My Monarch Man

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by JenB (@jenblackham) on Aug 17, 2019 at 5:17pm PDT

Grayson has often talked about raising monarchs when he was young. They would find the caterpillars on milkweed at the local canal, and watch them as they ate and grew, morphed into a chrysalis, and emerged a beautiful monarch butterfly. Unfortunately, over the years, monarchs have all but disappeared around here.  I heard about a community monarch release and Gray and I decided to go. 250 butterflies flying free, landing on the flowers, trees ... and people. It was pretty awesome to see.  This was Saturday, August 17, 2019.

As I checked back into the Facebook post where I'd heard about the event, I saw someone posting about a Monarch group on there. Who knew? I guess there ARE groups for everything. I've joined it, and have learned a lot more about monarchs, and I now know they are still spotted in Utah.  We were even able to obtain an egg from someone who had found some. We have a milkweed plant in our yard, one I've let grow just to attract any possible monarchs (they feed on flowers but lay eggs only on milkweed, which is what the caterpillars consume), so we had plenty of food for its voracious appetite. 

Unfortunately, our little guy didn't make it. 

We aren't sure what happened :(

We'll be keeping an eye out for any of the beautiful orange butterflies flying free. 

Autumn Aloft

I'd heard about the hot air balloon festival up in Park City. It's called Autumn Aloft - mid September (the 14th and 15th). Jami was in town with her girls and thought it sounded fun. Maga's always up for anything if it's with family, and Grayson always likes to be involved. While I like hot air balloons, I don't care for driving and crowds, but I decided to give it a go and I was glad I went. 

It was a beautiful Sunday morning. We got off a little late (we're Blackhams) and stopped by Maga's house so we could all drive up together. Olivia decided to come too, and she drove separate, because she wasn't ready and there wasn't room in the car. 

As we got closer ... the cars and the crowds were obvious. Not unexpected. No parking anywhere. Gray stopped and dropped off Maga and the girls, and then Gray and I drove around, figuring we'd just watch from the road (it was pretty much a parking lot anyway).  Then suddenly, a road that had been closed before was no open. We pulled in, and there was parking! We guessed it had been set aside and reserved, but then opened up this late into the event.

As Gray and I started to wander in ... it seemed everyone else was heading out. We hadn't seen any balloons go up. Maybe one. There were still others "up" but on the ground. Weather plays a part, and although it didn't seem windy or anything, I guess the actual "aloft" part wasn't going to happen. We still got some fun photos and it was nice to be out in the fresh air. Good for all ages. Free. No pets please (yea, that rule wasn't followed at all! Dogs everywhere!)

After the non-liftoff, we stopped for breakfast at the Porcupine Grill.

What the Hail?

I remember there being hail a few times while we had the ducks (2015-2019). I always worried that these little pieces of ice might hit one of the ducks in the head and hurt or kill them. One year, we grabbed the bucket of worms and took it under the trampoline to try to get the ducks out of the hail.

In September 2019 ... the ducks just huddled by the back wall. There was plenty of shelter, but the wall actually seemed to provide a bit of protection for them.

Not so much for my plants.

The poor garden. The tomatoes actually came out better than I expected, but anything with big leaves, like the zucchini or pumpkins, was shredded. I liked the zucchini plants as much for their greenery as for the fruit itself. 

There was so much hail, that it piled up and looked like we'd been hit with a September snowstorm.