Hi Betty, sorry to hear about your swallowtail. My pipevine swallowtails and black swallowtails usually emerge within 5 minutes. When it takes much longer it seems to me they are not strong enough and therefore get stuck in the pupa and are horribly deformed. This happened this year with the first Gulf Fritillaries which were trying to come out after the overwintering. About 14 of them got stuck in their pupa. The shell just split open in the middle part and let a little bit of the body be seen. Most of them were dead and the rest deformed and had to be killed. I was heartbroken and ready to kill off the remaining pupas in the cage as I was sure that it would be the same for the remaining ones. But the next day a beautiful Gulf Frit emerged and spread its wings and the following ones were fine too. :)

When I am in a position like that I think of the fastest way to go so they may never know what hit them. This may sound cruel but ultimatly it is so fast and instant. I take them outside in a concrete area and find the heaviest brick and drop it on them. I can tell you two different occasions where this worked great and instantly. I accidently gashed a VERY large tree frog's legs with my weed eater when he jumped up from the weeds. It truly devastated me because he was so beautiful and then I had a Monarch that had just emerged I brought him in to show my daughter and then took him back outside to finish drying, not even thrity minutes later my daughter's friend came over and she went out to show her the Monarch and a wasp had eaten most of the head off the poor thing before it was able to fully flap its wings. I had to put both of them out of their misery. The freezer seems to long to me. A brick is instant! I also completely agree with TDOGMOM, the longer you keep it the more attached your going to become, and the more butterflies you may infect. Kelli

Congrats on your new kids Melissa! I wouldn't worry about 53 degrees unless it's raining. I'm not sure about BST's but monarchs nestle themselves in the leaves of trees at night (usually pretty high up). I would imagine the BST's do the same thing. In case it gets REALLY cold it's a good idea to keep at least one nectar potted plant in case of emergencies. If you have an enclosed porch, that would be a great place for an overnight stay. But if not, a cage is definitely a good option too. 4:45 seems late for a fall hatching and sun drying your wings. The latest monarch hatching I've seen is about 2pm, but most are out between 630-830 am...I think cooler temps in the fall cause them to hatch later (just an observation) The latest I've ever had a monarch fly off? about 830pm...off my finger straight into our ash. Enjoy your weekend! Tony

It was fun to check in with this forum for the first time in quite a while and see this thread on the first page. I appreciate all of the comments, especially the newest ones. So let me share what I've been doing about organzing my lifef. I have been struggling with the "control journal" concept since I posted this thread over three years ago! for starters, I dislike the name, "control journal." The system seems inflexible. And something that I don't care for about Flylady is that there is a high level of emotionality in that system. But I will admit that she is spot-on about many things and I appreciate all of the insights that I've gained from that system. But back to "control journal" I prefer kitchen binder or household binder. Maybe I'll call my the household binder. But that's not the point. I do have a white 1/2" binder with all of my zones and lists in it... it just looking at that binder every day that is a huge challenge for me. I have seven children and my days seem to bring me such a variety of things, many unanticipated, that it's hard to keep everything on track. Plus, I'm a lazy soul, so it's hard to get me moving. But of course, if I'm not going to work the program then it won't work for me! Just a last week I found a Franklin Covey planner on clearance at Target, so I finally took the plunge to organize my time better. This is a smallish size #4 planner in a six-ring binder, so it doesn't give an hour-by-hour breakdown of the day, but it does provide two pages to a week, a two-page spread for the entire month, and then lots of other forms for a lot of different purposes. Before, I've just used the fridge calendar to keep track of activities. That was hit or miss (things didn't always get recorded). Plus, it's inconvenient to take the enormous calendar off of the fridge door and write things down in front of the computer (we get so much schedule info via email). Now, when I'm going through email, I take my planner with me. That makes it so much easier. And rather than writing things on post-it notes and sticking them to my microwave door, my coffee maker (the really urgent reminders go there), or my key ring (see how zany I was) I jot things down in the planner. So for the first time in the 20 years that I've been a wife and mother, everything is being written in one place. However, we still put notes on the coffee maker when something is very, very important. I make myself read the planner while I drink my coffee in the morning. And now I feel so guilty about not using my control journal *household binder* in three years that I will take that binder with me and my planner and my cup of coffee every morning. Something else that I also do with my *household binder* is put paperwork that needs immediate attention into it so that this stuff doesn't get lost. I noticed on the Franklin Covey website that you can buy "Forms Wizard" which is software to create personalized planner forms. I would love to take my Flylady zone lists and make forms to fit into my planner. By the way, I am a stay-at-home mother and my planner doesn't leave the house. both binders stay on my microwave oven during the day. I read Julie Morgenstern and liked her notion that time is like a closet that you fill with tasks, rather than a real closet that you fill with stuff. It helps me to see my time more concretely. Something else I'm learning is the importance of goal setting. That seems to be a Franklin Covey focus as well. I personally have had such a difficult time (throughout the years of raising my seven children) of actually accomplishing anything for myself, that I really just gave up trying. But about a year ago I decide that the extra weight had to go. So I have lost 55 pounds. That has been my focus in life. But now I can shift back to the household since one of the most important issues in my own life is finally being dealt with successfully. I need to revisit Flylady, I'm sure she's added new ideas to her program. I will check back to the forum for more advice and encouragement on how to get it together and become more organized. Thank you for your posts, I appreciate reading anyone's story, even if it's still in process, of how they created a system to manage time better.