Our monarch butterfly is still cooking on days 8 and 9…
I let our very rainy weekend stop me from snapping a shot on Day 7. But I have a feeling our friend looked quite similar to the above.
So is Tuesday hatch day? It will be 10 days since she climbed into position and that’s supposedly how long metamorphosis lasts. I may have to hover over her all day tomorrow to capture her emergence!
I think I see the green beginning to shift a little. Perhaps our butterfly friend’s change to orange is beginning? Or I’m imagining things…
Looking quite a bit different from Days 1 and 2. Four more days to go!
Our butterfly friend is looking fairly unchanged from day 4…
to day 5…
But I imagine there’s a lot happening in there. As it turns out, the pupa is clear and the color you see is the green butterfly on the inside. As she gets closer to “done,” the color will change to the bright monarch orange we know and love.
Only five more days to go!
We discovered a new garden guest yesterday…
Can you believe it?! A monarch butterfly caterpillar just beginning its transformation into a butterfly! In fact, it must have just climbed into place because it only takes a matter of hours for the pupa to form.
This morning, she had already reached the chrysalis stage…
I’m so excited that the kiddo gets to watch this happen. We just don’t get this Wild Kingdom kind of experience often in the city. So happy we planted our Asclepias tuberose (native butterfly weed or milkweed), as it’s the host plant for monarch eggs and larva.
Will endeavor to post a photo every day for the 10-day metamorphosis. Great visuals here, by the way, if you’re eager to see what’s going to take place.
It’s been almost exactly eight weeks since John’s praying mantis egg case dispensed the tiniest little creatures into his car. Since then, I haven’t come across any of the babies I managed to capture and release into our yard.
Until this morning…
He’s between 3 and 4″ long. So happy to see you, little guy! I hope your siblings are somewhere nearby.
Happy to report that the deck is ALMOST DONE! My handsome contractor shares the redecking details of the last few days…
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Once the joists were in, I stained them to match the siding…
I brushed the same Sikkens we used before on all the exposed, pressure-treated wood. The stainless joist hangers and the lag bolts in the ledger board really pop against the stain, matching the aluminum flashing around the doors and windows…
Guess we can remove that paint tape pretty soon, eh?
Joe, the Water Barrier Police, made the magic happen with ice and water tape, aluminum flashing and house wrap to keep water out for years to come…
More of the same at the other end of the deck with the added complication of installation around the heating/cooling lines…
Water sitting on top of the joists, or trapped between the back of the deck boards and the top of the joists can slowly rot the wood. Although we’re using hidden fasteners, they can still provide an avenue for water to enter the joists and rot them. Don’t want that, so Joe cut a bunch of snow and ice tape strips for the top of each joist…
That should keep water off the top of the joists and seal around any fasteners to keep water out…
For the deck boards, we chose a wood called Garapa Gold, which is 30% heavier than mahogany and twice as hard. Sort of a poor man’s ipé or teak. It weathers to a nice silvery grey with no maintenance needed — my kind of deck. That means we’ll leave it untreated except for sealing all cuts against moisture penetration…
After all that moisture-blocking prep, the deck board installation could finally begin. I mentioned hidden deck fasteners earlier — Ipe Clip makes them. That black clip slips in a slot you cut into the edge of the deck board with a biscuit joiner (sorry I didn’t capture an image for you)…
Then the screw (head conveniently painted black for us already) goes through the little metal insert in the clip at a 45 deg. angle like so…
That round red thing is a spacer that keeps the boards evenly apart as we go. The next board gets slots cut in the edge and slips onto the first row of clips, then stuff happens to the new edge, same clips and stuff junk and whatnot. If you’re interested in the installation details, the whole process is here:
Needless to say, we powered through the deck board installation today in spite of the sweaty 90-degree heat…
A few bits left to make it DONE done but it looks pretty fantastic, right?
And 100% more usable than it has been for the last six months!
Found this fella on the grass unable to fly and gently set him in the veggie garden (away from the cat) hoping he might recuperate. The next morning he was dragonfried, poor guy.
Impressive 5″ wingspan. You should biggify his picture and appreciate him…
Sadly, his bright blue eyes and vivid turquoise stripes have already begun to fade. As is the way with all things beautiful, I suppose.
On Friday, shenanigans and the deck rebuild continued. The man with the plan fills us in on what he and Joe are up to out there…
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Next up on the deck is the installation of the 2″ x 8″ joists. Joe and I angled them 1/4″ away from the house to ensure that water will drain away rather than sit on the deck boards.
A scrap of wood clamped to the top holds one in place so a joist hanger can be nailed…
The joist hangers are made of 316 stainless steel, as are the nails. Designed for use near salt water, they’ll never rust. We’ll stain the joists to match the stain on the siding and to cover their pressure-treated green. You can see we already stained the ends so that we don’t have to cut in around the hangers…
We installed aluminum flashing to cover the joint between the new plywood and the old cedar…
Flashing tape will be added at the top to ensure that water stays out of the joint.
With the joists all up we can do a little weather proofing and then start applying the decking. The deck material we’ll be using is Garapa Gold, installing it with a system of clips which will leave no visible fasteners and no pathway for water to enter and rot the decking or framing. Cool stuff.
Well, that was a full day’s work. Joists all in! And it’s beginning to look like a deck again…
