From Bubbles to Butterflies (because of Covid-19)

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Hi, I am Brian "Grandpop Bubbles" Maloney.



Hello from SE PA. For four years spanning 2016-2019, I was known as "Grandpop Bubbles" and I was a favorite entertainer of children and their families. Many towns, zoos, schools, cities, community associations, etc. would hire me to bring my "Free Bubble Festival" to their communities. At these large events, I provided all the equipment and bubble juice for 80 families at a time to make the biggest bubbles of their lives! Meanwhile, I would entertain the crowds of families by making giant bubbles, bubble blizzards, bubble tsunamis, bubble monster, and on and on. Kids enjoyed destroying the bubbles; I enjoyed making me with my poles up to 20 feet and nets of all sorts.

Festivals were always exciting!

There are thousands of photos of families and me making and popping giant bubbles on my Facebook Page, or search on Google Images for "Grandpop Bubbles."

But Covid-19 killed my business totally. I canceled the 80+ events already booked by March and disappointed thousands maybe tens of thousands of families. I do not see that I will be able to return to bubble festivals for years, if ever. And that disappointed me, too.

So the summer of 2020 gave me the idea of raising Monarchs, which I started doing in mid-July. By October, my wife and I released about 75 adult Monarchs.

Raising Monarchs gave me the reason to start planting milkweed and other flowers. The Monarch caterpillars absolutely need more milkweed as that is the only food they eat. And the adults love flowers.

We wish we could visit grandkids now while the world is all topsy-turvy. Nature is what we love and yet Codid-19 is part of nature. We know nature is not gentle and most of us know someone who has died of the virus. Too many of us have died. My prayers go out for us all.

Brian
 

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Zeedman

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Welcome to TEG @Grandpop Bubbles ! :welcome Sorry to hear about your lost business. Covid has taken its toll on all of us this year, in my case breaking up the weekly family dinners that we've had since our children grew up & had families of their own. Gardening is one of the few things keeping DW & I sane... that, and conversing with many of the good folks here. :thumbsup
 
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flowerbug

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welcome to TEG from mid-Michigan. yes, things have changed and they will change again i'm sure. i am a homebody and love gardening so the wider world is usually not too much of a problem for me in what it is doing. keeping busy, doing good things, butterfly habitat and food is a good thing. :) keep up the good work. :)
 

baymule

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Welcome from Texas, sure glad to have you here. You are our first Monarch Butterfly gardener! I saw a Monarch just a little while ago, fluttering south, beautiful against the clear blue October sky.
 

ninnymary

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Welcome! A couple years ago I started a monarch habitat under my Fuyu persimmon tree. I even wrote an article for our local paper on how to start one. Planted different plants that attract butterflies and hummingbirds. There are a pair of hummingbirds that we see each evening zipping from the flowers.

I follow a woman on IG that raises and releases hundreds of monarchs each year. I bought a couple of milkweed and now I'm constantly pulling out new seedlings that would otherwise takeover my small perennial bed. I didn't realize those seed heads can fly all over! Now I just cut the seed pods before they open. It's always fun to go looking for caterpillars and see how many you can find. It's hard to find their chrysalis though.

Mary
 

baymule

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Hello @Grandpop Bubbles ! (I think I might have seen a news story someplace about you!) I live in Eastern, IA .Happily retired. So sorry that Covid 19 burst our bubble :( Monarch are fascinating and I was lucky enough to catch a bunch of them hanging out overnight on their way south. View attachment 37253
That's a picture of the week!
 

flowerbug

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there are milkweed plants around and i have some growing in a few places and i also have some butterfly weed plants that they'll eat too. i didn't see any Monarchs this season, but they were around last year.
 

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