Niece Week 2015 - the week of the Monarchs

Emma, my sister-in-law and my 2 nieces, Sarah and Heather, visited for 4 days. As Fiona also stayed for that period it was therefor "Niece Week", which is always a lot of fun. My nephew, Kevin, was also in Ontario for a wedding so he visited for a day and there was a gathering of family as we see him so rarely. During various parts of the week there was between 7 and 14 family members in residence.

Before everyone arrived, Fiona helped me put up some hooks in the room that the girls would
be sleeping in. There's no closet so these would provide a place for towels etc. We had bought
them the day before at Grand Trunk in Port Dover.

Niece week involved kayaking, lots of swimming, playing in the tubes, walks on the beach, braiding hair (I learned how to do a Fish Scale Braid and a Reverse Braid), playing pool, watching "Friends" and just lots of catching up with each others lives.
This year though, all of us, kids and adults alike, were fascinated by the inhabitants of the patch of milkweed near my back deck.

Monarch caterpillars are quite striking in colouring and each milkweed had at least
one, some had 4. They ate constantly, quickly stripping a plant and moving on to another.

When they are good and fat they attach themselves to the underside of a leaf
with a very strong anchor and hang there, curled up.

Then their skin sort of splits and reveals a chrysalis beneath.

Sometimes they attach to other things. This one is on the lid of the garbage can

This one was on the lock for the kayaks and as we wanted to use them we had to take it of. We
put it, and one that had fallen onto the ground, in a jar (with a paper towel lid) and monitored
them closely.

Both of the ones in the jars became butterflies as did most of the ones on the milkweed. Such an interesting process to watch.

When the butterflies emerged in the jar we let them out onto a milkweed leaf and they just
sat there for about 20 minutes, occasionally opening their wings, before they flew off.

Heather told me "Auntie Carol, you raised a beautiful butterfly". We all did a lot of reading on the internet to learn about the life span and life cycle of the monarch and I hope my milkweed patch will continue to grow and sustain monarchs.
After Emma, Heather and Sarah left and then Simon, Daniele and Fiona left, Chris, Jason and Natasha arrived.

Rasta sleeping in the abundance of flipflops.

On Labour Day Monday, everyone was gone and I walked on the beach.

A pretty sunset to the west and

and these cotton candy clouds to the east.