Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Our Painted Ladies

For Aleks' birthday, I got him a Butterfly garden after having seen them several places about town - the library, the Natural History Museum, the toy store... And also because I promised him we'd get one back when Billy died. After we sent in our coupon for the larvae, I got a bunch of books at the library in case the boys were interested in learning more.
It took much longer than expected for the caterpillars to come. Jon was home when they arrived and brought them with him to U.G.O. They didn't really do anything at that time, though except have to remain upright in their jar. Over the next week they grew and grew, getting bigger everyday. They finally reached full size on Friday and began to make their way up to the top of the jar.
Friday night, all five of them were in position.
Just a few hours later, one had already begun forming the outer chrysalis shell.
By morning, all five had entered the chrysalis stage and were ready to be moved into the butterfly bungalow. We took the paper carefully from the jar...
...and pinned it inside the mesh cage. In 7-10 days, they will hatch. I'm so excited!!!!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Anna,
Thank you so much for documenting your lives with this blog. I so look forward to reading it on a regular basis . . . how else could I know anything about how the boys are growing and developing? Thank you again and give the boys hugs and kisses for me.
Yet another Anna (Jon's aunt in CA)

Anna said...

Jonas and Lavina were way excited to see this post. You've got to keep us updated on how it goes. Lots of pictures, preferably.

Anonymous said...

How nice! I love your writing, and your honesty.

UUmom