Butterfly Garden - Adult Stage

While we were on vacation, I had one small worry - that our butterflies would hatch in a cold, lonely house with no food. Their tiny butterfly cries for help would go unheeded, and they would then spend the entire weekend attempting to use their little butterfly teeth (Wait. Do they have teeth? Oh god, I can't believe Sarah hasn't asked me this yet.) to gnaw out of the Habitat. Finally giving up, with their tiny mouths bloodied from the fight to escape, they would shiver in a mound, give one last butterfly yelp and starve to death. Boy was I relieved to find them nestled safely in their cocoons when we got back on Sunday.

Yes. I do worry excessively. Why do you ask?

It was Monday morning when they made their appearance, and once again, the process was astonishingly quick. I walked bleary-eyed by their house that morning to retrieve my bleary-eyed kid from her bed. When I came back minutes later, a newly hatched butterfly was walking away from its cocoon - just strutting as if metamorphosis is really nothing to get worked up about. The others soon followed. All five cocoons produced butterflies. Here are the empty pods. The red stuff on the paper is not blood. It's meconium which is basically baby butterfly poop. The insert that came with the kit pretties up the description and calls it "left-over color and unneeded tissue from the butterfly's wing formation". But it's poop. Red poop.



The next step was to feed the little critters. As you know, I didn't want them to starve! So, we took an old sponge and stuck some flowers in it. Then, we dropped sugar water on the flowers and placed the entire thing in the cage.



By Wednesday, they had gotten much bigger.



I began to tire of caring for another set of beings. After much convincing, Sarah agreed to release our new friends.



The largest and strongest was first to go. (He's near the top of the cage getting ready to fly off.)



Soon after, all but one were gone. As it turns out, one butterfly, the runt of the bunch, could not fly. He had a misshapen wing. I'll spare you the worrying and the details of the ridiculous feats I performed to keep this little guy alive. Just know that this morning when I was running low on anti-anxiety meds, I took Arnold, that's what I named him, out into the warm sun and placed sugar water on a leaf for him. He took a long sip of the food, fell over and died. Sigh...

Aside from the one tragedy and the streaks of meconium, I'd say this kit was superb. I highly recommend the Butterfly Garden. It was a joy for us all.

Butterfly Garden - Pupal Stage

So, the caterpillars are no more. We now have five pupae on our hands:



Here's a slightly closer view of the little rascals:



The transformation was surprisingly quick. Just when I started to worry that the huge caterpillars (they ate most of the food in the container and grew considerably larger) would no longer fit in the container, they made their way to the top of the cup, dropped their skin and formed chrysalides.

By pure luck, I got to watch one caterpillar molt. I was just walking by the cup when I noticed a lot of movement. I stopped to see what was happening. The last remaining caterpillar was hanging from the top of the cup and shaking furiously. Then from the vibrating caterpillar, a lump of skin was dropped. I called Mike over to watch with me. The vibrating continued as the chrysalid appeared to form before our very eyes. Very cool. Also, very gross.

That was all on Saturday. Monday was the day Sarah had been anticipating all along. The day that we broke out the Butterfly Garden Habitat and moved the chrysalides into their new home:



We opened the cup that they came in and gently removed the paper from under the lid - the chrysalides were attached to the paper disk. Then, we pinned the paper disk to the inside of the habitat (the instructions said tape could be used, but tape did not work for us):



Now, we wait. In about 7-10 days, butterflies! Oh, Sarah cannot wait to feed them.

Butterfly Garden - Larval Stage

So just when you finish complaining about having a yard full of caterpillars, what's the most logical thing to do? Order some caterpillars, of course. To keep in your house. In a cup.



Yeah, I know this doesn't make any sense. Let me explain.

This is what happened. Last year, I bought a Butterfly Garden as a birthday present for the daughter of a friend. At the time, I didn't really know this mom that well. After a few more conversations with her, I realized that she probably wouldn't appreciate having live, squirmy creatures in her house. So, I picked out a tidier gift for her little girl and stuck the Butterfly Garden in our closet. I figured I could break it out one day if I needed a gift in a pinch. Of course, what really happened is that I completely forgot about it. That is, until Sarah was snooping around and found the box.

As is her way, she was intensely curious about the box, its contents and how it all worked. She bombarded me with question after question. Weakened by her grilling, I broke down, opened the package and agreed to send away for the caterpillars that the kit promised. So, we sat down, filled out the order form and put it in the mailbox immediately.

I thought she would forget about the entire thing. As is my way, I was completely wrong. Everyday she asked if the mailman had brought her butterfly eggs. For a week straight, she tracked the mailman and rifled through our mail.

On Saturday when the little box arrived, she was ecstatic. We broke open the box and pulled out our cup of 5 caterpillars. This led to another assault of questions which forced me to read the entire insert that came with the box. Sarah has had me explain over and over again what is going to happen to the caterpillars. This is her version (imagine lots of hand waving):

Our butterfly eggs got warm and popped. Then caterpillars came out. The caterpillars are gonna make a raccoon at the top of the cup and go to sleep. Then, they will make a tiny hole and BUTTERFLIES will come out!

She's pretty close - except for the raccoon part. Raccoon, cocoon - whatever.

So in a couple of weeks, give or take, we should have Painted Lady butterflies.



In the meantime, I'll be fielding questions, lots of questions and doing my best to prevent one excited little girl from cracking open the cup to hold the caterpillars ("They like it, mama.").