robed in royal orange

robed in royal ornage

a Monarch butterfly floats 

among star flowers 

The green, black and white striped caterpillar I saw a few weeks ago, in its final instar before going through the mysterious transformation inside a chrysalis, has emerged cloaked in wings of orange, black and white. Floating in a field of wild flowers, this fourth generation Monarch butterfly will soon begin the long journey to sunny California or Mexico. 

Sipping nectar with folded wings, a Monarch displays the beautiful black veins on the golden underside of the wings and the white spots on the black wing edges. Unbelievable that a  journey of over two thousand miles begins with such small sips.

True Monarchs, they are also drawn to the regal plumes of Goldenrod. I hope our wildflower field, surrounded by our neighbor's corn and soybean fields, continues to be a safe haven for these endangered insects. 
          What about next year's caterpillars? I saw almost no milkweed plants this year, traditionally the only food the caterpillars will eat. But I came across a site that shows caterpillars faring well on alternative food. Would you believe it, pumpkin slices and the skins of crisp cucumber! 
          Check it out: http://texasbutterflyranch.com/2014/04/11/milkweed-shortage-sparks-alternative-fuels-for-hungry-monarch-caterpillars/

curving back around

curving back around

a black-eyed susan, a monarch

caterpillar seeks

a twig to hang upside down

into a green chrysalis

I've been picking small fuzzy white caterpillars off of my goji berry vine outside our front door. They eat the leaves, so I carefully relocate them. But when I scan for creepy crawlies today, I'm surprised to see a large black, white and yellow striped caterpillar making its way slowly along one of the stems. It's really quite beautiful, with those striking stripes and curvy black horns on both ends. Almost as beautiful as what it will turn into, a Monarch butterfly. It's nice to know that there are still Monarchs around this area, even though they are threatened by all the pesticides applied to monoculture crops.

This specimen, born from eggs laid in September, is a fourth generation Monarch caterpillar. When it emerges from its chrysalis into an orange and black butterfly, it will not die after a couple of weeks of mating and laying eggs, like the first three generations that came before it this year. Instead, it will fly all the way to a warmer climate like Mexico, where it will live for six to eight months before starting the whole cycle again. 

I wonder if it is still looking for a milkweed plant to eat, or whether it's ready to turn into a chrysalis. The strange thing is, I have seen hardly any milkweed plants in our area this year. Usually the swath between the road and the trees is filled with milkweeds. I've looked and looked, but only found one small milkweed plant, with no flowers and no sign of the leaves being chewed by a caterpillar.

These photographs of the sequence of transformations of the Monarch from caterpillar to chrysalis to butterfly are from an excellent website, which describes the entire generational cycle: http://www.monarch-butterfly.com.

Perhaps if I had left the Monarch caterpillar on my goji vine, instead of placing it on a Black-eyed Susan for a colorful portrait, it might have attached itself to a goji stem, turned into a chrysalis and hatched into a butterfly. Wouldn't that be exciting? But the nights are getting cooler, and if frost threatens I may have to bring my potted goji inside. Then what would happen to the butterfly if it hatched inside? A warmer clime for sure, but no mates within thousands of miles!

end of summer corn

end of summer corn

ready for harvest, rural 

mailboxes, passing clouds

It's very much a typical Iowa scene: a rack of rural mailboxes against a backdrop of golden yellow field corn and a sapphire sky accented by a few little white clouds. 
          The only thing that spoils the scene for me is knowing that the GMO corn is destined to be fed to beef cattle and hogs. It's an expensive and unhealthy use of resources and land that was once covered with tall grass prairie instead of monoculture crops of corn and soybeans.
          Rural Free Delivery is still a good thing, even if the old humpback mailboxes are being replaced with locked cluster boxes to protect customers from baseball bat wielding vandals and identity thieves.
          The sky is still mostly unpolluted, though we do now have a huge grain elevator at the edge of town. And we just discovered that a CAFO (concentrated animal feeding operation) is being built a couple of miles from our house, which will increase air pollution when manure is spread on fields, as well as pollution of our waterways from the runoff, and an increase in antibiotic resistance.
          What can we do to protect the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the value of our property, which declines due to the stench? Be vigilant and proactive. Our group of neighbors are meeting in a few days to discuss how we can support JFAN (Jefferson County Farmers and Neighbors, Inc.) to help the DNR (Department of Natural Resources) crack down on too much manure being applied to fields.

belly deep in the pond

belly deep in the pond

a herd of cattle cool off, 

all except one

First day of school, but the weather says it's still summer, hot and humid. A herd of beef cattle stand belly deep in a farm pond, cooling off; except for one lone cow still grazing nearby. One of the black whiteface cows looks over at me as if to say, "Come on in, the water's fine." However, I prefer the reservoir, just over the hill, a bit less muddy. The pond is a typical Iowa farm pond, dug into the orange-red clay that can be seen around the edge. The heavy clay holds the water in the pond, but when the bottom is stirred up by cattle it makes a fine silt in the water. Not so much fun for swimming, but still, that clay is some of the finest clay in the world for building. The thick walls of our house are made with this clay, dug from the site and mixed with straw.

studded with fuzzy

studded with fuzzy

ripe fruit the pliant peach limbs 

arch down to hands' reach

With no late frost and a lot of rain, our old peach tree outdid herself this year. Every branch bears dozens of blushing golden globes covered with baby-soft fuzz. Many of them have fallen to the ground, where deer, squirrels and raccoons have been feasting on the sweet fruits. Some of the peaches still on the tree show signs of bird pecking or bug boring. Of course, we do not spray our trees with toxic pesticides, so we accept a certain amount of loss. But there are plenty left whole.

The branches are so heavily laden that they hang down over the protective wire cage, low enough that we don't have to use a ladder to harvest the entire crop. More than a few of the warm juicy peaches go into our mouths while we collect and place them in wicker laundry baskets.

We gather four baskets full, probably the equivalent of four bushels. Because a lot of them are already quite soft and ripe, I spend several days slicing and putting them into plastic quart bags for the freezer. Well, the freezer on top of our Sunfrost refrigerator is already packed almost full with frozen aronia berries. So I start giving away dozens of peaches to family and friends. Someone asks, "How many peach trees do you have?" I hold up one finger.

And there's still a superabundance. My son suggests we buy a separate freezer. What a good idea! I find one at Best Buy, an 8.5 cubic foot upright Danby that will just fit between our washer and dryer. It's on sale and they'll deliver it for free. What a deal. Now I've filled all of the bins in the bottom of the refrigerator with peaches, hoping they'll keep until the new freezer arrives. We'll certainly have plenty for the rest of the year, and maybe even the year after. What a joy to grow your fruit and eat it too, though really, the credit for this bounty goes entirely to Mother Nature.

rain on shadow lake

rain on shadow lake

glistens roots, rocks, bark, black glove

on the wooden bridge

My friend has just had a liver transplant, a kind of rebirth, and I am here to help take care of him during his recovery. But I also need to take care of myself, and that means submersing in nature. I walk to a little lake tucked away among houses in this big city of Charlotte. At the entrance, a sign says "SHADOWLAKE." I look at the letters and see "SHAD" "OWL" "AKE." This is going to be interesting -- river fish stuck in a lake, a bird of the night and ake, which means "bright" in Japanese.

The lake is surrounded on two sides by houses, but there is a public picnic area on one side and a bridge that leads to a wooded path on another side. As I walk toward the bridge, I pass by a tall clump of goldenrod. It's raining lightly and I notice a number of elongated insects hanging underneath the sunny panicles, like women in bright embroidered kimonos sheltering from the rain.

As I cross the bridge I'm startled to see a crumpled, shiny black vinyl glove shed by a human hand, perhaps symbolic of my friend shedding his old liver.

On the far side of the bridge the path turns and runs through a wooded area, providing me with a little shelter from the rain and many delightful surprises.

A black root that looks like a turkey foot. Turkey, symbol of thanksgiving for a successful harvest, peaceful coexistence with friends and neighbors, and the renewal of family connections.

The rocks in this area are hard and black, perhaps from the transformation of lava into rock. But this one sports a wide white quartz stripe, yin and yang, harmonious coexistence of opposites. 

A sycamore with an owl face staring back at me from the peeling bark. Owl is a symbol of wisdom, insight and foresight.

The Green Man, ancient symbol of rebirth and renewal.

A vine in the form of a snake, another symbol of rebirth, healing, rejuvenation.

A butterfly shaped scar on a tree trunk, and of course the butterfly is yet another symbol of rebirth and transformation.

A strange silvery green mat of moss on the floor of the woods is as close as I get to seeing a shad, but if it's there, it's the fish that fed the American founders, so it must be a symbol of nurturance. With these auspicious signs, I turn back to the house where my friend is welcoming his new liver to a renewed life together. May they both live long and prosper!

purple clusters curving

purple clusters curving

branches to the ground -- bumper

crop of aronia

For a week I've been harvesting aronia berries. Nothing on the bushes last year, due to drought. But this year, with all the rain, we have a bumper crop. The 20 foot tall branches are bent to the ground with heavy clusters of purple-black berries. This makes collecting the plump berries easy. I can easily reach the low-hanging clusters and then I pull the pliable branches down to reach the ones further up. Still, it takes many of hours of patient branch wrangling and berry picking.

Now that the work of producing berries is finished, the leaves are already turning orange and falling off. After a rainstorm, the low-lying berries are covered in mud. Some of them fell off and are floating in puddles, so at least they aren't muddy!

I've counted as many as 32 berries in one cluster. I can usually pull a whole cluster off in one hand and drop them into a bucket, but sometimes my palm is not quite big enough.

The seedless berries are easy to process, just wash and pick off the stems. This year, because I have a bigger freezer, I froze 28 quart bags of berries. Aronia, commonly known as chokeberries, are quite tart when eaten out of hand. But when added to cereal or a smoothie with a little honey or maple syrup, they taste like blueberries. The dark purple, almost black color protects the berries from ultraviolet radiation, and the antioxidants, which are among the highest of any plant, are also good for us humans.