Pat’s Wildways: The good with the bad

Our recent brush clearing activities uncovered another gem of nature. When I was cleaning and setting up our deck chairs that had lain dormant collecting detritus for weeks, I found a surprise. A monarch caterpillar, almost in its J-stage before turning into a chrysalis, was sheltered in the folded chair. Great! I didn’t disturb it and the next day, sure enough, a new monarch chrysalis was hanging on the arm of the chair. Great.

This small bit of nature has given me something to keep watching during a couple of weeks when I have been housebound due to a hacking cough and exhaustion, which was eventually diagnosed as pneumonia. I had no energy to go beyond my own backyard and no inclination to be out and about with my senior citizen friends who are all susceptible to infections like these. But every day I wandered to the backyard to check on the chrysalis. At the time of this writing, the butterfly inside is becoming observable through the now-transparent casing, soon to emerge here’s hoping.

Over the years I’ve had lots of fun with caterpillars, chrysalises and butterflies. One year I even brought a handful of them inside a terrarium to watch them transform. I always plant zinnias, mostly for cut flowers inside my house and to gift to friends, but also to provide nectar for the butterflies that frequent our yard. I never cut all the zinnias — sharing is the name of my game. Monarch butterfly caterpillars feed on milkweed plants, and I have plenty of them in my yard too. This year I have not seen much caterpillar activity on my milkweed, but hey, at least one monarch got fed well enough to continue its life hidden in my folded patio chair.

I do not welcome all caterpillars with open arms, however. They can eat up a plant in no time. It’s fine when they are consuming milkweed plants that rapidly re-leaf again after devastation, but on other plants this can be a problem. Like with my tomatoes. I never have had any luck growing tomatoes to edible ripeness. Usually something else finds them first. But this year things were looking up. I had one cherry tomato plant growing in a pot, and, during my absence, my cat-sitter friend Susan took great care to keep it watered. I was able to eat a few tomatoes before I left for Belize, and Susan was happy to take care of this bounty when I was gone. When I returned, the tomato plant was not looking as well as it should. Something seemed to be eating the tomatoes. Was it squirrels, or rats? The plant was too high for the rabbits. I was tempted to try to put a game camera up to see what was up.

But soon it was obvious that things had gotten worse. And then I found it — a tobacco hornworm caterpillar, big, green and plump. I left it be — the tomatoes were already destroyed with no hope of producing more tomatoes and I was curious. Well, the next morning just about all the leaves on the plant were gone too — a very hungry caterpillar it was. By now it is hidden in the soil until it metamorphoses into a Carolina hawk moth, about the size of a hummingbird. Later this year I will keep my eyes out for the adult that has prospered from my tomato plant.

I will have no home-grown tomatoes for the rest of the summer but I do have zinnias! My first planting of zinnias in April dried up when our sprinkler system failed when we were traveling, but undaunted I planted more seeds. And now that I am home policing the yard, these have been watered regularly and finally are flourishing. Zinnias are one of the few flowers that enjoy our hot and humid summers, and when they do start blooming, they will bloom again and again when the flowers are cut.

So now, while still a bit under the weather, I can rest on the sofa and gaze at replenished vases of zinnias, a brightening effect when I am feeling down. And best yet, I finally have enough to gift to friends for birthdays, going away parties and the like. And there is a side benefit to these zinnias. With my limited energy right now, I have taken to a new hobby — painting in watercolor. I am a total novice when it comes to any kind of art besides writing and photography. But it turns out a vase of zinnias makes a great subject for a beginner like me.

There is always something to keep my mind active. I am not letting my “house arrest” and fatigue get me down!

Pat Foster-Turley, Ph.D., is a zoologist on Amelia Island. She welcomes your nature questions and observations. patandbucko@yahoo.com