Saturday, August 20, 2022
Monarch butterflies are now on the endangered animals list. When we moved here 5 years ago, the Joe Pye weed was covered with dozens of monarchs that first late summer. Now we are excited when we see three, or two, or even one. I was hoping that our flowers were just not interesting, but apparently the populations have decreased by 25 – 70% in the past 10 years. Pesticides, climate change, and habitat destruction are all part of their dwindling numbers.
Sadness.
Today was day six of swimming laps for me. Every summer, on some random day, I have swum laps. Sometimes a given number, sometimes for a length of time. As I swam, I thought about how much I like to swim, and made a solid decision that I was going to swim EVERY DAY. I have a pool! I like to swim! It is good! I will be healthier!
I never made it to day two, that I can remember. Something always happened…and I was sure I was going to restart…tomorrow, or the next day. And sometimes, I did. And again, never made it to day two.
Today was day SIX! I am on it! I am already swimming SO much farther in a given time period. When I started (SIX days ago)(wait, no, FIVE days ago), I decided I could pant and gasp as much as I wanted to between laps. And I did indeed pant and gasp. There has been such a decrease in panting and gasping. YAY me.
Now that I have written it down, it is real. I am very, very, very motivated by keeping a streak going, so I am going to keep this streak going!
We were in the pool a lot today – some swimming time, some watching butterflies time. It was all good times.
Well done for keeping the swimming streak going.
I’m starting at the Gym next week just to stay reasonably fit!
Thanks for dating the blog. You began on our Wedding Anniversary!
🙂🙂
You are very smart to keep fit! Well done.
I had to look everywhere and couldn’t figure out where to find the date. It is on the page labeled blog – but it seems silly that it is not on the page when you read it, so I will put it on now.
Feb 12! Happy anniversary 6 months and 9 days late
Dates are good–thanks!
Lovely Monarch photo. Is the plant bee balm? Tony the landscaper is finishing up one side and the back of the house this summer (fingers crossed), but we’re going to do the other side and have decided to make it a pollinator garden. We’ll need some pretty flowers to go with the milkweed, which I’m sure looks great to the Monarchs, but not so pretty to me.
This is Joe Pye weed. I don’t know if it is really a weed- it what a weed actually is, I guess. It is 4-6 feet tall, and blooms now, which seems to be great for bees and butterflies. It cuts back to the ground each year, comes up late, then grows fast. I like it a lot. Rumors said it would spread like crazy, but we have not seen that at all