My First Instar!



Photo showing the five monarch instars.



Maybe this won't seem like a big deal to you but it's a big deal to me. On Saturday I took a class on monitoring monarch larvae. I learned quite a bit.  I learned how to identify the eggs, the five larvae stages, the pupae (snicker) and the difference between the male and female monarchs.  I took that knowledge and created a monarch monitoring site on my property.  I counted 20 milkweed plants.  On one plant I found a single monarch egg.  The tiny cream colored egg was so small I couldn't even see the peaked top without a magnifying lens.  I took that egg in the house and put the egg and leaf into a Tupperware dish with a damp paper towel.  I checked the egg every day.  One day I thought I saw the egg moving but I figured I wasn't holding the leaf still.  On Wednesday I saw the egg was gone.  I thought it has disappeared.  Then, with the magnifying glass, I saw a tiny C shaped hole in the leaf.  The egg must have hatched.  The first larvae, known as the first instar, eats it's egg and then bites a crescent hole in the leaf to stop the flow of milky white sap.  But I couldn't find the first instar.  Tonight, with my magnifying lens and really searching carefully, I found my first instar!  Oh, I am such a proud parent.  Only 10% of first instars survive to adulthood outside.  If I can get this instar to adulthood - wow, that would be so cool.  I think I just found myself a new hobby - monarch foster parent.  I will have lots and lots of flying orange babies.

Growing Chicks

Week One

Week Two

Also Week Two

Last Man In Tower

Aravind Adiga wrote Last Man in Tower and his story brought out my character distortion of denial. I really didn’t think the story was going to end up the way it did. The author gave me plenty of clues but I was totally astounded at what happened to Masterji. Masterji (pronounced Master Gee)  is the main character of this story that takes place in an apartment complex in Mumbai, India. He is a retired science teacher who lost his wife a year ago and is estranged from his son. A real estate developer wants to tear down the apartment complex he and others live in and put up a new one. The developer offers all the tenants $330,000 to give up their homes. Prior to the development offer, all the tenants in the building got along and existed peacefully.  Many were friends.  All the tenants agree to take the money and give up their homes except Masterji. Business dealings in India, like anywhere, can be vicious and desperate. The author was a financial journalist for Time magazine in India and he knows a thing or two about business. He also knows how to tell a story that paints a vivid picture of the people living in Masterji’s apartment complex. Great read.

Maiden Voyage

I bought a kayak earlier this year.  I finally got it registered.  Yesterday I took it out on the water for the first time.  I forgot to bring the bottle of champagne.  This kayak is special. I have bought boats with other people and for other people but this boat is mine and mine alone.  The water on the river is still nearly at flood stage so I chose a lake.  Crooked Lake has always intrigued me.  I see part of it from Highway 10 frequently. I knew it was ringed by homes.  I've seen the boat landing on the north side of the lake and I knew that parking lot was quite busy.  I knew there was a park on the east side of the lake because I took my kids there swimming many, many years ago.  I knew the lake was shallow and weedy.  I knew only one meal of fish per month was the recommendation for women and children due to mercury and other pollutants.  What I did not know was what a great lake Crooked Lake is.  I put in at the north access near Bunker Lake Boulevard.  Because I can pull my boat through the grass by hand and don't need a dock, I didn't need to wait in line like the bigger boaters.  I talked to one guy who was just leaving at 10:30 a.m.   He had caught and released two nice bass and kept one 30 inch northern pike.  He went home happy.  I heard 3 green frogs singing their love songs in the rushes.  As I paddled away from the access I judged the lake shore property owners.  A yard with a 10 foot shore margin of trees, bushes and tall grasses with cattails growing into the lake was "a good steward of the land."  A yard with weed free clipped grass and all cattails removed was "uneducated or unenlightened or unaware."   Most of the good stewards were clustered at the north end end of the lake.  White water lilies were in blossom.  The weeds were thick but a kayak can plow right over weeds.  Motor boaters had to stick to a narrow open channel on the north end of the lake.  The lake gets wider in the middle.  I paddled counter clockwise going south on the west shore and north on the east shore.  Two loons were hanging out at the south end of the lake nearest Highway 10.  I was happy to see them.  One homeowner (one of those uneducated ones) had a purple martin nest which I was happy to see.  I saw purple martins flying over the water.  Another homeowner on the western side of the lake had a 20 foot metal statue of a male figure carrying the earth on his back.  The earth was hollow and the round shape was shown by the latitude and longitude lines and the continents.  What would possess a person to put such a large statue of Atlas looking out at Crooked Lake?  There has to be a good story behind this.  This particular Atlas looked strong and able.  He wasn't crouched or kneeling.  Several speed boats went by at full throttle.  My kayak handled the waves pretty well. I wonder why people are in such a hurry on this tiny lake.  One especially large speed boat was pulling a water skiier.  The boat sped down into the narrow north end of the lake and realized he had no room to turn around without going into the weeds.  He suddenly cut the engine and I worried that the skiier would ski right into the propeller but the boater turned to the side so the skiier came to the side of the boat.  Crazy driver!  Within an hour, my circular tour of Crooked Lake was over. I stuffed the kayak back in the trunk, tied my red scarf to the end hanging out, and drove home feeling exercised, energized and reinvigorated from my boating excursion.   

Monarchs

Yesterday a sibling and I (exhausted from the frog and toad survey the night before) went to a Monarch class at the University of Minnesota-St. Paul campus. Lucky for everyone, most of the class was hands on experiences which made it easier to stay awake.  We learned how to identify monarch eggs, the five stages of larvae, and the pupae.  Every time someone said pupae I wanted to giggle.  Each stage of the larvae is called an instar.  Don't confuse it with the navigation device called Onstar, they're different.  The first caterpillar that comes out of the egg is called instar 1.  The last stage, the caterpillar that changes into a pupae, is called instar 5.  We learned how to identify each of the five instars.  The caterpillar in the photo I took is an instar 5.  I know this because the tentacles on the head are long and droopy.  In the afternoon we went out to the gardens off Cleveland and Larpenteur to find eggs and isntars on milkweed plants.  We also learned how to estimate the density of milkweed plants in a field.  Now we know enough about monarchs to participate in the Monarch Larvae Monitoring Project.  All we need is a location that we can access weekly through the summer and fall that has at least 10 milkweed plants.  So I went home and counted all the milkweed plants on my property.  Success!  I found 20 plants.  I even found a monarch egg on one of the plants.  I brought the monarch egg inside and I hope to be able to watch it grow up to be a butterfly.  What a great citizen science volunteer job for me - check the 20 milkweed plants on my property every week and look for eggs and instars and pupae and butterflies.  Sounds great to me.

Frog and Toad Survey

Somebody got a new frog net.

She is making some of the cows nervous.

Our route is so deserted we found a skull at one of our stops.  A deer skull?  We also found some vertebrae.

We brought a new recruit on our frog survey last night and she brought us to a new level of activity, fun and energy.  Was it that Mountain Dew she drank with dinner?  We laughed so hard our stomach's hurt.  By the end of the route, she could identify all the frogs we were hearing - mostly green tree frogs, some peepers, some chorus frogs and some peepers.  We saw a few lightening bugs.  We heard some veery's and one barred owl.

Frog and Toad Survey #2 Tonight

Lets hope we don't get stuck.