More Mackerel Mania

All the butterflies have moved on, so you would have thought the mania for using the Mackerel setting on the camera would be over.  But, no.  dad came to Mom and said "Quick, bring the camera with the Macro setting on to the basil plant".    

In other matters, Audrey is keeping up  with her naps and Daddy snuggles:

and Simba keeps his belleh cool with all that floof but lying belly up near the a/c vent!  (of course August was delightfully like Fall, now it is September, it is hot again)

Two Words Wednesday

LAST ONE:

(BYE BYE!)

Award Thursday

It is raining out right now, so not so good for a Gardening post.    One more butterfly has just "hatched" but we are going to keep him in the box inside and hope the rain will end and we can release him later. One chrysalis remains in the box still to emerge, and there are three outside on the parsley stems.  

A while back, sweet Katie Isabella gave me the beautiful "Wonderful Team Member Readership Award".  Thank you so much, Katie.   We enjoy your blog so much and love having you comment on our blog.    The award is a beautiful copper Sun.

We love the smiling face on the sun.   Today we could use a visit from you, Mr Sun!

The way Katie stated it on her blog, the recipient should name 14 other blogs to pass the award on to.  We do usually try to nominate others for awards, but this time we have totally lost track of who was nominated for it, and with 14 nominees each time, we bet a lot of you have!      Since we consider all our friends who visit here and comment to be wonderful team member readers, we nominate you all!!!

Added later:  Mom googled "butterflies rain" and found this interesting article that addresses what (and why)  butterflies do in rain and at night.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=what-do-butterflies-do-wh

Few Words Wednesday

Having a little chat:

Latest butterfly # 4, drying its wings (and filling them with air - this one was very floppy when we found it in the box.  Probably had only just emerged):

Mancat Monday and Mackerel Monday

Mom has being going nuts using the Mackerel (Macro) setting on the (point and shoot) camera.    You can even see the slight drops of purr drool in this picture of my face:

Two more butterflies emerged yesterday.  Both were females.     The first flew off very quickly.  The second seemed to need to dry her wings, and also it was evening.   So she was placed on the impatiens flowers, where she stayed all night.   She is still there (8:45 am) which has the humans a bit mystified, because she doesn't seem injured or anything.    Perhaps she just really likes it there.

The way to tell the difference between the male and the female is the relative amounts of yellow and blue.    Much more yellow and less blue on the male.

Easy Like Sunday

This blogging is hard stuff.  Let me just put my head down for a second .....................

Only 10 days!!

Kitties, our first butterfly emerged!     Simba discovered it fluttering in the box this morning, and so Mom and Dad took it outside to release it.     Mom was able to use the "Mackerel" setting CK told us about to get these close up shots.  Mom is so glad she was reading CK's blog in the middle of the night!!

Underside

We think this is a male.     It stayed for a while before flying off over the house.    So pretty to see it do that!

We had expected it to take 14 to 20 days, not just ten.  Now we will watch for the others each day.

And considering the Photo Hunt theme for today is "Swanky", we think this butterfly sure is pretty swanky!

Helping Out Smoke and Joe

If you haven't already learned about it, please click on the link under the badge below to go to Zoolatry's post from August 14th.   This is an opportunity to make a donation to all the critters at Margs Animals, but especially for the donkeys and their feet.  

For Smoke and Joe

Rest in Peace, Abby

Today we are remembering sweet Abby, of Manx Mnews.      Soft purrs and nosekisses for her human parents and her fur siblings.     Run and fly free, Abby.