Trust thanks

Through your newspaper I wish to pass on to all the individuals, firms, organisations, schools and service clubs in the Mid-South Canterbury region our sincere thanks for their generous support during 2017.

The Life Education Trust would not succeed without this help. We would not be able to deliver our programme to over 8000 children in 66 schools and ‘Harold’ would be very sad.

Best wishes to everyone for a safe and enjoyable Christmas break. Ray King Chairman, Life Education Trust Mid-South Canterbury an we monetise these butterflies? We’ll have to make sure we can keep out the spies ...’’

Apologies for the half-formed and somewhat mercenary poem/ campaign slogan. It came to me as I was thinking of the best way to tell you I’ve discovered I live on a veritable butterfly farm.

No, we haven’t moved out of suburbia, but we might be about to be taken over by our burgeoning population of butterflies.

I exaggerate, obviously I hope, but the last week has been a revelation.

I don’t remember at exactly what point we started getting in swan plants to attract monarch butterflies flying over our garden, but it definitely goes back at least a year, and coming into Spring, my partner had a few plants recovering in their pots from the onslaught of last season’s caterpillars.

Which meant that, when the first monarch butterflies took to the wing this year, our little collection of plants was an obvious target and minute white eggs soon appeared, followed shortly afterwards by the tiniest caterpillars, with their black, white and yellow stripes.

If you’ve ever seen them in action, you’ll know these caterpillars go from minute and cute to huge and insatiably hungry in virtually no time at all.

Indeed, Eric Carle’s unbelievably successful book The Very Hungry Caterpillar could easily have been based on one of these, if not for the fact his was green and looked nothing like them.

When they’re awake, all they do is eat – they seem to shut down when it’s dark, or cold.

It’s purely instinctive; they’re programmed to get as much scrummy swan plant on board and get as big as they can as quickly as possible, before crawling off to find suitable spots to attach themselves to and begin their metamorphosis into monarchs.

Unfortunately, if the food runs out, it pretty much heralds the swansong of the caterpillars, one of which can power through a whole potted swan plant in a matter of days. Which has meant a few trips to the nursery over the last month or so. In fact, I wouldn’t mind betting there’s some sort of contractual arrangement between the Caterpillars’ Union and the proprietor of our favourite nursery.

A friendly, knowledgeable gentleman, who seems to offer the best deal on swan plants in town, based on my partner’s research, he’s happily told us they’re one of the lines that keep his customers coming back.

In fact, on one of our several recent visits, he said he had been forced to spread his swan plant stocks around the site to keep wandering monarchs from laying eggs on them. If they find them, that tends to eat into the profits.

A couple of weeks ago, the top of the little round table tucked away at the back of our house where the plants live was literally covered in pots. And down on the ground alongside it, there were as many again, recovering from the ravages of being the staple diet of a species.

At last count, we had more than 30 pots, and a few new plants being grown from seeds, which are taking their sweet time to reach maturity. Fear may be holding them back.

But a couple of other recent events have helped to arrest the decline in our food stocks.

Firstly, the freshly bulked up caterpillars began crawling off to find places to start their respective journeys to butterflyhood, and secondly, we began to see some requests popping up online from people with huge swan plant bushes in their gardens – our potted ones have never lasted long enough for planting out – but no caterpillars.

We’ve already delivered a few of the striped munching machines to a property near Woodbury, where the bush is as high as the garage wall it’s growing up against – a second shipment last weekend was delayed by unforeseen circumstances – and a friend in Winchester is also on the list for a caterpillar transfer. Our only problem now is getting our five current residents re-homed before they decide it’s ‘time for a change’. They’re all huge.

Should we be too late, though, all is not lost for the swan plant owners of South Canterbury, because last weekend, when our recent heatwave was at its peak, we had no fewer than eight new monarchs make their grand entrances.

It was a frustrating experience in some ways, because despite my best efforts, I never managed to be present, video camera in hand, at the moment one of them began to emerge from its chrysalis.

The closest I got was when I went to take a picture of two hanging close together, which had turned from the original green to black, signalling their occupants’ imminent emergence, and discovered one had already cracked through the chrysalis.

There are at least eight left, though, so hopefully I’ll get it right at some point.

Since their emergence, which is followed by the dangerous hours when they have to dry their wings in the sun – fortunately the heat kept our cats at bay - and subsequent departure, a couple have returned to lay eggs on the plants that nurtured them.

Wednesday’s deluge might have washed some eggs off, but with any luck the next crop of tiny caterpillars will soon emerge.

In which case, what I have boldly christened South Canterbury’s butterfly nursery will again be open for business.

‘‘Can we monetise butterflies?

‘‘If we can we’ll be able to afford all the pies.

‘‘But maybe we should just let them take to the skies.

‘‘And cash in on spring.’’

Just kidding; take them, please, before they eat everything. these their off-