Thanks, Bernergrrl! It was so bittersweet releasing them especially my little miss "bad boy". I got to provide the instructional link for "downed chrysalis" you gave me to another forum poster who had a BST whose girdle broke and was hanging by his little tush attachment. "Pay It Forward" is a nice way to go through life. I've still got the last chrysalis (brown) hanging in enclosure and I sure hope he doesn't go into diapause and overwinter. I'll be worried all winter about him out in the garage but I read it's better not to bring them in the house because higher temps could lead them to eclose when you've got nowhere to release them since it's winter in the NE! You've been a doll just like your little one and I thank you. Mechelle, it seems like the gulf coast and CA have bumper crops of butterflies of so many varieties. My father keeps telling me the same thing MCronin reminded us of this week...we think there are less butterflies at this time because we forget most activity in some parts of US takes place toward Fall. I hope so because I haven't seen a single Monarch yet this year. For me, except for one male Eastern Swallowtail, the BSTs are the only ones I've seen so far this year not counting the dozens of Cabbage Whites nectaring like there's no tomorrow. Once I spot a butterfly I follow him/her around the yard just to watch. Love it. I used to travel to Texas a few times a year for business when I worked for a company that supplied industrial heat exchangers...don't ask...LOL. Annually attended Petro-Chem and Oil shows at AstroDome as booth vendor...what a pain. It was the 70s and a female in that world wasn't exactly run of the mill except standing on a rotating stage showing off some huge piece of equipment...and I don't have the "equipment" to stand on a rotating stage...LOL. I'll never forget my first time coming out the door of the plane onto the tarmac at the Houston airport and immediately being drenched in perspiration from the heat and humidity. Then you go inside an over airconditioned building and get chills. Once spent a "charming" day climbing all around machinery and hoses at bleach factory along ship channel. Not thinking before I went out there with sales rep I didn't wear (or have with me) older shoes so my heels were ruined by bleach leaking all over the place...LOL. It was a rough and tumble business back them but I learned a lot about those industries and there's not much I'm not curious about and happy to learn more. Is it warm enough in your part of Texas for butterflies to eclose most/all year round? If not will your new BSTs go into diapause like they do up here in NE? I learned about 15 years ago from a person raised in Amarillo that it gets very cold and snows up in that part of the state. Well, you'll be a busy mama for a while with all those little ones. Think I'll go check the parsley again...ya never know...LOL. Thanks for your kind comments. This is a warm forum and it's so nice to find a place in this world where people are welcoming, encouraging, supportive and have sense of wonder & lots of humor. Guess if you care about these little guys who turn into beautiful creatures of nature and take the trouble to raise them then that caring carries over into other parts of life for many people. Makes me glad and appreciative. Butterflies take the naturally occurring "gloomy" out of a lot of pockets of people's lives. Trust me...if I find anymore cats there'll be more long missives of my experiences. I just got to find me at least ONE Monarch egg or cat! I already have all the rearing supplies and plenty of Milkweed. :)

Well, thanks to all my kind friends on the Fla. GW, I found some pics of different bugs,wasps, etc. and I don't see any nests that look like the paper-wasp nest, it resembles a bee-hive nest... I do have mud-dauber nests all over the place, but I didn't see where they ate the eggs or the cats ( thanx Tom you have a good sense of humor!)...also I am over-run w.Cuban lizards, they are everyplace....and on the Butterfly Forum, it was suggested I make a b-fly cage and grow them, by a kind person up north, of course.... the only thing I guess to do, is just watch watch watch, oh yeah, in this heat I'll pull up a chair out there and wait wait wait even in all this rain?? gotta look on the fun-side of stuff like this... the way the roses and peppers are being eaten-up by the chili-thrips, I'll prob. succumb to the sprayer and blast everything with poison and then it's goodbye to any b-fly or cat left around this little patch after the predators take their pick... sally

Larry, It is amazing how fast you go from wet to dry soil, but it happens with our clay soil too, so I understand it. Emma, Look for products labeled worm killer or caterpillar killer at any big box store, nursery or farm store. Then, check the label and it should list Bacillus thuringensis 'kurstaki' (often abbreviated as Bt or as Bt 'kurstaki') as the active ingredient. Be careful which plants you spray it on. I try to avoid spraying it on any of the flowering plants that I have planted for the butterflies because I don't want to kill them. I'll link a photo of one such product, but there are many brands available. Mia, As far as I know, cutworms will eat anything, but prefer young, tender vegetation like young vegetable, herb or flower seedlings. I have seen them attack some surprisingly large plants at times. If you have army worms, which often seem active at about the same time, they'll eat any part of the plant. I found an army worm at the top of a 3' tall potato plant eating the top-most leaves. Emma, We have oodles of birds here too. Our hummers have been eating us out of house and home, but I am not complaining. At first I put up two feeders and then kept adding more as more and more birds showed up. We're up to six hummingbird feeders now and my days often start with me making a batch of nectar first thing in the morning to refill the feeders. This is a really good hummingbird year so far. Actually, it is a great bird year. In addition to the ones you mentioned, we have lots of blue jays, mockingbirds, scissortails and phoebes. The purple martins have babies in the houses and I love listening to them chirping right outside my garden shed. We have put in a new vegetable garden out back so I have more room for more stuff. I am planting a specific section of it for the hummers and butterflies, and already have planted a 'Bubba' desert willow, 'Balboa Sunrise' trumpet creeper to climb the fence, and several lantanas back there for the butterflies and hummingbirds, along with many other flowers, veggies and herbs, It is amazing how fast the hummingbirds found the hummingbird feeder in the new garden....probably within an hour of me hanging it there. It is roughly 100' from the next closest feeder. The butterflies found the new lantana plants about 2 minutes after I took the plants out of the car. I had to shoo the butterflies away long enough to get the plants put into the ground. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: Example: Caterpillar Killer with Bt 'kurstaki'

Seedmama, I forgot to mention that we also used white nylon cord instead of surveyor's tape one year, and it stretched and sagged too. I like Diane's idea about using fishing line. And I need to add that sometimes our garden 'contraptions' baffle people. lol My scarecrow is made out of sheet metal and is welded to a sturdy pole stuck deeply in the ground. The guy who made it for me cut the scarecrows arms and legs sticking out at "jaunty" angles, sort of like the scarecrow is dancing. I've never given the scarecrow much thought other than (a) feeling deeply appreciative to have a talented metalworker friend who made me such a lovely and useful object for my garden, and (b) observing over time that the scarecrow scares no one (except, apparently, folks who are driving by and think someone's body is hanging from the pecan tree) and, in fact, the mockingbirds perch on it and sing. Surely this embarrasses the scarecrow and he would blush were his skin not painted a flesh color that has no hint of blush in it. One day a local sherriff's deputy pulled up into our driveway and stopped at the end of the garden to look at the scarecrow. I said to a neighbor later "I wonder what that was about" and he told me it likely was because when you're driving by our house, the scarecrow sort of looks like a body hanging from the pecan tree. Uggh! Mia, It wasn't me. But that's pretty hysterical. His story of the groundhog trapped in the garden by the electric fence reminds me of the night I left the garden gate open and 4 deer strolled in. I walked outside early in the a.m. and there they were--4 deer standing in the garden. I stopped in my tracks and quietly began backing away from the gate. Unfortunately, they went insane running wildly all over the garden, trying to jump the fence, etc. but making no effort to exit through the open gate even though I was, by then, back inside the house and no threat to them whatsoever. Being nice, friendly deer, they had delicately picked their way along the garden path (you could see the light indentations of their hooves in the garden pathways) and hadn't even nibbled much of anything yet. Once they saw me, they overreacted and ran around madly trampling everything. Everything. They kept jumping repeatedly into fencing they couldn't leap over and even bent the fence posts. These tracks were made by wild running and jumping so left deeper, wider hoof marks. Finally they left the garden. I learned an important lesson about always double-checking the gate to make sure it is closed and secured. Hopefully the deer learned a lesson about remembering to leave through the same gate you enter through, because if you can't jump the fence to get into the garden, you likely can't jump the fence to get out of the garden either. As far as I know the deer haven't been back in the garden since then, and I generally do remember to close the gate. Anyway, I generally bribe the deer to stay out of the garden by putting out hen scratch or deer corn for them by the compost pile, and by filling up a small watering hole (it is about the size of a large sink) with the hose so they always have water. I usually feed in winter, and sometimes in summer if a tired doe brings her baby or babies to eat. They are showing up here 3 or 4 nights a week now, undoubtedly because of the drought, and if I don't have food out there for them, they patiently stand by the compost pile waiting. Tim will say "your deer are waiting out there". Then, I go out, they run away, I put out food and go back inside, and they come back and eat. My garden lives on, unmolested by deer. Come to think of it, we have mafia deer here, because they are shaking me down in a typical mafia protection racket, only they just want corn and not cash. Dawn