Winged Things.

"I was always a lover of soft winged things." Victor Hugo ... I love winged things; angels, fairies, birds and my personal favorite..BUTTERFLIES! I've been totally obsessed with them for years. The ultimate in butterflies is the Blue Morpho in Costa Rica. With a huge wingspan and a gorgeous florescent blue that shimmers in the sun, they look an animation when they fly by in the dipsy doodle type flight pattern they have. In the states, my favorite is the Tiger Swallowtail and I love all of the ones in between. Like millions of others, I like watching birds. All birds. My favorite is the Cardinal. I saw some pretty spectacular birds in Central America, but I found myself missing the cardinal. They have a pretty red summer tanager down there, but it's not the same. I can understand why angels are portrayed with wings...light, mystical and free. And children's (and some adults) best imaginary friends...fairies. The things storybooks and make believe are made of.

The world is full of wonders. I hope I never lose that child like awe of watching soft winged things FLY!

A New Year - A New Start - A New Perspective

I've been off the blog for awhile. I've been getting my ducks in a row. I've moved back from Costa Rica. I'm setting up housekeeping again in my house in Mobile. I've got a job. If there is one thing for sure, it's change. So, as we go into a new year, I will embrace my alter ego, the Butterfly, and rise above my circumstances and look at life with a different perspective. I'm looking forward to the journey.

Sometimes we count our blessings.

Sometimes we just need to ponder.

Mobo Stikes Out On His Own

Mobo grew and thrived and became very adept at negotiating the trees. On the morning of July 5, 2009, Mike left for Hawaii to visit his family. I was going to hold down the fort for three weeks. That afternoon, I took Mobo out to the stand of trees where we let him romp and jump to his hearts content. I noticed a few other monkeys in the area, but didn't think much about it.
An hour later, I went out to collect my little charge, but he was not in sight. I called and called and it was getting dark.
I could not find him. I was distraught. I finally went in the house and cried for my little baby monkey.

The next morning I went out again and looked for him. I morbidly thought if I at least found a body, I would know for sure. Still, I found nothing. I could only hope that he left with the other young monkeys I had noticed and was okay.

A couple of weeks later I was walking back from a visit with vegetable guy who delivered on Monday and noticed a troupe of young monkeys in the trees overhead. I stopped and was watching them when one young monkey stopped right over head and he was watching me! To my great surprise, he started sucking his thumb!!! There was no doubt in my mind that it was Mobo. I called him in the odd little clicking sound I made when I wanted him to come to me. He looked at me and he looked at the other monkeys. He looked at me for a long time and then jumped back to join the other others who were by this time moving on through the jungle. I stood there for a long time filled with relief that he appeared okay and sadness because I still missed him. But all in all, we succeeded in introducing him back to his enviroment. We have seen him several times on the deck when he would return and take bananas out of our hands. None of the other monkeys haved dared come so close. But our little Mobo had no problem with it.
The experience with Mobo was a happy one and one I will never forget.

Monkey Hi-Jinks

MoBo got very adept at tree climbing. He could climb really, really high and experimented with "free falling" and bouncing around on small branches. The bad news was: he refused to associate with his natural relatives. One evening while we were at the house, he got out of his cage and for the first time attempted to reach the house site via tree limbs. This was a HUGE endeavor for him as a few other squirrel monkeys were in the trees around his cage. He got way up high and started to get a bit panicky and started his "Mama, Mama, Mama" shriek in Monkey language. And then one of the most amazing things happened..... a young female monkey approached him and very kindly and gently reached out her arms to him............he wasn't about to have any part of it and promptly threw a fit and almost fell off the branch. We were holding our breath because at this point there was no way we could rescue him. Again the female monkey went over to him and reached out to him.. and he wailed and thrashed around in the branches. The female monkey was clearly distressed, and she attempted to reach out to him a couple of more times before she realized he was not going to cooperate. Monkey Boy fumbled his way through the rest of the tree branches and made it to the house where he started running towards me and promptly fell through a hole in the floor. ( We had temporary flooring in the pole house.) My heart stopped, but his little head popped up through the hole and he scampered over and clung to my ankles, His favorite clinging location at the time. I was very impressed with the behaviour of the female monkey. It was one of the sweetest gestures I've ever seen in the animal world.
Monkey Boy had gotten so good with his tree escapades, that when a troop of monkeys came through one day, I put him on a tree and encouraged him to climb. He was willing as long as I awas

in his sight, so I backed off and encouraged him to climb higher, HIGHER, HIGHER! The other monkeys were jumping around as they usually do, not real close, but definitely interested in the little baby monkey who seemed oblivious to them. He refused to look at them and would not accept their advances. Several monkeys "closed" in on him and was getting closer when he went into panic mode again and rapidly found a way down the tree, and came hopping like a grasshopper to where I was standing and promptly climbed up the legs of my overalls! He couldn't get any further than my knees and it looked pretty funny with a tail hanging my pants leg. Of course, by this time I was shrieking and pulling his tail to get him out of my pants...

MoBo

In time calling Monkey Boy, well, Monkey Boy became a bit wordy and we shortened it to MoBo. He continued to thrive and grow little by little. He thought himself to be much bigger and stronger than he really was and enjoyed "wrestling" with Mike. Mike was extremely gentle with the little fellow, but indulged MoBo's want of horseplay. Once, Mike was holding Mobo by his tail, he became agitated and retreated to my arm and lay there wimpering and sucking his thumb. I was petting him and comforting him and telling Mike he was a little

too rough, when out of the blue MoBo leaped off my arm and onto Mike with Hulk Hogan ferocity. He was ready for another round!

Monkey School 101

In an effort to acclimate the baby monkey to his natural state, he had to go to monkey school. Unfortunately, with me as the teacher, he was a bit disadvantaged, but at that point I'm all he had. The first day of school did not go well as we attempted the class: Climbing Trees 101. Monkey Boy kept scampering down the tree and clinging to my ankles. The is not good for a couple of reasons. First, Squirrel Monkeys are arboreal animals which means they live in trees. Their safety and livelihood depends on them moving adeptly through tree tops, Second, it was hard for me to walk with a monkey clinging to my feet. Monkey Boy made an F in tree climbing class.
The next day was Observing other Monkeys day. Several male squirrel monkeys came down to Monkey Boy's cage and showed an interest in him. I took him out of the cage and was walking around with him to let the other monkeys know he was in no danger and also to let Monkey Boy observe who were surely his kinfolk , maybe even his brother or uncle! He wasn't helping things by sitting on my shoulder and trying to twist my head around so he could squeeze my lips... "Don't do that", I told him, "your brethren are going to think you a wimp."
The other monkeys just continued to look puzzled. We got an email from an authority on primates who advised if the other squirrel monkeys showed an interest in the baby, we should let them take him. Monkey Boy doesn't seem too interested in going with them.

So his education continued...

Baby Love

Our little baby was quite affectionate and he loved attention. Of course, anything so small and adorable was easy to play with.