Float like a butterfly...

At the Living Conservatory

I'm gonna break this entry into 2 parts...

So with me not having a full time job these days, I kinda look for cool stuff to do.  Let's face it - farm, gym and grocery store do not make for good conversation!   Plus I have a science background that was getting rusty.

So last spring I signed up to volunteer at the NC Museum of Natural Sciences.  It's a pretty cool museum - you can easily spend all day and not see it all.  And it's free!   They do lots of cool stuff like adult nights at the museum and movies and all that, too.

Anyway, I ended up signing up for two areas - the Living Conservatory, which is the "butterfly room" at the museum, and collecting data for Citizen Science at Prairie Ridge - the eco station owned by the museum.  They both looked like places I could do some learning, and have some fun.

Blue Morpho

So the conservatory, yes it has butterflies, but also a sloth, a tarantula, turtles and a snake.  It meant I needed to get over my issues with spiders and find nice things to say about my new arachnid friend.  I had to learn a lot of butterflies.  Apparently I got good at it because they offered me a part time job.  So now on some weekends I feed the sloth, and the butterflies, and welcome visitors, and dispense interesting facts and answer questions.  I had to go through animal handling training, but hey, how many people do you know that have been trained to handle the usual snakes and turtles and lizards, but also alligators and hissing cockroaches?

The two toed sloth 

Meet and greet with an Andean Milksnake

Prairie Ridge is pretty awesome, too.  I collect data on lady bugs, butterflies, dragonflies and trees.  Essentially I get sent on a nature hike each Friday with binoculars, a camera and a clipboard for notes.  I'm quickly learning my insects, new trees, grasses, birds, etc.

Trails at Prairie Ridge

So what does this all have to do with the farm?  Well, it's made me a walking plethora of fun facts!  Wanna know what dragonflies are near the pond?  I can tell you!  Don't want to hear about passion flower vines and how all the Heliconius genus butterflies feed from it as caterpillars and retain the toxins?  Too bad!   Want to see me freak out because I found a Gulf Fritillary?   Yeah, it happens now and then!   Or if you want to know the difference between swallowtail butterflies and their host plants, well, pull up a set of binoculars, I can tell ya!

A skipper visiting a Passion flower

So can we get a round of applause for hubby, and Deuce, because on trail rides I dispense fun facts like ragweed dumps pollen in September!  Seriously, I have actually heard their eyes roll as I talk.

Fat little tiger swallowtail caterpillar at Prairie Ridge

And that leads us to part 2 of this entry...