An Enchanted Adventure

Last week my sister, Gennie, and I took a short drive to Fredricksburg, Texas where our Mom and Aunt Edna where staying for the week. Fredricksburg is a popular tourist town with lots of antique and collectibles shops in the Texas Hill Country that's only a two hour drive away for us. Since Mom and Aunt Edna were staying there for the week, Gennie and I decided we would go hang out with them for the day. We arrived in Fredricksburg and met up with the girls (Mom & Aunt Edna) who were shopping, of course. After a short discussion about what we were going to do for the day, we went to an early lunch. After lunch we went to the cottage Mom & Aunt Edna were staying in to drop of my car so that we could all ride around together. Here's some pictures of this neat little old house in Fredricksburg...

~The houses and the town of Fredricksburg reminded me a lot of Savannah, GA. ~An old antique chair. And look at that phone! I was inspired by these antiques to make the photo itself look old or antique-ish. I think it worked out. ~The view from the front room window.

~and how neat is this? An antique camera!

~Again, I wanted to make the picture look old thus, black and white.

Just a neat little thing I wanted to share.... My original picture and then the picture I changed into black and white. I think black and white fits! ~A whiskey-barrel planter. You can still see some writing on one end of the barrel.

~ Neat old wagon wheel & birdhouse. The birdhouse is like a little birdie chapel. Maybe there were birdie weddings celebrated here this spring?

The wagon wheel again. It looks as if it has been here for a hundred years or so. We all decided to spend the day exploring Enchanted Rock State Natural Area. YAY! Hiking is so much more my thing than shopping! So, while we were at the house we changed into some comfy shoes and then, off we went. On our way to the park, my Mom noticed these three super cute alpacas...

We of course stopped to take a few hundred pictures of these crazy lookin' cuties.

~Look at these three hillbillies! Summer teeth (summer are over here and summer over there) and a chewin' on a piece of straw!

~This one kept gumming the fence. As you can see, it has no top teeth. After doing some research on Wikipedia I've learned that alpacas have only lower teeth at the front of their mouths. Crazy little fact, huh? After our visit with the alpaca and a short drive later, we finally made it to Enchanted Rock! Jack and I have been talking about visiting Enchanted Rock for years, so I felt a little guilty for going without him. But, I am honestly SO glad I got the chance to go! I had an awesome time and enjoyed sharing it with my Mom, sister and Aunt Edna! I've packed a ton of pictures of Enchanted Rock into this post, sorry if its too much but I couldn't decide on just a few! Hopefully, you will enjoy them enough that you don't get tired of looking at all of them. O.K., here goes...

~this is called the "Buzzards Roost". Apparently, buzzards nest there year round.

~Aunt Edna & Mom before the hike. ~Me (rockin' a skirt for the hike) and Gennie before our awesome adventure! I feel like the need to note - this is one of only two pictures of Gennie and I that were taken. In the other one, our heads are just about cute off, so I went with this one. Gennie's hair had gone into her face and she is only half smiling because she was tyring to blow it out. Anyway, she was just as happy as I was to be there!

~We saw a lot of huge caterpillars.

~and lots of cactus flowers with bees buzzin' about.

~These look like natural stone steps.

~And these might have had a helping hand from mankind

Wow! Life finds a way to carry on in some tough situations.

~Buzzard's Roost again. Some of the scenery here looks like it could have come from another continent. This reminds me of pictures of the Australian outback.

~once we got closer to the top of Enchanted Rock, I could get a closer picture of the "Buzzards Roost". Buzzards were everywhere. Roosting.

~another shot of the Buzzards Roost from almost all the way up Enchanted Rock.

~and a shot of Buzzards Roost from the very top of Enchanted Rock Being on the top of Enchanted Rock was amazing! There were lots of big holes (from erosion I'm guessing) that had flowers and grass growing from them....

~These almost look like someone laid out little garden beds on top of the rock. Or like little pools of life on the barren rocks.

~More little pools of life.

~and some of these little spots had flowers with lots of butterflies and bees.

As a thunderstrom formed just a short distance away, the skies turned stormy over us. I got lucky because I think the clouds add a dramatic effect to many of the pictures below...

All in all, it was really great trip and a great opportunity to get to witness some amazing scenery at the park and in Fredericksburg. I can't wait to go back with Jack and Madison. See you soon, little alpaca buddies!

Change always comes bearing gifts..

*Price Pritchett

In less than two full days

there are

already major changes in the Black Swallowtail

larvae. It surprises me how much

they

have grown! They are much longer and fatter

than they were just

yesterday. They've lost most of the

black

color, which when I first spotted them, was the dominant

color, and are becoming more white

in color. They still have the orange spots

though they

are not

as

bright.

Here's the transformation in just forty-two hours...

We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.

~Maya Angelou

Our Dill Weed is the Hostess with the Mostest!

Just the other day, Jack was explaining to me that the dill plant, which he has growing in the back yard, is a host plant for the black swallowtail butterfly larvae. Here's a picture of a black swallowtail butterfly that I took a few weeks ago out at my parents house. ~As you can see, they are huge and beautiful! When Jack told me about the dill plant, I said, "That's awesome!" but, I worried because I hadn't seen any black swallowtails around our house. We have had lots of Red Admirals, Painted Lady's & Eastern Tailed blue butterflies, but no black swallowtails that I knew of. Then just yesterday while I was cutting the grass, I noticed something on our the dill plant...

And wouldn't you know, these are the larvae of a black swallowtail butterfly! How awesome is that!? Once again, the black and white are designed to look like bird crap. Yum! At least this guy has got pretty red spots, as well. Just wait until the next stage. Gonna be crazy! Anyway, we are very excited about these guys. There are four total and we are hoping that they all survive and that we get to witness the different stages of their metamorphosis. I'll be sure to take pictures everyday to note the transformation from day to day and then share it here later. You may remember that back in October Jack wrote a post, Don't Judge them by their Poopie, Smelly, Poisonous Covers, about some giant swallowtail butterfly larvae that we had living on one of our citrus trees. He ended the post with a few pictures of the butterflies in their chrysalis' and we had hoped we would see these butterfly emerge this spring healthy and beautiful and that we would be able to share that here. However, just a week after Jack's post, I found one of the giant swallowtail butterflies laying in Bella's food bowl. Apparently, Jack grew tired of them lazing about and thought maybe the dog would like to eat them. JK! The food bowl was directly under the poor things chrysalis and it was apparent that it had emerged and fallen into the bowl.

~Such a sad sight! It was just laying there, helpless. It was still alive and it could walk but it was very obvious that something was wrong with its wings and that it couldn't fly. The wings were folded oddly and crumbled up. It may have had something wrong with it that caused it to emerge prematurely or, just have fallen before it was able to pump fluid into its wings and expand them fully. This is critical for the butterflies to ever be able to fly! I took it out of the bowl and placed it on the grass hoping it just needed more time to dry it's wings off. But after a while it was still there. So, I picked it up and placed it on our lemon tree thinking that might be a better place for it to rest.

It just hung on the tree. Occasionally it would fall of and land on the patio and I would pick it up and place it back on the tree. The next morning, I was happy to see that it was still on the lemon tree, alive. But, it wasn't looking any better than the night before.

Later that day and after Jack had done some research, we were talking about purchasing a pair of butterfly wings (amazing that you can even do that!) to attach to it to see if it would then be able to fly. We thought it might work because everything but the wings seemed o.k. and we really wanted to save it!

But, before we could act on the thought, it died. I had gone outside to check on it just shortly after I had attempted to feed it with a sponge soaked in a sugar solution and I found it on the patio. I will admit, I cried. It was sad to see something so beautiful and so delicate die and I hated that it had suffered in it's short time alive. The other chrysalis (there were two total) continued to hang on our house until just before spring this year. We like to think that this one made it, that it completed its time in the chrysalis, emerged healthy and flew away gracefully. We also hope this is what will happen with our four new tiny friends! Stay tuned, hopefully this will be a good story with a happy ending!

She's got spirit!

As you may already know, Madison is in the Belton Middle School Choir. This was her first year and she plans to take it again next year in 7th grade. She has really enjoyed the class and her teacher, Mrs. Martinez. We have really enjoyed watching her preform in all the concerts throughout the year. Last week the Choir preformed their final concert of the year. Madi and her group (6th grade girls choir) preformed three songs, each with a little dance skit. It was really fun to watch! I was singing along and dancing in my chair - a proud mom! Jack was smiling at me and I could tell his heart was filled with happiness and pride.

~Madi and her friend Maggie (who is also on the swim team with Madi) waiting to perform.

Madi doesn't look nervous at all! What a happy child she is!

~During their performance.

After the concert, Mrs. Martinez gave out a few different awards and Madison was honored with the "Spirit of Choir" Award! This award is for having a positive/cheerful attitude, a willingness to learn, being happy to be in class and for cheering on and encouraging fellow students. Yep, that's Madi!

~I was so preoccupied with being the proud Mom, screaming, clapping and whoopin' it up, that I almost forgot to get a picture of her receiving the award! And as par for the course - I cried!

~Madi wearing her award/medal.

~The back of the medal:

Spirit of Choir

BMS Choir

2009-2010 Jack and I know that Madison is an awesome kid with a beautiful spirit which I have written about just recently. But, it is so gratifying when someone else, like a respected teacher, recognizes that in her! Congratulations Madison! That beautiful spirit shines in everything you do - never let it fade away! We love you completely!!