August Mosaic

Row 1:
The Dewdroppers at one of Worthington's concerts on the green. The clarinetist, Joe, sold me my bike!
From my garden: Indigo Rose cherry tomatoes, and a crop of small beets with yummy beet greens (sautéed in bacon grease, of course).

Row 2:
Our crazy cat drove us nuts for about a week not being able to keep food down. When we switched up his food, he was so happy he started sleeping with his head in his bowl!
Columbus food truck festival -- yum.
The huge piles of weeds and branches from the...

Row 3:
...Land Lab reclamation. I was gone all of July and the constant rains were quite encouraging to the weeds!
MONARCHS! The mother of one of the parapros in my school gathered lots of monarch caterpillars, raised them, carefully placed the chrysalises in Solo Cup viewers, and donated them to my classroom, along with a caterpillar to watch through the entire process. What a gift.

Row 4:
New glasses. No one has noticed, so that must mean they look perfect on my face. (Plus, they are still purple, so no big change there, but I can SEE! Yay!) The first butterfly emerged on Sunday. I found the clear chrysalis when I went in to feed the fish, and I brought it home. We missed the moment of emergence, but not by much.

Row 5:
I took it outside to the snapdragons, and we communed with the bees as it prepared to fly free.

Row 6:
This is a DIFFERENT monarch that came to the zinnias about the time our fledgeling crawled onto the snapdragons. Welcoming committee?
Yesterday I found one ready for release when I got to school (and another emerged for the AM Latch Key kids to watch). I released both in the Land Lab, and when examining our milkweed there, saw that we have at least one monarch doing its thing in the wild. YAY!