Mr Monarch

All kids love bugs and watching bugs. My kids are no different.

Aunt Patrice, knowing this about her nieces and nephews, had brought a tomato plant caterpillar that the kids kept in a Ball jar for a week or so and then it died. A few weeks later this summer, late August / early September, Xela found a caterpillar that I recognized as a monarch caterpillar. We put it in a Ball jar and poked holes in the lid. Xela was very good at feeding it the leaves of what she found it on. It just ate for a few weeks and then one day we saw it hanging from the lid.

"Look kids! He's getting ready to turn into a cocoon!" They thought that was "cool!"

A day or two later (of course I didn't take any pictures of this life cycle happening before our eyes) there was this relatively small, considering the size of the caterpillar, green crystallis hanging from the lid. They are really quite beautiful with minute silver/goldish dots on the rim and the light green shell. The kids all wanted to know how long the caterpillar would be in the cocoon before becoming a butterfly, so we went to the internet. Approximately ten days.

As there wasn't much to watch and nothing to feed, and no one thought to mark it on a calendar, we lost track of how many days. After a week or so the kids kept saying things like: "Shouldn't he be out by now?" "Is it dead?" I thought it might have died in the cocoon due to lack of air, but NO!!!

For some reason I went over by the bookshelf that the jar was on and the orange and black wings caught my attention. Of course I called all the kids to come see. We were all excited to see this marvellous and beautiful creation reach it's full potential. Eric was out shopping for new suits and it was still a good warm day on October 16. We piled into the green machine and went to Ellenberger Park to free our pet.

It took a while for the monarch to dry out it's wings and want to get off the stick that was in the jar. In fact, we pulled the stick out and watch the butterfly for a while, slowly moving its wings and adjusting to the new climate, I'm sure.

Everyone but Xela and Aurora got bored with him not "taking flight." Kids went and played while Xela and Ro walked toward the trees and eventually left him on the stick. They didn't say he flew away, so I guess the shock of life outside the cocoon took longer to adjust than we thought.

Kind of cool to have a live science project going one in your living room. Maybe we'll go look for caterpillars next year and be better note taking observers of the sciences happening around us.