Well as I already told you all, Jolee was given caterpillars by her Gam. She was so excited that we had to spend time last Monday planting a butterfly garden so that we had somewhere to release them.
Jolee adored her caterpillars from the moment that she got them.. as long as they were in and stayed in their container. As many of you know my daughter HATES bugs. She did enjoy watching them crawl around and kept asking, over and over again, when would they be butterflies. Patience is so hard a concept for a 3 year old. after about 4 days they all got into their cocoons and she was so excited. By the way watching caterpillars get into the cocoons is cool but really gross. Did you know that Caterpillars actually squeeze off the last 1/4 of their body with the back legs off. Then they ooze out this goo that then hardens around them that hardens to become the cocoon. It was really gross to watch but then again it was kinda cool too so I watched it over and over as all of then did it.... Anyway :)
After about a week , (Friday night and Saturday morning) 4 of our 5 butterflies hatched. I am not sure if hatched is the right term but you get the idea. They were very pretty and it was fun to watch them open their wings for the first time and them flap around to get them to unfold. Jolee was so excited that I took a picture of her calling everyone she knew in order to spread the good news. We decided that we wanted to release them today and that we would this afternoon. Well I fed the butterflies their sugar water this morning just before we went to the pool. I guess that I mistakenly forgot to re-zip the enclosure after that so we had a surprise when we got home from the pool. 3 butterflies in the habitat not 4. I guess one was smart enough to find the opening and he met up with our cat Rocco pretty quick. We were not sure if he was somewhere in the house or in Rocco's belly until I found a chunk of wing on the kitchen floor. My bad!
Rocco had proven himself a great bug hunter though which under normal circumstances in a good thing :)
So we quickly decided to go release the other 3 (we are still waiting on 1 to hatch as he was far behind the others). Jolee got to touch and hold them before they each flew away. Tonight we already saw one back in out garden so hopefully they will continue to stay around, since that was the whole purpose of the garden :)
Well sorry that this is such a long post but I guess there was a lot to tell!
Enjoy the pics :)
Jolee's new caterpillars hanging from the ceiling of their enclosure getting ready to get in their cocoons.
Jolee getting dirty while planting her garden
our finished garden
Jolee showing off her hard work after getting cleaned up
Jolee's first new friend to visit her garden.
The butterflies in their cocoons just before hatching
Jolee calling and making the hatch day announcements
Jolee's butterflies, one two and three
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