Congrats to Roland Pederson FTW! Plus busy with monarchs--Tis the Season.

Traffic to this blog dropped off considerably since my previous entry, and no wonder; no new posts for a while.  Well, not on the front page, anyway.  I've been making updates to my monarch blog page for this year, though, and sending pictures in to both Monarch Larvae Monitoring Project and Journey North/South.  Making a mental note to say something to the City Commission about designating Dillingham Memorial Garden as a monarch journey landmark, since I've observed them using that for both northward and southward excursions. My yard is just a side stop on the way through to and from Texas.

As I said on my monarch page, the first migrant arrival came in at 7:30 pm on August 20, and it was a female. Upon discovering all my milkweeds, she did numerous loops at a fast clip, kinda doing a happy dance. As the sun sank lower, she checked out my pecan trees and decided to turn in at its topmost limbs for the night. Next day, rather late in the morning, she left...and hours later returned with her mate, both of which did happy dances with each other while partaking of nectar until afternoon...when a third monarch showed up, a smallish male.  The happy couple departed for elsewhere without returning but the small male came back...I netted him and he got the first Monarch Watch wing tag.

Before the couple departed, though, the lady of the two spent time checking out other growths and apparently decided to leave an egg. Well, at least one egg, which I discovered today. Other monarchs have arrived and departed in the interim, but they just flew right on by, always from north to south, without stopping.  The first lady brought her husband, stayed 2 nights, and then departed with husband in tow--do the math, ha.  The pictures are on my monarch page, but as of this writing, I haven't posted the pic of the egg yet.  So...for the first time this year, a monarch baby picture!!

It's things like this which prompt me to put the message out to Oklahoma voters just how important it is to have more farmers and ranchers in the State Congress, so it's with great elation that I find Roland Peterson in the tractor driver's seat from the primary run-off. This state is in the sorry shape it's in because of the urbanized focus on only petroleum, forgetting entirely that our OTHER backbone commodity is AGRICULTURE.  No urban medic (either Vanhooser) has a clue.