Jerry's Friend Maria

Butterfly report for today - Jerry is a sweetheart and is doing great. Today he got a friend. We had three eclose today. Two were males, and they turned out great, but the chrysalis on the right here...

I was right there when it was emerging, but then it wasn't getting out... it was stuck and flailing it's arms... I put down the camera and tried to help. I put my finger there so it could grab it, but that didn't work. It was really stuck tight inside. Other times the chrysalis is open enough that I can pull the chrysalis gently off of it, but this one was really stuck, I tried to get it's abdomen loose by pushing on it a little bit... we got it out, but it had been stuck for 4 minutes. There was meconium in the chrysalis... it didn't look good to me...

And after a traumatic experience like that, this guy did NOT want to hang upside down and was crawling all over trying to get upright... Then the middle one eclosed...

So I moved the crazy busy one off the branch, hoping it would not disturb the others. It didn't hang though, and it's wings were totally messed up. We put Jerry by him/her for company. 

It stayed on the edge for a bit, but wasn't upside down. When the butterfly that eclosed after it had fully expanded wings, I figured it was too late for it's wings to be saved. 

The kids say it's a female, but we don't really know - it's wings didn't expand enough for us to see if it was a male or female. But they want it to be a female, so I guess it is. I'm glad Jerry has a friend. I suggested the name Jillian, cause Jerry & Jillian sounded kinda cute together. I also said Petunia. The kids have a lot of suggestions. Natalie is calling her Maria, but then she also wants to rename Jerry to be "Tony" like West Side Story. Then they also suggested Romeo and Juliet. I don't know... we're going to be sticking with Jerry, and we'll probably just call the new one Maria, although we should prob choose a gender neutral name. I guess it might not matter, given today's gender fluid world. Maria seemed really weak, and she couldn't walk with her bit heavy crumpled wings on top of her, so I clipped hers too. I fed them watermelon juice and banana nectar. 

So we'll see how this goes! Two pet butterflies. I'm sorry they can't fly away, but hopefully they can have a full life as crawling insects. We'll do our best to take care of them. I need to go take care of my biological children now. Katharine, are you feeling neglected?

Haha, baby selfies! She's so cute! So, yeah, there was a bit of butterfly drama today. Other monarch counts: I have 31 eggs, Mel came up and returned the van, and she took 2 eggs down for herself to mother, and I also gave her 3 chrysalides - one for her and two for a friend of hers who loves butterflies. It's fun to be able to share the love.

Off to BYU

Melodie and Ethan headed off to BYU today! We let them take the van cause all their stuff wouldn't fit in the kids car, and they were taking some of Joseph's stuff back down too (he's still visiting Guatemala). Mel is coming back up tomorrow for the Ski sale so she will return the van then. As they were loading up the car, Ethan said outloud "You know, for most parents, having a kid go to college is a big deal. but for us... Dad's at work, and Mom's feeding a butterfly... and we load our stuff by ourselves..." The butterfly comment made me laugh. It sounded silly, but I was feeing a butterfly (thank you renzlohnad). I had just cut open a watermelon I bought yesterday so I could feed Jerry, ha! So that was funny. We love ya Eth, and we wish you luck as you being your first year of college.

But yeah, we didn't make a big deal or ceremony of it. We've already got two college kids, plus we got a lot more on the docket... there's no time for us to be present and try to feel any excitement or sadness over this milestone. j/k. We feel it. But you guys gotta get outta here, you'll be happier out on your own. It's time. So I was on my way back from taking Daniel to the bus stop, and as I was almost home, they were backing out of the driveway. It's a good thing I caught them, cause they were trying to stowaway two of their siblings.

But that was better than what I was thinking when I saw the van backing out - I thought that they were leaving, without me being back to watch the toddler and 2 month old, and had left Peter in charge of Katharine. I'm glad that they are more responsible than that.

Ethan trying to get K to smile for the camera. Katharine! We want to see your pretty eyes!

Those heavy cheeks are always weighing down her face and she just looks at the ground. She's so cute.  Later Melodie texted me the picutres that they had taken in the car - 

(Those cheeks!) and before they got in the car - 

Big kids and little kids - 

I think M&E will miss P&K more than P&K will miss them. I'm sure it's nothing personal.

But hopefully they'll be ready to be attacked with sibling time when these big kids do come back from college to visit us. 

They are all such good and cute kids. Mel texted me tonight "I miss Katharine. Are you sure I can't take her?" I feel ya. After I took back Katharine and Peter, Peter was sad when I took him back inside. "MoOommM! I thought I want to go to BYU!!" :) Don't worry P, we'll go visit them! Maybe we'll go down on Saturday. 

Daily butterfly update - we released two butterflies today. 

The chrysalis with the weird lines on it emerged and looked fine but then I noticed that it didn't have antennae. 

Well, it had just like 1/3 of one on the left side.

Poor thing! Man! What a year we've had! First of all the sheer numbers we're dealing with, and then Jerry, then Tiny Tim yesterday, and now this lady with a handicap. I have since learned that butterflies use antennae to smell and migrate, so it's possible that she won't be able to find food or find California... sounds like she's in a risky situation... but she can fly, so we put her outside to dry and will let nature take it's course. Hopefully if she can't find other monarchs, they'll be able to find her? I'm not sure what she'll do to find food! 😬😟 As for Jerry, we have been trying to intervene with nature on his behalf, but to no avail. We bought some butterfly wings yesterday at Thanksgiving Point. This morning we prepared to operate. 

Here he is post op...

We thought we did a pretty decent job!

They weren't exactly symmetrical when he put his wings up and together, but we were hoping for the best for him. We took him outside to see what he could do. And he did try to take off. But he didn't get any lift, he just fell to the floor. He actually flew better with the heavy plastic prosthetic wings we made. Today the poor guy just flapped around on the ground and busted up all of his donated wings...

Well, Jerry, I'm outta ideas. Looks like you're grounded and stuck with us. I'm sorry. And then I went and looked for more eggs for some reason. I haven't found any for over a week, but then I found one yesterday, and then today I found FIFTEEN! Oh boy! Here we go again! 

I know I already have "my hands full" with my biological children, but for some reason I've gone nuts and I'm taking on more dependents. Our current 20+ caterpillars have been making a big frass mess and eating a ton. I've officially dedicated the whole laundry room desk area to them now. I bought some tulle as a covering so that we don't have a Jerry incident happen again. 

And when I was looking for eggs, I also found one full grown caterpillar! He looks like he's ready to go into chrysalis! 

I have NEVER found one this big in "the wild" before! So that was really exciting to know that they can and probably do survive on their own without us humans intervening. Yay!

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.

Helpers & Pet Jerry

It's nice having Mel and Ethan around for a few more days before they take off to BYU this week (on Wed). Mel with Katharine yesterday - 

Since she's still here to help, this morning I asked her to get the kids out the door to school and I tried to catch up to Corey and join him on his ride. I was following him on life 360, he left like 10 min before me and was just a little bit ahead of me the whole time. Eventually I gave up trying to catch him and headed back home. He rides ALL THE WAY up the canyon to Lisa Falls. I went until I felt done, then texted him that I had almost caught up (probably not really) and then I went down to the quarry and stretched as I listened to the creek. 

We really live in such a lovely place!

When I got home we watched a few butterflies emerge - two to be exact. And then as I went about the day's tasks, I was up in the laundry room and found a butterfly flapping around on the floor. It had really messed up wings, all of them bent to one side at like 90 degrees. It was a male. It must have wandered off the milkweed and made it's chrysalis in a place where there wasn't room for it's wings to hang and straighten out! I was so sad for him! He kept trying to fly but couldn't. I decided to clip it's wings at the bend, thinking that maybe we could get it some replacement wings? 

This video gave me that idea. And true... that butterfly had one bad wing, whereas ours had 4, but I still thought it looked easy enough and we'd give it a go. Unfortunately, we don't have any spare monarch wings lying around. Mel and I tried to size up the wings from a printed pic of a monarch that looked about the right size. 

I found some thin plastic, that was the stiff, yet thin and light (from some wrapping around vellum stationary thing), thinking that that would work best, cause it wouldn't get ruined if it rains. With the plastic wings sized up the best we could, we were ready to operate. 

He did not cooperate but we did all 4 wings and they are each free and not stuck together, so we felt we had done pretty good! They even almost lined up perfectly when he closed his wings... Well, they're a little off I guess... Hm, darn.

We took him outside to see how he did. I was actually super impressed, he was able to hold himself up, but didn't get enough lift to get up in a tree or anything and soon he was on the grass again. It made a good noise though, which will be helpful for us being able to find him when he is inside. I ran upstairs into the laundry room for more supplies, and there was ANOTHER butterfly on the chair!! This one looked absolutely perfect. It surprised me so much though - I came in, saw it, and I imagined it sitting there waiting... ready to surprise me, and I walked in it shouted "TA-DA!!!! Look at ME!! I did it!!!" So I laughed and we took that one outside along with our messed up one. The good one did like 5 little victory laps over the trampoline and around the yard, it was so cute! It was like it was saying to the other "SEE! This is how you do it! It's easy!!!" And our poor guy was sad, not feeling understood or really encouraged by their showing off. So... it looks like we might have a pet butterfly. 

I called thanksgiving point to see if they have any monarch wings we could have, but I wasn't able to talk to anyone to ask... I thought maybe we'll go down there. We googled how to feed a butterfly and found two helpful videos, so we fed out pet, we've named him Jerry...

...and then I got ready to run errands and maybe go to the butterfly biosphere. I go out to the car, and noticed I had a flat tire. Blah, another thing that I wasn't planning on that it going to steal my time today - first a busted butterfly, now a flat tire. I was glad to have kids at home to help. Melodie watched Katharine while Ethan and I changed the tire. I was trying to get the bolts loose, then Ethan gave it a go, and I told him he should step on it to use his body weight instead of trying to turn it with his arms. He said "I bowl with 14 lbs, Mom..." Haha, letting me know he's got plenty of upper arm strength. And he got them all off

And then I went to Burt Bros to get the tire fixed. I left K home with Mel, but Peter saw me leave and he came long and they gave him a toy car, so that was nice. Peter was happy. They were able to patch it, we had run over a nail. And then it was time to take Owen to his trumpet lesson. I'm glad that we discovered the flat tire when I went to try and run errands rather than when I went out to go to trumpet, or else we would have missed his lesson. So, yeah, busy day with things that I wasn't planning on, but we handled it well, I think starting off the morning right with some sunshine and fresh air helped. We have a pet now, Jerry the Butterfly, and since this is one of the "super" monarchs that is larger and lives longer (like up to 6 months) we might have this guy through Christmas! It old the kids that they need to take him on walks to the neighbors flowers. He's a sweet butterfly, and it's so cool when he turns his head. He kinda looks like/reminds me of Larry the Lobster from Spongebob. He just looks really strong and cool, it's fun, so yeah, we have a pet! 

Sharing Butterflies

I'm teaching Gospel Doctrine this Sunday. The topic is basically all of Psalms. It's actually just 18 chapters of Psalms, but since we didn't have class last week and won't have it next week, I'm going to open it up to any insights from any Psalms chapter, or any hymn from our modern hymnbook that has special meaning to anyone. Some of my favorites are Savior, Redeemer of My Soul, Master the Tempest is Raging, and Forever and Gethsemane sung by Nathan Pacheco. I've done as much as I can to prepare, so I trust the Lord will help me lead and will bless the class. I know I could have spent more time today trying to cram more stuff into my mind, but instead we played with butterflies (again). We had NINE emerge today! I sent a message to the neighborhood group me for people to send their kids over sometime to come and look - we had them out in the front yard and had a good turn out of kids - 

After a while it got a little windy and rainy, so we moved them to the front porch where they'd be more protected. 

7 butterflies out, still waiting for 2 more to eclose - 

Two cute neighbors, Tess and Jack, had a caterpillar that they fostered that their mom found on a hike, but then it emerged and flew away while they were gone on a trip, so they were sad to miss it. They were glad to come and see some butterflies. Jack asked if he could see some of our caterpillars, so I took him inside and showed him my set up. He was impressed. 

We had some fly away throughout the day, but a lot of them stayed for most of the afternoon! Maybe they were concerned about facing wind and rain on their first day of flying. We enjoyed having lots of time with them.

Abi was glad that they came out on a Saturday so she could play Snow White.

At one with the creatures of nature.

They are so beautiful!

We got some pictures with Katharine with a butterfly bow - 

My nieces came over to play with us - butterflies and baby Katharine = heaven!

We tried to get K to extend her finger to hold one, ha - not a natural position for a 3 months old! 

We figured the butterflies were safer on her toes than here her tight fists - 

There, perfect!

I tried to get a photo of three butterfly stages. If we just had an egg we'd have all 4!

It was a fun and magical day.