Hatched

I hadn't checked the chrysalis for a few days, and when I checked it again, it was only an empty shell. I wish I had seen it hatch, but I guess I would have had to be more vigilant or more lucky. I figure it pupated for approximately two weeks. Definitely not in diapause. There are still more Cabbage Whites fluttering around my garden so maybe they will just continue their reproductive cycle through the winter. I finally got fed up with the aphids so I chopped down the kale and threw it all in the compost. I have tried hard to love worms and caterpillars and pillbugs, but I cannot love aphids. I respect their reproductive powers, but I do not love them.

Chrysalis

There's a chrysalis on the kale. It's a green caterpillar (imported cabbage worm) pupating into a cabbage white (Pieris rapae). I'm so glad I didn't squash that green caterpillar. The chrysalis has looked like this for 3-4 days, since I first spotted it. Those grey dots to the right are aphids. The chrysalis could be in diapause, which means that its reproductive cycle is on "pause" until the spring, at which time it will mature into an adult and hatch. Or it may do it sooner, since our winters are so mild. I'll be watching. I photographed a cabbage white in my garden a year ago, and added a poem by Mary Oliver about white butterflies to that post.

Serene Lakes

You can see the cabin we just stayed in for two weeks in the lower right-hand quadrant; it's the one with two windows stacked on top of each other. My husband and I agreed that it was the most relaxing vacation we've ever had. We grilled, we ate, we swam, we paddled the canoe, we hiked, we rode bikes, we read. Our teen-aged boys did the same. We had some time with extended family and friends, and some time to ourselves. There really wasn't anything I would change.
I got to indulge my butterfly obession, too. There were of course masses of orange fritillaries everywhere. I didn't bother to try to identify which species because they are so difficult to tell apart. These are enjoying some pennyroyal.
There were tiger swallowtails (or perhaps it was anise swallowtails; I didn't get a photo) and this gorgeous Lorquin's Admiral, named for Pierre Lorquin, California's first known butterfly collector.
Here's the same Lorquin's Admiral, showing off its psychedelic underwings.
There were clouds of intense cerulean blue butterflies fluttering around on the trail, sometimes stopping to sit in the mud (entomologists call this "puddling."). They were so busy that I couldn't get one to sit still for its portrait, and when one did, he or she immediately closed up their wings so you could only see the silvery-gray underwings with tiny black dots. If I had really dedicated myself to it, I could have gotten a photo, but we were on a hike to Lower Lola Montez Lake and I was trying to keep up with my sons, who were on moutain bikes. I regret not trying harder, now, however. I will do some research to see if they were most likely Sierra Nevada Blues or something else. Also I need to do research on a black butterfly with chartreuse spots.

I was extremely happy to discover that these caterpillars are Mourning Cloak larvae, thanks to The Bug Guide. I found them beside Lake Angela, on Donner Summit. You can click the link to see a photo of the adults.
I did not see the adults but my friend Karen said she saw one, on the same willow bush that was being denuded by these caterpillars. I learned from my wonderful butterfly book, Field Guide to Butterflies of the San Francisco Bay and Sacramento Valley Regions by Arthur Shapiro and Timothy D. Manolis, that Mourning Cloak butterflies "can be seen migrating upslope individually along Interstate 80 in June!" (Exclamation point his.) I love to think of the little butterflies in their tiny cars in the slow lane. Watch out for them.

The Intruder

Several days ago, I noticed that something was eating my sorrel. Huge bites out of the leaves had appeared overnight, and little black poops (entomologists call it "frass") speckled the leaves. I searched carefully for the culprit, but I found no one.
Then today I searched again, and found him! A cabbage looper. Except when I found him I didn't know he was a cabbage looper. I had my usual shudder at anything worm- or sluglike. (If it's a worm, I tell myself, "Good worm. Good worm.") My only thought was to rid my sorrel leaves of the intruder. I scraped him off the leaf onto a broken pot shard and then stopped. Was I going to kill him?
Last summer I was really into butterflies. I looked up a lot of butterflies and their caterpillars and marveled at the variety, even in my not-particularly-butterfly-hospitable city. I could not squash this caterpillar without at least finding out who he was.
A short search on the Internet revealed my sorrel-loving caterpillar to be a cabbage looper. They have legs only at the front and the back of their bodies, and move around like an inchworm, hence the name "looper." They eat just about everything, unlike, say, the pipevine swallowtail caterpillar, which only eats pipevine leaves. In fact, they are a serious pest for commercial vegetable crops. And they turn into a boring brown moth. But I just couldn't kill him. So I placed him in the front yard among the weeds, where he'll be sure to find something to eat. And now I can eat my sorrel.