Lovely Butterflies

Our first two caterpillars finished their metamophosis today! Cue angels singing

Aren't they lovely!!

I've known them since they were babies (Aug 14th), and already they are grown and heading out on their own, how quickly life passes...

I posted these pictures on my "lovely world" flower blog too.

So this one above and below is a girl...

And the pale one on the left is a male. 

Here is how it went. They started to turn dark last night, so I knew they'd come out this morning.

The one on the left looked great and normal.

The chrysalis on the right had me a little worried, I couldn't see it's orange wings very well through the chrysalis. It was just kinda dark all over. And it looked kinda fuzzy inside too around the abdomen... The one on the left came out first. This was our girl.

I had them taped above my desk in the laundry room. I took her outside and kept checking on the other one.

Yeah, it looked a little weird like it had mold inside. I was worried that it had died and wasn't going to emerge, so I kept checking on him. One one of my checks I found him starting to emerge, but stuck and upside down kicking his legs in a panic trying to get out of his chrysalis. I put my finger there for him to grab on, but he was stuck. I tried to peel off the chrysalis and lots of his color stuck the chrysalis, so that’s why he’s pale. Here are the pieces of his chrysalis -

The girl emerged perfectly normal. On the left there is how an empty chrysalis is supposed to look - clear and all intact.

The one that was stuck is something that I’ve never had happen before in all my years as a caterpillar farmer, ha, but I’m glad I was there so quickly when he came out and was able to help him. I just put him outside to hang and hoped for the best. When I checked on him later it looked like his wings had mostly expanded, phew! 

They were just a little misshaped and with some poor coloring, but hopefully it doesn't make a difference in his survival. And if it does, well I guess I'll never know.

To quote P. Sherman "Beauty, isn't he? I found that guy struggling for life... and I saved him!" The girl is showing off her colorful wings... and then she flew up high into the tree. 

I didn't see when the guy left. But I didn't find him on the grass, so here's wishing him a safe life. So while I was attending to birthing the butterflies all morning, I was also constantly checking on our mousetraps in the basement. The kids saw a mouse over the weekend. I went out first thing this morning to get traps. The kids all seemed to accept that this was the way it had to be even before it was dead. And the mouse passed away later this afternoon. When I found him he was twitching and it looked like he was fully alive and that the trap barely caught him by the mouth, so I thought he wasn't dead, doh. I went to tell Corey that I was sad that I was probably going to have to finish the job, but then when I came back with the garbage sack he was dead. Lily was the one who noticed him several times, and she was the only kid around so I told her I had the dead mouse and she came out with me. We told him sorry and then had a quick garbage side funeral service for him. Butterflies and caterpillars - good. Mouse - bad. Skunk - unfortunately they gotta go too. We see deer several times each week. We had another new first last month and had a rabbit in our window well. Deer and rabbits are our friends. Lady Bugs - good. Praying Mantis - cool and fun! Here's one we were playing with on a recent Sunday afternoon (Aug 25) -

Lily's turn...

Ethan's turn...

The fruit flies or other little bettle bugs that find their way all over the house - bad (but they keep the kids entertained. Here's Daniel killing one)

We usually kill spiders too. And always always kill mosquitos!