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