Kyle and I were chatting yesterday on the ferry ride back from Orcas Island - this place is magical. I think the Midwestern equivalent would be to have a lake house, but the San Juan Islands have waterfalls, quaint little harbor towns, artisan shops, cheap cruising around in the form of the ferries, banana slugs, a lot of foxes, and (hopefully soon) orcas.

Not to shit on lake houses. I went to friends’ lake houses as a kid and had a blast. I’m trying to convey the sense of retreat and slowing down that exists here, at least on my days off.

On my work days, we’ve been puttering around a lab on National Parks Service land, making our preparations. We have 120 or so pupae (chrysalis) that overwintered in the lab and will be ready to eclose (emerge) soon and be released on the landscape. The Island marble butterfly has a really interesting story, which I hope to include in a future email. The short version is, we don’t have a super accurate sense of how many of these butterflies remain, but it’s probably under 1000 (and likely much lower). So that 120 pupae are a pretty significant part of the population (did I mention I’m really, really honored to be part of this work??) The species was thought to be extinct for about a century when they were rediscovered around 1999.

Island marble butterflies haven’t been spotted on the land quite yet, but it’ll be soon, and that’s when things will really ramp up.

I’ve really enjoyed your replies. I need to catch up on replying to replies. Don’t let that discourage you from sending a reply. Perhaps you need to defend lake houses this time or you’ve seen an orca and have tips?