It emerged!

The most exciting happening of the summer--ok, except for Tony visiting, Jon graduating, and mum coming for a visit!--was the hatching of our butterfly chrysalis. It was collected in May from the side of a cement culvert and we were beginning to think it was dead. 

 Imagine my great surprise one afternoon last week (18th of June), when I was putting away groceries and saw something inside the PB jar the chrysalis was in!!! If I had known it was going to emerge, I would  have never ever gone shopping!!!!!

 I got it out of the jar, where it was a tad crowded, and let it sit in one of my garden containers. It was such a windy day, I wanted to release it inside the house! However, with 3 cats, I knew a newly winged creature wouldn't last long.

 I helped it move to several perches in my garden-The bachelor buttons were  not really strong enough for it to sit on as its wings dried, so we got it to a stick that was stuck in the ground.

                           This is the worn chrysalis-you can see where the swallowtail emerged from.

 As it dried the markings grew more pronounced. It was so beautiful and I wanted to photograph it from both the front and the back.

 This last photo, I had moved it again to a 'safer' spot. It really was windy and the poor thing couldn't fly yet. I wanted to keep it somewhat sheltered and here it is fluttering, so it looks rather blurry. We don't know what happened. It was gone by the time we looked for it the next day. We only  hope it got a chance to fly off and do whatever butterflies do!

Canola fields outside of Weston-

SNOW!!!!!!!!!! And a great place to stop and have lunch. Jon's burger was impressive and  the Sasquatch stories were fun as well!

 A rather pretty old building in Elgin-Lovely reconstruction. And yes, you are not imaging it. Gas really was this price up in the mountains! Below is a cool photo mum took-the contrast between the old small place and the newer ones in back was interesting.

 

Mint fields as far as the eye can see--in a few weeks the scent will be overpowering!

 Probably the loveliest rest stop in Oregon. Well, except for the few dead trees and the small weeds that will be HUGE unless they get taken care of soon! On the way to Pendleton from La Grande, this is well worth the jag off the beaten path.

The butterflies were out in force this day. We saw three different kinds, including a Fender Blue--which was thought to be extinct until the 1980s.  We even saw some elk and a fairly new calf.

Taking Rod up to the Ranch-

                     Taking Rod's ashes up to the lower place down by one of the ponds Rod created.

                                                   Dorothy and Nancy down by the pond.

                                         Tony out near the draw where they often get their deer-

 Steve putting ashes under the trees on the upper place-This is where Rod wanted to put a house someday. The view is incredible!

After telling everyone to be careful with the bags of ashes, I had an open one and TRIPPED on a log. Ashes went everywhere-the boys told me not to track Grandpa in the house. 

                                                     One of my very favorite photos!

Vacation flowers!

                                               OK-not a flower, but it was really cool!

                                                                      Yellow lupine-

                                                                         Iris

     Violets-both yellow and purple!

Thimble Berry bush and NW foliage-

Sword Fern-Jon and I so miss ferns! 

This first pictures is some super scary looking spiny green thing that was all over the edges of the path ways. The second one is ferns and oh so many loverly green things! 

Thalictrum! (we had this on the coast--)

Roses we were able to photograph in Arlington-they smelled so yummy!!!!!!!!

2012 WMHS Graduation!

Class of 2012~

          Photo taken before Graduation with me-

                                             

The empty diploma! 

                                       

 Happy faces on Steve, Jon, and Tony! 

 Grandma, Jonathan, and Nana! 

Great Job, Jonathan! We are all so very proud of you!

Graduation Cuppy Cakes-

 I volunteered to make cupcakes for the SRs for their graduation party. I knew I could do better than a couple of dozen cakes frosted in a design. So, there you go. I decided that with 30 some odd graduates and several chaperons, I needed at least 2 cakes per person. Thus, I determined 3 cake mixes and 72 cuppy cakes. I researched sites and found using miniature resees cups was the most common for the hat base and several things were used for the mortar board. However, when I saw 'use chocolate covered graham crackers', I knew I had the perfect idea! Unfortunately, it wasn't. It appears that the top of the hat needed to be smaller for the size of the miniature cup. So, since I had all the crackers, I opted to make the bases out of miniature brownies baked in my mini muffin pan. Next time, I will just cut to the chase and use the chocolate squares suggested! I had to shave many of the muffins and cupcakes flat on their top, but it all worked. The cupcakes with the white dots are ones that have filling and they are all sitting in the bottoms of Safeway pizza boxes. (which are excellent for carting around cupcakes!)

Once the little hats were made, we let them dry a bit before sticking them atop the cupcakes. It took a while! One of the hardest parts were the tassels. They are made from fruit rollups. However, it did not say on the box that the roll ups were laid out in a design. I was so annoyed! The shapes made it hard to cut and roll the tassels.

 After affixing all the tops onto the cuppy cakes, we added the tassels and buttons. I chose not to use buttons (m&ms) in school colors only because they are so many colors in a bag of m&ms!

 Mom brought the holders, I was going to just use basic pastel colors. But, these are ever so much more fun. On the edges they have hats and diplomas and on the bottom they say 'congrats grad'. Much more festive than pastels!

 When all were done and made, I had a few 'hats' left over. So, I put them aside for Jonathan. He thinks we'll be getting many of these back cuz I made too many. I am not so sure, but we'll see! If we do, we'll just fix the tipped over ones and have them for Jon's party on Sunday!

There you are-graduation cupcakes. I've now joined the bloggers who make these! (I'm so very avant-gaurde!)