Metamorphosis

We have a new family project going over here. A little over a week ago, my youngest daughter and I took a one-morning community ed. class together. We received 2 teeny, tiny caterpillars that our family gets to watch transform into butterflies! We spent the classtime creating everything they need for survival. First, we made their little caterpillar home - contructed from a plastic cup with a dome top (think ice cream sundae). We taped a little circle of paper coffee filter to the very top of the inside, and then placed "food" (some manufactured, nutritionally-packed, really stinky paste) in the bottom of the cup. We carefully chose our 2 little caterpillars, named them Emma and Callisa (my daughter's favorite names) and gently placed them in their new home. Then we made a butterfly net that the caterpillars are transferred to once they spin their cocoons. Essentially, it's 2 embroidery hoops that hold a column of very fine netting that is then tied at each end.

Those little caterpillars have absolutely AMAZED me in the past week! They started out about a half inch in length and so skinny that they reminded me of some sort of parasitic worm (they really were kind of disgusting). The morning after our class, I woke up and took a look and they had already doubled their size! In 8 short days those babies increased their size by at least 10 times! By the end, they looked like your average plump, juicy caterpillar. On Sunday, one of the caterpillars (my daughter claims it was Emma) slowly climbed it's way to the top of the cup, attached itself to the circle of coffee filter and hung upside down. By the evening, we could see it excreting a little bubble of orangish-pink goo from it's body. By Monday morning, it was covered with a thin cocoon. The second caterpillar then began to climb up the cup and attached itself to the top. Late Tuesday morning, it was 2/3 covered with cocoon, and by the time we had finished lunch, it was completely enclosed. We took the bottom section of the cup off, as we had been instructed, and hung the top dome with the cocoons in our butterfly net. Here they are...

Now we wait about a week, and beautiful "Painted Lady" butterflies should emerge into our net! There is a high level of excitement around here! We can keep them in our net for a few days or so, and then we set them free on a nice warm day. I guess the butterflies LOVE grape flavored Gatorade. We're supposed to soak a couple cotton balls with the stuff and set them on a paper plate inside the net, and they'll come drink it. I'll post more pictures when they hatch!

AND...(this has nothing to do with butterflies, but I'm so excited)...I have two baby bushes that I've dreamed about for years growing in my backyard!! For the last couple of years I've been commenting that I would really like to put a couple of "Annabelle Hydrangea" bushes in our backyard under our family room window - they're the ones that have the HUGE heads of white flowers. Well, my mom and dad gave me two of them for Mother's Day this year! YIPPEE!! There was one small problem...we had no garden back there. So, my lovely husband went to work for me this last weekend, building a block wall garden between our 2 window wells that he built out of the same block when our house was built. He tied all 3 of them together beautifully (the 2 window wells and the new garden). So now I have another garden AND my dream bushes!! I'm imagining it will take quite a few years before the bushes look anything like I dream them to be, but it will be VERY worth the wait!