Butterfly Place

Please take a minute to view this short video on the proper way to dispose of medication. It is not acceptable to dump them down the toilet or into the sink. They make their way back into our drinking water and will also get into the lakes and streams. This issue is relevant to everyone’s personal health safety and the protection of our environment.

http://www.smarxtdisposal.net/

If you cannot access the video, the steps are listed below, courtesy of The SMAR_XT DISPOSAL campaign’s website. This campaign is “designed to raise awareness about the potential environmental impact from improperly disposed of medications and to provide proactive guidance through proper disposal alternatives”:

Follow your medication prescriber’s instructions and use all medications as instructed. If you do not use all of your prescribed or over-the-counter medication, you can take a few small steps to make a huge impact in safeguarding lives and protecting the environment by disposing of unused medicines properly:

DO NOT FLUSH unused medications and DO NOT POUR them down a sink or drain. Be Proactive and Dispose of Unused Medication In Household Trash. When discarding unused medications, ensure you protect children and pets from potentially negative effects:

Pour medication into a sealable plastic bag. If medication is a solid (pill, liquid capsule, etc.), crush it or add water to dissolve it.
Add kitty litter, sawdust, coffee grounds (or any material that mixes with the medication and makes it less appealing for pets and children to eat) to the plastic bag.
Seal the plastic bag and put it in the trash.
Remove and destroy ALL identifying personal information (prescription label) from all medication containers before recycling them or throwing them away.

Check for Approved State and Local Collection Programs. Another option is to check for approved state and local collection alternatives such as community based household hazardous waste collection programs. In certain states, you may be able to take your unused medications to your community pharmacy or other location for disposal. Consult your pharmacist with any questions.

NOTE: Please view their website for a list of medications that ARE alowed to be placed into the toilet.

Permalink

How do you know which presidential candidate to choose? It is hard to figure out what to do when there seem to be so many negative publicity ads on the television. I feel that Barack Obama has a more clear vision on where he wants this country to go. McCain is very negative and very rarely ever discusses what his ideas are for when he is in office. When you watch the rallies that McCain has, you see that he tries more to get people to go against Obama rather than get people excited about what he believes in and can accomplish.

I found an online quiz that helps people narrow down the candidate that has their same opinions and political views. This was very interesting. Click the below link to access it:

http://www.wqad.com/Global/Link.asp?L=259460

Permalink

I have often times wondered how many people have my same name. Now I have a tool that can tell me the answer!

I guess I am very unique, because I am the only one with my name! I am also the only one with my maiden name.

Check out how many there are of you!

HowManyOfMe.com

There are
1
or fewer people with my name in the U.S.A.

How many have your name?

Permalink

This has become the question of the year for me. Many people are very surprised to hear that we are homeschooling, especially since we happen to live in an amazing school district with excellent teachers. We had two great and interesting years at our local elementary, where I spent most of my days volunteering, before we finally made the decision to homeschool.

One of the biggest reasons for our change was the socialization factor. Many parents see this in a completely different way than I do. Most people like the fact that their children can “socialize” with children of their own age at school. I learned the hard way that this isn’t all it is cracked up to be. Your child can have the best teacher in the world and be in the best school, but their character and learning can be seriously affected by the children that are in the class with them. It is impossible to choose the influences that are part of your child’s school day when they are in someone else’s care. There is no way to know what the other children are being taught at home by older siblings, friends, or parents. Of course, in America, we all have the right to believe the things we believe and to teach our children what we want them to believe. I choose to be the deciding factor of which children my son spends his time with and is influenced by.

I do think it is very important to expose homeschooled children to group activities, even if they are at home with other siblings. There are many homeschool groups and resources in Palm Beach County for homeschoolers. Some of them include clubs like Legos or chess, P.E. classes, field trips, paid classes at places like HomeLink, or even getting together with a homeschool support group to play. It is a great feeling to know that the activities that I choose for my child will be ones that build his character, rather than ones that encourage him to give into peer pressure and misbehavior.

The second reason that we chose to homeschool was to make sure that our son would be receiving the education that he needed in a way that is fun and productive. Like most kids, my son is better at certain subjects than others. It is important to us to let him learn at his own pace. For some subjects he might be above grade level and for other subjects he might be right on target or behind. This one-on-one instruction ensures that he understands the material being presented to him. It also allows him to advance at his own pace or even take a break from learning if it gets to be too much. In public school, children don’t have those options. The ones that don’t understand the material might get left behind. The ones that get bored in school tend to find unproductive things to do, usually getting them in trouble. The flexibility that homeschool provides is very important to us.

There are so many different types of curriculum, schools, co-ops and resources to help you plan your child’s education. Although I call what we do “homeschool”, we are actually part of the Florida school system which uses the K12 curriculum. My son is a student at the Florida Virtual Academy. We had to apply and get accepted to this home learning school. Once accepted, the materials were sent out to us, lesson plans included. This school offers teacher support, clubs, field trips, and more. The only negative aspect of this program is the 4-hour daily schedule that you must adhere to. It can be flexible but it is still about 2 hours more than the average homeschooler needs to spend with their child to teach them the lessons for this age. Either way, homeschooling beats the public school hours significantly, especially when you factor in the amount of time parents spend helping their children with homework (after the already long 6-hour school day).

For those parents that may be considering homeschooling, the best place to start your homeschool journey is on the website of the Florida Parent Educators Association. They have information on how to start, support groups, activities throughout the state of Florida, an annual convention, and more. There are also many books on homeschooling in the library as well as the bookstores. A couple of my favorites are: “Home Learning Year by Year” by Rebecca Rupp and “The Everything Homeschool Book” by Sherri Linsenbach. There are so many books to choose from that are filled with useful information. With the growing demand and resources for homeschooling, it is easy to find the support and assistance needed to teach your children…no matter what your obstacles may be. Jump in…you’ll be glad you did!

Additional resources:

FPEA (Florida Parent Educators Association) start here for info:

http://fpea.com/

Florida Virtual Academy

www.flva.com

HomeLink Education (resources for homeschoolers):

http://www.homelinkeducation.org/palm_beach_co_fl.html

K12 Online School (can be purchased separately from the Virtual Academy

http://www.k12.com/

How do I choose curriculum?

http://www.homeschooldiner.com/basics/curriculum/do_i_need_curriculum.html

Permalink

You may or may not be aware of the problem with the plastic grocery bags that we get at the grocery stores. It takes a plastic bag 1000 years to break down in a landfill. Then once the particles are broken down, they will not and cannot be used by anything. They will sit there in our earth forever. Somewhere between 500 billion and a trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide each year. Of those, millions end up in the litter stream outside of landfills.

Many people and stores (like the Whole foods Market-click here for the link on the story ) are taking a stand against plastic bags and are encouraging people to use reusable bags instead.

Many local stores are starting to sell reusable PolyPropylene bags. These are great, but they cannot be washed in the washing machine when they get dirty. There is a website that sells canvas bags for 99 cents each! For bigger, heavy-duty bags with a 4 1/2″ wide bottom that are only $2.89 (click here for link). Their website is www.cheaptotes.com.

I encourage you to please think about the impact you are making on the earth when you take home 10-20 plastic bags from each shopping trip that you make. One purchase of the canvas totes will last you for years to come!

If you don’t have the money to buy new reusable bags, just take your used plastic bags from your last trip with you to the store and reuse them!

Permalink

I was sad to hear from a local nursery in December that the season for Gulf Fritillary butterflies was coming to an end. I enjoy watching them on the passion vine. Since then, I have seen absolutely no sign of their season ending. My vine is just crawling with at least 30 caterpillars now, even though our temperatures have been down into the 40’s and 50’s at night. It was once down into the high 30’s a few weeks ago. Whatever the reason, hopefully they will stay around a while.

I noticed that one of them was smart by forming it’s chrysalis on the south side of the house…where most of the sun is. Unfortunately, we received a notice from our homeowners association that we need to have our roof pressure cleaned. When they clean the roof, the gook gets all over the house and then they need to clean the house as well. I am VERY stressed out and sad about all of the caterpillars that will be killed by the pressure cleaner. I guess I will be out there hunting for them so that I can protect them. I read once that you can remove it by attaching a string to the top, but I don’t know if that works. If anyone knows how to successfully remove a chrysalis from a house without disturbing the butterfly inside, please let me know!

Permalink

This is an absolutely WONDERFUL website to find out which butterflies are in your area:

http://butterflywebsite.com/atlas/constructtable.cfm

Permalink

We have been very busy with homeschooling and holidays and I have neglected my beautiful site. Our current Monarch butterfly release count is 34. This does not include the 3 butterflies that had problems opening their wings. The wings were all scrunched up and curled. I think they had a problem hanging on once they came out of the chrysalis. A few of them fell to the ground and were not able to hang on after that. I kept them in a plastic container and fed them hummingbird food through a cocktail straw. Two of them ended up dying within a few days. However I kept one alive for over a week by caring for it in this way. I have been able to put a fallen butterfly back on the roof of the cage and it did actually complete the wing drying process and was able to be released.

It is so exciting to know that I have played an important role in keeping the Monarchs alive in this area.

Permalink

I have been wanting to add a live video camera to my butterfly garden and backyard. I have read numerous articles lately about live cameras being deployed in remote locations to view wildlife and nature. I have been learning about CCTV cameras and home surveillance systems because it seems like the best way to do it. These systems allow you to setup outdoor security cameras which feed video back to a DVR recorder. The DVR can be attached to a network and allow people to view your cameras over the Internet. Here are some sample pictures using software that comes with a DVR from CCTV Camera Pros: DVR viewer.

I can not justify the cost just for my butterfly garden hobby but the real reason for these systems is for home surveillance and security. I think that I can justify the cost for that and I am considering to add the following equipment to my house:

The link to the PTZ camera has a video demonstration. I would really like to be able to move the camera around remotely and be able to zoom in to possible catch some action.

If anyone has any any experience with these systems, please post comments.

Permalink

Our current count is:

6 Released

1 butterfly in nursery still, and unable to fly. This butterfly’s wings didn’t open up and he is still in my care. I have been feeding it a store bought solution of hummingbird nectar and boy, does he love it! I called The Butterfly Place and they recommended that I place it on the milkweed plant in hopes that it will feed and mate. However, it has a hard time holding onto the plant for more than 10-20 minutes, so I have not been able to let it free. I rolled a paper towel into a tube and set it inside a pot so that it would be able to hang on better. It seems to be working well. I hope he can survive for a few weeks. Maybe the butterfly inside the chrysalis will mate with it.

1 in chrysalis

1 chunky caterpillar released onto outside milkweed plant (gone the next day)

Permalink

Categories

Archives

Blog RSS Feeds

Help Do Good

Other Links