are ways to determine that according to some of the markings, but as I said, I wasn't sure. Even so, it occurred to me that perhaps this was a female whose creative imperative was driving it to lay eggs before it passed. As milkweed is the caterpillar's only food source, laying her eggs on a squash leaf would sentence the eggs to her same fate. (If it is indeed a female.)

 

Having thought my way through that possibility, I decided that the best place for this monarch to live out the rest of its time would be on a milkweed plant, and thankfully, they're abundant right here at Hickory Hill Farm. We've watched monarchs emerge over the summers we've lived here, and perhaps this butterfly would contribute to the next generation.

Either way, their chosen plant should be its last resting place, so I put out my open hand and the monarch climbed into my palm. I walked to the place where the milkweed gets the last of the sunlight before the sun drops below the hillside behind our farmhouse, and placed my hand next  to one of the top leaves of a still strong and upright plant. The monarch immediately walked off my hand to the leaf. I took this photograph and then watched as it opened and closed its wings as if to say, "thank you". 

Soon, I'll go back outside to see whether or not this handicapped beauty is still alive. It's its not, but still there, I'll bring it inside to place with my embroidered butterfly. I've decided though, that my next big project will be to pull out the silk threads my RSN tutor, Owen helped me choose when I was in Kentucky to take his butterfly class. Together we chose silks so I could stitch a monarch. When I stitch it, it will be a tribute to Owen and this butterfly - who both touched my heart and are no longer with us.