Chrysalis Palace

My husband, the Tree Hugger and proud butterfly Foster Father chimes in:

Eight of our babies are in chrysalises, a 9th has finished feeding and is climbing the glass. A 10th is fat and will climb within a day.  And of course, we've been blessed with an 11th. Junior (don't call him "the runt") may take another two days.

When they reach the lid of the tank, they kind of loafor 8 hours or so, then they let go at the head end, and hang down attached to the lid only at their tail end.  Then the head starts hooking upward so the caterpillar looks like a "J".  After about a day, they form chrysalises, and this seems to happen very abruptly.  We look in and it's a "J"; then look in a half hour, and it's a completed chrysalis. You never see a half-built chrysalis. 

Butterflies Aren't Exactly Free

When I wrote my last post, "The Nursery Is Ready," I was displaying my ignorance. We thought our crop of milkweed would be the nursery for the monarch butterfly eggs we planned to order. Eventually our milkweeds would become the pantry, as you will see. Although the website* mentioned the need for a "suitable rearing chamber," we thought we wouldn't need one because of our outdoor "nursery."  So when 28 eggs arrived on August 5th,  attached to a little milkweed plant, we were shocked to learn that we were supposed to raise the butterflies indoors. It was the weekend. We had nothing around the house that would do as a "rearing chamber." So we felt we had no choice but to put the little milkweed out on our patio and hope for the best. Something chewed up the leaves of the milkweed, but we never saw a single caterpillar. Not one. We felt bad.

I decided to try again.  Borrowing a terrarium from our daughter, I ordered just 10 eggs (or  caterpillars, depending on availability) for a little over $26. A box of caterpillars arrived within 2 days, cradled in a nest of milkweed leaves.

After laying a sheet of newspaper on the floor of the terrarium, we placed the caterpillars inside and said good night. 

Every morning for the next 10 days, we gathered 6 milkweed leaves from our front-yard plants. We washed them and patted them dry (butterflies get all the water they need from eating the leaves). Next we lifted the newspaper, containing the caterpillars, their poops and yesterday's shredded leaves, out of the terrarium. We laid fresh paper and returned the caterpillars--still clinging to shredded leaves--to the terrarium.  Finally, we placed the fresh leaves in the terrarium and closed the screen lid. 

Within 24 hours, the hungry caterpillars changed the sturdy milkweed leaves into tattered lace. They ate and ate and ate and mostly lolled around. One day a couple of them got into a skirmish that looked a little like a fight, but it was over almost before it began.  Mostly they ate.  And molted. And ate. I briefly considered ordering another batch of eggs/caterpillars, but our milkweed plants were turning yellow during the hot, steamy weather. Just when we thought their demand for leaves would exceed our supply, two of  the larger caterpillars stopped eating and began climbing the wall.

Reaching the top, they lay stretched out straight on the top for a day or two and then curled into a "J" shape.  Several hours later, I went in to check on them and was surprised to see two bright green chrysalises, along with a third caterpillar what had just reached the top.

When I saw the two chrysalises, 

I felt a little like a mother 

whose children had gone off to college 

without saying good-bye. 

As of today, there are 6 chrysalises at the top of the terrarium, plus 1 J-shaped caterpillar. A 7th chrysalis adheres to the glass, halfway up the side. Two large, fat caterpillars and 1 "runt" that has just molted remain on the bottom. Yes, you counted right. A few days ago we suddenly noticed that we were raising 11 butterflies. There must have been an egg on the leaves they came with.

It takes 10 to 14 days for a butterfly to hatch. We may be out of town for our nephew's wedding when that happens, so we may miss the finale of this miracle. Our daughter and her family will probably be the ones who see them off to Mexico.  Still, we are grateful for the part we got to play. We hope to do this again next year, maybe more than once. 

As I understand it from the brochure from Rose Franklin's Perenniels, our end-of-summer babies will probably migrate to central Mexico and spend the winter there. Their life spans will be longer than the 4-to-5-week lifespans of Monarchs hatched between spring and midsummer. After mating next February, the wintering Monarchs will start north as milkweed comes back to life in Texas. They will lay their eggs on the Texas milkweeds and their lives will end. It is their children that will continue the northward migration. 

* www.ButterflyBushes.com

The Nursery is Ready

Last year we planted milkweed so that monarch butterflies could lay their eggs. All that we knew about monarch butterflies at that time is that baby monarchs require milkweed. Unfortunately, we didn't see a single monarch all summer. Then we found out that sometimes you have to order butterfly eggs from a vendor. We found a vendor, but the eggs--often available as early as June--will not be available until mid-July. No orders will be accepted until then. We are waiting, waiting, waiting.

Brief Moments in Hell

We were back at the beach in Lewes, DE the week of June 18th with our daughter, son-in-law and 13-year-old grandson.  The weather was heavenly, but we had some brief moments in hell.

Last year, when my daughter suggested a trip to one of her favorite shops, "Christmas Tree Hill," I thought she said "Christmas Tree Hell." It was another "fun-with-hearing-loss"moment. The family mascot was then 12 and spent nearly the whole week playing video games (with earphones) with occasional breaks for fishing or swimming. This year, when  his mother asked him to go with us to Christmas Tree Hill, he replied, "Why would I want to go to Christmas Tree Hell?" Did he hear her wrong because of a new testosterone-driven aversion to shopping? He stayed home, but my husband, daughter and I went to "Hell." Actually, my husband didn't venture into the store. He sat on a bench outside, watching the passers-by.

When the week was over, I rode home with Margaret. We stopped at an outlet mall to shop for shoes before getting on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, because Margaret needed some shoes. As luck would have it, I found two pairs I liked and she found none. Returning to the car, she fished in her bag for her keys.

NO KEYS!

What a heart-stopping moment! Of course she could have called Michael and of course  he would have turned right around, but he would have been grumpy. We returned to the store and asked if anyone had turned in a set of keys. No one had, so we scanned the aisles for the keys. A clerk suggested Margaret had dropped them in a shoebox. The shelves were lined with hundreds of identical shoeboxes. "Uh, I don't think so," said Margaret. The clerk advised her to go to the mall security office, so Margaret took off, half running. As I headed for the parking lot to look for the keys, I heard the clerk calling me. She was waving the keys.  She'd remembered that Margaret had tried on a certain pair of navy-blue sandals. She found the keys in the box. 

So now we joined the bumper-to-bumper traffic headed for the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. On the bridge, Margaret drove in the middle lane. I was impressed with her bravery. I always choose the outer lane because I don't like being tail-gated by drivers who think the posted speed limit is for sissies. I concentrated on the distant sailboats out on the water and tried not to think of the woman whose car was nudged over the railing by an aggressive truck driver last year. Fortunately, the accident happened soon after she got on the bridge, so she didn't fall all that far and she was able to swim to safety.