CRITTER! Part Three

On the last Sunday of every month way out on the West End of St. Thomas, (nearly 30 minutes from our house and about 10 or 12 miles away) at a place called Bordeaux, there is a farmer's market.

I took Critter.

Here he is with O'Neal Pennyfeather, also known as Breed, a farmer and artist who comes over from St. Croix every month. Breed was most kind. When he heard Critter's story he graciously agreed to have his picture taken with him. Those mangoes Critter is sitting among are the best tasting I've ever had. (We bought a dozen.) And look at the size of those star fruit to the right!

From the farmer's market we stopped by the Texas Embassy.

(You thought I was kidding didn't you?)

On Monday June 28th, which was also my birthday. My sister and I took Critter to The Butterfly Farm.

We learned all kinds of things about butterflies. Like: moths make cocoons, butterflies make chrysalises; that every chrysalis has some gold on it,

some more than others;

that monarchs are the only butterfly that can be found world-wide because most everywhere has some kind of milkweed on which they lay their eggs; that the nectar butterflies live on, because of sunlight, is actually about 4% alcohol, so butterflies, when you see them are pretty happy; that rain forest butterflies sip only on fermented fruit nectar while all other butterflies sip only on fermented flower nectar; and most amazing of all, when a caterpillar becomes a chrysalis, the caterpillar completely disappears. It literally becomes a puddle of DNA filled liquid in the bottom of the chrysalis and it is out of this liquid the butterfly is made. Miraculous.

Unfortunately The Butterfly Farm has been hit hard by the down turn in the economy and is closing its doors the end of this month. It's very sad as one of the things they have been doing is hatching a releasing native butterflies that were nearly wiped out in the late 50's and early 60's when they used to spray for mosquitoes with DDT.

I'm glad we got to visit.