Fall Harvest ...... My Wordless Wednesday Post.

Wordless Wednesday...almost.

Enjoy my pictures of the monarch life cycle. I've been raising monarchs for about 7 years now and really enjoy this family activity. Currently, we have three chrysalises (pupa stage) and three in the larval (caterpillar stage). These are pictures of past years. No permission to reproduce photography. Thanks.

Todays, Wacky Wordless Wednesday special is that all bracelets in my Etsy shop are 25% off, today only. And I have FREE SHIPPING through 7/5/10 on everything. Just "convo" me to reduce the price for you before paying! Please write Monarch 25 Special in Message to seller box. http://carolsjewelryorchard.etsy.com

Thanks, Carol

'Tis the Season......

'Tis the Season......for gardening.

Thought I would update you all on my recent gardening activities! It has been a busy spring for me! So busy, in fact, that I haven't really done much jewelry designing or creating!

Over the last month, I spoke with the third grade classrooms at our elementary school about the plant life cycle and seeds. They were fascinated by all of the interesting facts I shared with them! They especially liked making seed viewer booklets that allowed them to watch the germination process. Some of the children were amazed at the fact that seeds do not need soil for germination. All they need are the right conditions which include; warmth, oxygen, and water! Other children were amazed by the size of one of the seeds I bought in to share; a coconut! My family was able to get the seed "coat" off before the presentation and the children could see how hard and thick it was for that particular seed! This presentation was at the beginning of May!

Two weeks ago I presented to 50 kindergartners at another school in our district about corn and seeds on their farm field trip. They liked feeling the grains......oats, corn, alfalfa, and soybeans provided by my friend, the farmer. And all of them loved shelling the ears of "feed" corn into buckets. These children loved knowing that there are four basic types of corn that we grow; ornamental, popcorn, sweet corn, and feed corn or dent. Although I had done this presentation before, about 2 years ago, I found a great new resource in this book;

The Life and Times of Corn by Charles Micucci, published in 2009. I liked it so much I ordered a copy for my own personal use from amazon at a great price.

May is also the month that I have two meetings with the garden club I facilitate for elementary children. Earlier in the month, we weeded the butterfly garden on our school grounds and voted on our color scheme for annuals. The color scheme was purple, orange, and yellow! Last week, I had 23 children in the garden with me planting our annuals around the already sprouted milkweed, spent lilac shrub, rising day-lilies, purple coneflowers, and New England Asters. We are a certified Monarch Way Station that basically means we officially provide habitat for the monarch butterfly! And I'm glad to report that they have returned to Western Wisconsin for our summer!

Lastly, just the other day I met with another Master Gardener who is doing a presentation on holistic gardening. She wanted to know more about the garden club. After speaking to her, I realized that I garden to feel connected to the earth and lead garden club to connect to children who need to have a realization that we must all take part in conserving our natural resources for ourselves and for those creatures (like butterflies) who play a role in our food production. I hope I am planting the seed of curiosity or a small seed of knowledge in all the children I talk to about plants.

So, I've had a busy month. It makes up for not being so active in the jewelry making department! I do have many beautiful pieces for sale in my shop right now. I am approaching my one year Etsy anniversary! Check back for notification about an upcoming sale to celebrate that milestone!

In the meantime; Happy Gardening!

Earth Day!!!

Well, I am sore! I'm sore from all the weeding I have done over the last few days!

We have had an absolutely beautiful, sunny, dry spring here in Western Wisconsin!

That means.....everything is green and yes, even the weeds are healthy and green! My husband has been working hard here around our yard, weeding and mulching and even pruning our fruit trees! Me.....I took off to our local elementary school to weed our butterfly garden! I facilitate a garden club there for the students.

The garden really needed the attention, as it always does, after a cold Wisconsin winter! In the next month, I'll take about 25 elementary children and plant this garden with the nectar plants needed for the monarchs and other butterflies that visit our neighborhood. The milkweed plants have germinated! Yeah! This means that the monarchs can arrive any time and there will be the host plants for them to lay their eggs and have their larva eat! I love monarchs! They fascinate me! They are incredible creatures. I have read so much about them and have raised them for the last six years that I feel very comfortable speaking about their life cycle, habits, and migrations! In fact, this past Tuesday, in addition to weeding at school, I spoke to a classroom of second graders about this very subject! It is always a joy to see the amazement on their faces when we talk of the incredible journey these amazing creatures take! They also adore seeing the multitude of photographs I have of milkweed, the caterpillars, the chrysalis (pupa), and of course, the beautiful adult butterfly!

In 2008, our school garden was certified by Monarch Watch as a Monarch Way Station! And this past fall, our group participated in the Monarchs in Space Project through Monarch Watch. This was a great way to show the children the entire Monarch Life Cycle during the school year! You can check out the Monarchs In Space project on the Monarch Watch Website at:

http://monarchwatch.org/space/

And I don't know of any other site that does a better job of following Monarch Migration than Journey North. I will be reporting my milkweed germination tomorrow and hopefully, a monarch sighting in the next month! You can view weekly updates on the Spring Monarch Migration and more at:

http://www.journeynorth.org/

So, you can see that Earth Day truly has meaning for me! I am a self-proclaimed conservationist and nature-lover. I like to think that I am making a small difference in our world by insuring a habitat for these beautiful pollinators and planting seeds of caring and knowledge in the children I teach about gardening and butterflies! Happy Earth Day!

I'll leave you with a couple of my favorite pictures of these wonderful creatures! Please visit my shop at; http://carolsjewelryorchard.etsy.com for some nature inspired jewelry and bookmarks featuring butterflies, frogs, and dragonflies.

Gardening Anyone?

Well, my plans for this week include some gardening. It is only mid- April and I already feel that I've put it off long enough! My front perennial bed (new last year) is already full of huge dandelion foliage! I will be getting out some round-up for those! I tried digging some out but the tap roots are already too long! They'll just come back! A positive note for that bed is that finally, I have some tulips! For years young rabbits have found my tulips and I got to the point of just not planting them. But, for some reason, I did decide to try again and planted some late last fall.Probably just because I'm a sucker for plants on sale and bought some tulip bulbs that way. Anyway, they are beautiful!

After I take care of that bed at my own house, I need to head over to school and weed our butterfly garden bed there! Each year I help a group of elementary students care for this one bed at school. It is time to weed it and start preparing for spring planting! I always know when it is time to do this when I am embarrassed to walk by the garden! It is definitely time! I have felt the embarrassment for two weeks now! It does always make me feel good to weed this bed and know that "I'm giving back to our community and school".

I am anxious for the week to begin. I have several exciting promos going on on some other blogs and will post about those tomorrow! Thanks for reading and happy gardening!