Recently we had the pleasure of welcoming some new adopties to our family. I documented our adventures with our little friends with LOTS of pictures (seriously. lots.).
Here is a slide-show of our 10 new little caterpillar friends. The first picture I took is what they looked like 3 or 4 days after they arrived. It doesn't quite capture their "newbornness" since they were so itty-bitty when they arrived and they grow so much each day, but you get the idea. They were super skinny and about 1/2 inch long when they arrived. The brown gook at the bottom of the cups is their food that they come with.
On with the show!
3 or 4 days old
a day or two later...
...the next day....
(Can you see them? I accidentally left the cups in the sunshiney window too long. It got pretty foggy in there. They aren't supposed to be in the direct sunlight for too long. Sorry guys.)
...and couple more days later...
(do you see what I mean about growing fast?! They are HUGE here. And only about 1 1/2 weeks old. I'd say if I had measured them, they'd have been about an inch long and very big and fuzzy. They grow up so fast.)
...the next day...
(Sorry it's pretty blurry and horribly glarey, but can you see how they are starting to gather on the lid? When they start doing this, it means that they are getting ready to form their chyrsallis'.)
HOLY COW!! Can you see that??!! So freaking cool! They are all in their cozy little chrysalis' here. They spin a silk pad with a thread that comes out of their mouth and attach themselves to the lid to transform. The booklet that came with them says that their skin splits open from head to abdomen, revealing a shiny green case underneath (the chrysalis). This is the most amazing part: What is happening inside the chrysalis? Inside, the caterpillar is becoming completely liquid (WHAT??!!!) and reforming itself into a butterfly. AMAZING!!!!
Once all the caterpillars are hanging and in their chrysalis, you have to detach the lid from the cup and hang it inside the butterfly garden. Then you watch as the chrysalis' darken. The darker they get, the closer they are to coming out. It took them about a week.
Here are 5 of our little chrysalis' just after we pinned them to the Tent.
Our first born. I went out to run errands that morning and came home to a beautiful Painted Lady butterfly. We picked a list of 10 names while they were still transforming and one by one as they arrived, the boys took turns naming them. Here are their names in order of hatching:
Petunia, JuJu, Frankie, Jack, Googley, Mahonri Moriancumr (leave it to Brian to choose a name like that), Moses, Zoozilly, Woody, and last but not least, Kookie.
Some of our little pretties sunning their wings in the window. The Painted Lady Butterfly only has a lifespan of 2 weeks to 2 months. We didn't want to keep them cooped up for very long, so we picked a day when we had a break in the rain and took them outside to let them go.
Brian helped the first one out of the tent and it got a little scared an flew onto the wet slide.
It seemed really unhappy, and none of the others budged out of the tent, so we decided they must not be ready to leave the nest just yet. We went inside and gave them another 5 days or so. During that time they got, shall we say, "friendly" with each other. There was a lot of Bow-chica-bow-bow going on in that tent. I felt a little like a perv watching this happening, but it really was quite incredible to see them doing what nature intended them to. Even our little internet-adopted caterpillars know exactly what they are meant to do. The main reason Butterflies were put on the earth was to look beautiful and to multiply and replenish. I find it completely fascinating that our little ones were doing their best to fulfill their purpose.
After several more days of rain, we had our first dry day in weeks. We figured it would be the only opportunity we'd get in a while to release the butterflies, so we took it. I'd rather release the butterflies outside than some of them die in the tent. I thought that would be tramatic for the kids who have been watching them grow and transform since the beginning.
They were quite timid about going out into the big world of our backyard. We put some on our little rose bush and others on a bush by our back door. The kids LOVED watching this. There was one that wasn't as timid as the others. As soon as Brian lifted it from the tent, it spread it's wings and flew up, up and away. I got a quick picture as it flew away. You can almost make it out, just above the eave on our neighbor's house.
Can you see him/her? So cool!
Here is a rather tasteless picture of 2 of the lovebirds from our group. Hours before we were going to release them, they were going at it, so we gave them a while to seperate before we bid farewell. They didn't get the memo. We had to put them on the bush like this. Awkward.
One butterfly landed on the table and the kids loved studying it while it rested there.
So you've finally come to the end of my documentary. I know it was long, sorry about that. It was seriously amazing to experience a little taste of nature. I know it wasn't as authentic as finding a caterpillar and putting it in a jar with holes in the lid like I did as a kid, but amazing regardless. The kids loved every minute and we all learned a lot about one of Heavenly Father's beautiful creatures.
Yesterday was Noah's 4th birthday! It was a wonderful day that started with our traditional birthday donuts; we took Noah to lunch to Hudson's (without his brother & sister...what a treat!) where he slowly ate his burger and devoured his beloved banana cream pie; and that evening we had lots of friends over and had a super fun Lightning McQueen party!!
