Wednesday, August 30, 2006

every monday should start like this

monarch and chrysalis

monarch, about to fly
few things can lift your spirits like a good butterfly moment, and this one was even better than most. when the hippie's family came down from pennsylvania last week, they brought a little package with them. denise and tristan have been watching monarch butterflies emerging from their chrysalii, and it's been a really awesome experience for them. when they were getting ready to leave, their butterfly cage still had one unhatched chrysalis inside--not knowing what else to do, they brought it along for the ride. it was touch and go for this chrysalis--it fell from the top of the cage during its trip down, so we were not sure it would be ok or if the delicate insect inside was damaged. hoping for the best, the hippie gently taped it to the window sill in our little sunroom, and we all waited to see what would happen. lo and behold, early monday morning, we had a butterfly! i got to carry her outside on my finger (no pictures of that since i was carrying the butterfly and the camera at the same time) and put her on our azelea bush in the sun. she spread her wings out to dry, then flapped them a few times like she was testing the air and making sure everything worked ok. and then she flew away in a sudden burst of activity. the whole thing was just beautiful, and definitely not a bad way to start the week! i spent all of monday morning smiling about it, and the pictures are still making me happy--huge thanks to denise and tristan for sharing their butterfly!

2 comments:

Kristin said...

We teach about butterfly life cylces each year. We order painted lady larvae and watch them eat and eat until they each form a chrysalis. Then we eagerly wait for them to emerge as beautiful butterflies. Last year when we evacuated for Hurricane Ophelia I evacuated with my caterpillars and ladybug larvae. Glad to know I am not a lone geek. :0)

Laura said...

I think it was some time in September last year when we had a lot of monarchs stopping to rest and fluttering around our yard during migration. It was so fun - there were tons of them fluttering around for about a week and my daughter who was 1yo at the time kept woofing at them. hehe Too cute. :)