• Thursday-What'sUP June 12 - 06:53 pm

This is one of my favorite times of year, with the weather getting warmer, the sun seeming brighter and the trees and flowers beginning to bloom. It’s just an uplifting time of year for me, so enjoyable to be walking along or riding my bike and catch the scent of blooming lilacs and the scent of trees blossoming, too.

Melanie Hakala Rossi was out and about capturing pictures of butterflies, bees and wasps who all appreciate the blossoms that have bloomed now, too. In addition to the insects, she snapped up some Lilacs, apple trees and even the tail end of a dandelion, as it has gone to seed. I never thought about it before, but it’s pretty amazing that a dandelion turns into something so different than what it started out as. Most flowers just wither and die, but the dandelion colors our world, feeds us (dandelion greens), quenches our thirst (dandelion wine) and then entertains our children (blowing the seeds into the wind) at the end of its cycle. I’m telling you, it is really so much more than a weed on your manicured lawn! ;-)

Nice to see another round of Lilacs, our lilac season was short. The Apple Blossoms are gorgeous!

Beautiful flowers ~ even the dandelion.

Loved the pictures of the blossoms. Apple blossoms are my favorite. The Monarch butterly in the first two pictures is under some duress these days. Their population is the lowest in the last twenty years. They will only lay their eggs on milkweed. The milkweed plant is on the decline and no milkweed equates to no eggs and that means no Monarchs.

Beautiful pics, especially the Monarch butterflies.

Who saw the recent Nova on Monarch butterflies?
Learning their life cycle and migratory pattern
was fascinating.

The first 3 generations last one month each as
they make their way (in 3 steps) from a small area
in Mexico to wide areas of Canada. Then the 4th
generation lives for 9 months and travels the
entire 2000 miles from all over Eastern Canada
back to a 60 square mile section of Mexican
mountains.

How do they keep track of which generation they
are part of? How do they navigate? Birds I can
sort of fathom but insects?

Pretty.