Fly Away Home: Butterflies, Butterflies Fly Away Home

Well it finally happened. The amazing day of emerging butterflies. No longer caterpillars, no

longer chrysalids. An adventure the kids were waiting so long for (okay, only two weeks), and which they were very excited for.

Monday morning I was dragging...the boys were still happy upstairs and I thought I'd grab another half hour of sleep before the noise settled in for the day. But then I heard Gabi's excited voice yelling from the kitchen "Mom, Mom something's happening to

the cocoons!" (Just a side note, we learned that Butterflies form Chrysalids and Moth's form Cocoons)

Needless to say I hurried right out to see what was happening (believe it or not, but this was my first experience with this too). Sure enough, where we had still seen what appeared to be green chrysalids the night before, we now saw two "black" forms. We learned that a chrysalis will thin out so much that it will appear black. It will then continue to thin out so that you can see the colors of the wings through the "black". Really, it's all clear. Which, if you don't believe it, you can see after the butterfly emerges!

We did not want to miss this great experience (and it looked like we'd only have the one day to see it - not two), so we stuck real close. There was always someone watching, while the kids took turns playing computer, doing some language arts, and just staying near in the same room. I was back and forth doing lots of laundry. We were able to ge

t some neat pictures of the various stages of the chrysalids thinning out.

The first butterfly emerged about 3:15pm. Gabi was on watch and got side track answering a question for Bethie, but she saw most of it. She called us over, and we were able to see it pull it's wings out behind itself and climb over the chrysalis to get to a good place to "stretch out" the wings to start the drying and stiffening process. It hangs upside down, pumps blood into it's wings, and then waits until they are completely dry. Then the blood is drained out of the wings, the tubes closed off, and the butterflies start to move them, testing

them out.

Butterfly number two we were hoping to get a little movie of! Thanks to a very vigilant Gabi, we have one to share with you. It was really neat! Don't mind the back ground noise - not everyone was watching the little miracle!

We mixed up a little "nectar" from the butterfly book we have. I'm not sure if the butterflies ever ate any, but Bob said the butterflies needed to go this morning (though another time we're going to try out some of the gentle "experiments" - really observations - suggested in the book.

butterfly to crawl onto her hand. Gentle, they brought them out, and enjoyed having the onThis morning was very hard for Gabi. Bethie was relieved. She seemed to think it was a problem that the butterflies were in the Butterfly Garden we had for them. In any case, we carried them out in the Butterfly Garden, and then the girls each reached in and allowed onee their hands for

a little while, then gentle placed them near to a flower and watched the

butterflies crawl onto the flowers.

As today was not sunny, the butterflies weren't even 24 hours old yet, and it was getting ready to rain, the butterflies did not fly away. After the major rain storm, the girls went out to see if "Jack and Annie" (as they had named them) were still where they left them. Sure enough, they found them and the butterflies were willing to crawl back onto their little fingers. This was great for Jeremy, because he was able to have a butterfly crawl onto his finger too!

At one point, the one Gabi was hold flew up and landed on her cheek. It then crawled up and hung on her helmet (which was was hearing). After Jeremy and I went back inside, the girls continued to play with and talk to the butterflies. Then I noticed it was starting to rain again