Flight of the Monarch

By SKEETER

The Saint and I celebrated Valentines all weekend long with beautiful weather. We played in our Georgia Garden together on Saturday. We transplanted some Butterfly Bushes from the Butterfly Island to give the Bald Cypress a bit more room to grow. Thus, expanding the Island a bit.
On Sunday, we drove north of Atlanta to check out the Home and Garden Show. The show was a total bust! More business cards handed out then anything. We did see a few new items but over all, we were totally disappointed with the show.

The fun thing was having breakfast at one of Guy Fieri of Food Network fame picks. This pick came from the show Diners, Drive-In's and Dives or Triple D as we call it. The Silver Skillet is a landmark breakfast spot in Atlanta and has been featured in many movies, magazines and TV programs. Click the link to check out this hot spot from the 1950's. We got a kick out of walking through the kitchen to use the restroom. We kind of wanted to flip an egg on our route to tinkle. Ha ha. The Lemon Ice Box pie was as good as my Grandmothers! It melted in our mouths. Click HERE to see how it is made...

We tried to check out Gallery 63 Antiques and Auctions but with it being a new show on TVs Discovery Channel, well, lets just say, the line to get in was longer then we were willing to endure. We goofed around a bit here and there and ended our day at Buca di Beppo indulging in Pasta. Yum... On Valentines I kidnapped the Saint from work and took him to lunch. Once home, I surprised him with this gooey Chocolate, Vanilla, Nutty treat I made. Wow, it was rich and oh so good....
Backing up to October of last year, we find ourselves on our last boating trip of the year. I kept noticing butterflies floating by us as we traveled the waters.Upon a closer look, I realized they were Monarch butterflies! Putting two and two together, so to speak, we decided they were on their migration!

Do you know how difficult it is to capture a fluttering Monarch in the air while on the wavy waters? Well let me tell you. Three people had cameras in hand and the Saint was being yelled at by me to go right, go left, speed up, slow down, Come on Saint keep up darn it! He was zig zagging right and left and going in circles. We were all laughing and cursing at the same time. LOL The Saint was afraid that a Ranger would pull us over for being drunk on the water. (Note, Impossible as we do not drink booze on our boat) I am sure that anyone watching us from the shoreline were wondering what in the heck we were doing.... They were not flying in any pattern so the speak. Some were flying just above the water, some flying high in the sky, some diving towards the water, some floating along with the breeze and some flapping their wings like mad. They would zip by us so quickly that it was a challenge to capture them on film. I must have snapped 50 pictures and taken about 20 video clips with little results.



I am not sure who snapped what picture here but thanks go to our friend's for letting us use their pics and video taken that day. I hope the video works as Blogger does not seem to operate as it use to for me. If this does work, be sure to see if you can spot two other butterflies in the background high in the sky when the subject goes upward. We kept the song for effect on the windy day. The music Bob sings says the words "high in the sky" as the butterfly is doing just that and they were headed south...

We must have seen over 100 Monarchs throughout our little cruise that day. We had a blast witnessing this FLIGHT OF THE MONARCHS, In the Garden....


Words and Photos Property of In the Garden Blog Team, In the Garden