Back 2 School

I took the kids to back to school night tonight. I usually don't go to them, since I've had kids going here for 15 years and get the drill for most every class and teacher, but Natalie wanted us to go, so we did. The kids liked it. I think they were mostly excited to show Katharine to their teachers and any classmates that were there. Natalie holding K while I listen to the Kindergarten meeting.

Daniel didn't come, he was gone at a friends house. SN&O came. And Katharine of course. 

For our daily butterfly update: this morning, we had four butterflies emerge, including the tiny tiny chrysalis. 

That one on the right has us worried too - I'm not sure why or how it got those lines on it, but we're hoping it doesn't affect it? It's color looked a little too white today... I'm pretty sure it's still alive, cause it would have gone bad by now if it died when it molted into the chrysalis. So, I got a video of the tiny tiny one emerging and shortly thereafter I noticed that he only had 3 legs! Then I looked at the video and noticed there was a 4th leg there, but it was just a short little stumpy thing and wasn't long enough to be any good. Cute little thing. We hope he's ok. He can fly, so we put him outside and hoped for the best for him. Look at how little he was next to one of the girls! So we called him Tiny Tim. 

Jerry drinking honey water this morning - 

We went to Thanksgiving Point today with the hopes that they'd be willing to donate a recently deceased  Butterfly to be an organ donor for Jerry. The lady at the desk seemed pretty irritated with us. Maybe they get "do-gooders" in here a lot with injured butterflies trying to get them medical assistance? Cause she didn't even listen to what we were asking, she just looked at us and Jerry and said "There's nothing we can do... Yeah, he's not going to make it." "No, we just want a dead butterfly" "We don't have any monarchs. We don't give away butterflies... you have to buy them..." Ok, we'll buy one. She said they are in the gift shop. So we go in, and there are these lovely framed shadow boxes with butterflies in them. Man, is that honestly the only option? We're not going to spend $100 on this... The gift shop cashier was more kind than the hardened biosphere worker. It honestly bothered me how she treated us. So I was trying to see things from her point of view. Maybe they see so many dead butterflies everyday, that they've just become calloused and don't care about "the one" little guy. Listen, we're keeping him as a pet, we're just looking for a way to help him fly and fulfill the measure of his creation! But I get it, they have short life spans. You can't get attached. "Millions of (butterflies) suffer every year!" So I tried to move on, but the rest of the day, I've been replaying in my head "He's not going to make it..." and Jerry is ready to prove her wrong, with or without wings! But we did have success at the gift shop. By the checkout counter, they had two little boxes where you can buy an assortment of mixed wings for $1 or a whole butterfly for $2. Unfortunately, they didn't have any monarchs. And also unfortunately, the whole butterflies were all too small to have any of them donate their wings to Jerry. So we got 10 assorted wings envelopes and left with hopes that we'd be able to find a match for Jerry in them. We'll see! Jerry enjoying the ride down in the car ~ 

After we got home, I ran a few errands - I went to get some tulle and a few wood rods to make an enclosure for the caterpillars, so we don't have an accident like Jerry's messed up wings again.  

I also got a few more supplies, recommended by the Live Monarch Foundation, for our upcoming butterfly surgery attempt to fix his wings: toothpicks, baby powder, and contact glue.

The evening was too busy and loud, so Mel and I are going to work on him tomorrow. We'll see how it goes! Also, I found three eggs today, and one already hatched! We watched him eating his egg.

And the circle of life continues.