Just learned about this great site showing many cool facts about Monarchs. The reason I especially like it is because it teaches you how to sex your chrysalides!

http://www.butterflyfunfacts.com/monarch.php

The season is just beginning for me. Monarchs are beginning to fly in and one today was especially stubborn. My milkweed plants can’t be more than 3″ tall, and she was depositing a gazillion eggs on them. She’s nuts.  They’ll be way too easy to spot and eat. And there’s no way I can bring them in and save them either. What would I feed them? No way will there be en0ugh.

Anyhoo, my yard is beginning to be my favorite place again, thanks to another flying insect. Sphinx moth! Man oh man, do I fall in love every time I see them. Here’s me twitterpated. She let me get within 8″ at one point. I could hear the wings beating like paper pages flipping. My husband’s camera too a pic at 2000/sec and the wings were still blurry. Amazing.

The first quarter of 2012 has been busy. I have a few new designs under development, soon to be shown off. I even made some private work for a nature center in California. Chrysalis replicas, of course.

Anyhoo, I am getting more disciplined with myself like I always do this time of year (must be doing all those taxes that awakens my anal side of brain), so I intend to get some new work out for everyone to see and some pics up of my other huge project. My garden! This year is going to be crazytown. We’re hacking away at our sod, making way for an insane amount of flowers and fruit. Love. So just know, any orders you send my way are going to a good cause: my butterflies in my own yard and the flowers they love to drink from.

And now for something completely different.

Gingerbread houses, or more accurately lazy mom graham cracker houses. I wanted to post my house here so it might show up in a search some day for some future mom looking for those great tips. I found some good ones online, but we always can use more, right?

How to get rid of all leftover Halloween and parade candy before the New Year, aka the Gingerbread House.

I got the upside down ice cream cone idea online, but the Tootsie Roll fence was all mine! Oh man, did we get slammed with Tootsie Rolls this year.

I did make a Royal Icing frosting, but also had a few cans of store bought cake frosting. It worked pretty well except it takes much longer to harden up. And my stuff wasn’t as white as Royal Icing. My 5 years olds loved piping the frosting onto their houses. Moms, if you are considering doing this, all I can say is they worked on their houses for FIVE HOURS. That, my friends, is a big deal in Momland. Totally worth the mess, chaos, and expense. And we ate none of it once it hit the houses. They nibbled while building and then eventually we threw it all the extra away. My hips have thanked me threefold.

Lemme see, other tips.

Translucent candies at the rooftop look stunning in the sun, like stained glass.

Jelly beans with speckles make adorable stones.

Patterns are the key to creating cohesion out of chaos.

Seth and Sean's creations. It's true beauty is seen at about 3 inches away, where their faces were.

Hi. Christmas is in full gear now. Please rest assured if you order, I will move mountains to get your order to you in time. That said, the cut off date for Christmas delivery via $5.00 Priority Mail is Dec 16th. After that, it’s risky. Any orders placed on the 19, 20, or 21 can still get to you in time if you paid for overnight shipping, which usually runs $20.00.

And now for the custom. I had so much fun working with precious metal clay, PMC, again. I love having control over the form of the bail instead of having only mass produced choices.

And finally, a record of my mad mom skilz, aka, I’m nuts. I give you the Turkey Fruit Gobbler (idea from Family Fun):

It was only less than 2 weeks ago we all had shorts on and were enjoying the wasp diving, but now the windows are shut, the milkweed seeds have mostly flown, thanks to my kids’ help, and the woodstove burns.
This weekend I plan to clean up the last of the garden. Maybe plant some spinach?
So if you’re missing the Monarchs, you’re not alone.

The caterpillars are fat and hungry. One has already hatched successfully.

They made me make a noodle house.

Cats as in caterpillars. I can’t believe how brutal this year has been. The only things I find on my milkweed are predators searching for baby caterpillars. I saved one that couldn’t have been older than a day or so right before it was eaten by a spider. Literally. I was about to leave town, so I put it in a jar with some leaves and hoped for the best. I found another cat a little older and threw it in too. Thankfully they are both alive and well and plumping up. If you have ever thought about growing Monarch caterpillars but are on the fence, please do it! This year is the worst I’ve seen since I started getting into it.
There are also these parasites they burrow into the chrysalis itself. Last year I lost a few chrysalis and because of what I do, I saved them in a little container that happened to have a glass lid. (It’s so nice to see a real one when I get a February order) One day I was torching and some motion caught my eye. Nasty, disgusting bugs were coming out of the dessicated chrysalis. They fly. That’s how they got in. I had opened my screened caterpillar cage to let a newly hatched butterfly leave when it was ready. They flew in and killed my other chrysalides.
Gah.

There was a Monarch flying by my milkweed today-I think this is going to be the year I harvest the eggs and hatch them in captivity. I had a wonderful customer tell me her foolproof method. When I find it, I will post it here.

On to potato salad. I know people who a good bloggers take a pic of their food. I am not a good blogger. I have s*&^ to do. But this so good-my blue heirloom potatoes were ready for harvest and the green beans have finally arrived.

Blue Cheese Potato Salad

-bunch of cooked then cooled cubed potatoes, salted
-maybe a 1/3 c olive oil give or take
-2 TBSP (?) of red wine vinegar-the best brand is Mantova
You can see I’m not much for measuring…
-a squirt of yellow mustard
Whisk ingredients with a fork. It’s essentially just a vinagrette. Pour over potatoes. Add a bunch of bite sized green beans and about 1/4-1/3 c crumbled blue cheese, preferably something with roquefortii enzymes. I love Mindoro brand=Bliss. Stir and serve. Oh, scallions are a nice touch, but one can really overdo them, so hold back.

Oh Monarch, why did you have to have magical gold dots on you? Didn’t you know that I would fall in love with your form and replicate you and then humans would speculate on gold prices to an absurd amount and make me scream? Didn’t you?

When I started making chrysalis, 24k gold was $400.00/oz. Now it’s over $1500.00 and climbing. I can’t even use a less expensive 22k. Only the cleanest/highest quality will bond with the glass. It’s really something.
Its still cool with me in terms of making chrysalis. I mean, I still love making them and people still love having them. Unfortunately, I’ve had to completely stop my wholesale end of things. When means less people will find and be able to get my pieces. And I no longer get to interact with some really great clients.
Well, what can we do? Wait for the bubble to pop, I suppose. And hope it pops BIG.

Inside the depths of winter here. Last year Feb/March I made a whole new shiny website. Maybe this year I will find time to make the links all work. Oooooooo.
I doubt it. I’d rather be torching or attempting another Quixote-esque garden. Every Spring visions of grandeur fill my mind. I start off GREAT with a killer batch of spinach, peas, and maybe some broccoli, then the rains stop and the weeds explode. It’s pretty much done at that point. Thank goodness milkweed grows itself. Whew.