The shoot today was the beginning of fall beginning to reveal itself for this drought year 2022. The Monarch Annual Migration back to the mountains of Mexico where they literally hang around over the winter, is underway. It will take three generations to get back into the Great Lakes and Southern Canada. It's an interesting fact about the Monarch.
During Kindergarten for all three of my kids, the church was big in educating not only the kids on the life cycle of the Monarchs but the parents learned a interesting history as well. The school had net cages where they watched the cocoons being spun by the caterpillars, the hatching into the morphed butterfly to the release ceremony when the kids release their butterflies to fly to Mexico for the winter.
As a side note to this, my wife and I had a friend who sailed on Lake Erie and Lake Huron about this time of year and had made some images of not only one but several Monarchs hitching a ride across the lakes on his sail boat. With the internet, there is a Monarch watch site that tracks the Northern journey South to the winter homes that they will never see again after they leave Mexico and start their trips back North, taking generations to get back, yet the trip south are done by one the last generations going North and will go the distance in one generation to Mexico. So, photographing the Monarch is something with very special meanings for me, especial since my oldest son (RIP) is no longer with me, an that his mother just passed away in the last couple of months. My younger son and his sister were also schooled in the Monarch Project. Usually I find the milkweed patches earlier in the season so I know where to find the Monarchs as they migrate through North Texas, which has been in the past, around White Rock Lake. But, today, there was a sport found along my wagon wheel spoke route in Garland. There were dozens in one spot and they were just beautiful.
Prior, the old AT&SF rail car that had been moved, along with the original station house of the Santa Fe in the downtown part of old Garland. The new location is off the parking lot of the Garland Library and is an interesting museum of railroading history of Garland. I have images of the move of one of the oldest residences next to where the Pullman car of the AT&SF and station house are now located. The other house that was a neighbor in its original location is now sitting in a residential area of South 11th (Pace Hose) The Lyle House sits now waiting restoration off the parking lot of the Library next to the Pullman car and the station house.
The new re-due of the town square will take another14 months of construction to finish. All-in-all it is about a 24 month project. While talking to one of the contractors today, I told him I didn't like it. He ask me why. "No trees," I said. Well, they did save one tree. The others that took half a life time to grow were bulldozed. The contractor said to me that,"they were going to plant new trees here and over there." Before he went on further, I said," Well.I won't be around to see them the size you bulldozed. I'll be pushing up daisies." He laughed.
I like trees and that is that. They are the HOV of earth and we need many more than those that are disposed of with the push of a bulldozer. He, interjected that they were, "doing this for the younger generations." And I rebuffed, "are they really doing that for the younger generations? And, I moved on to City Hall for some beautiful fall plantings outside between the sidewalk and the street. The contractor knew what I meant and our parting was on good terms.
