Butterflies! And, how Eliza got a new pet.

Keturah offered to bring us some caterpillars at the end of March and assured us that they would require no work.  She was right... for a while.

There were 5 caterpillars.  They stayed in this cup, eating that brown stuff until they had fattened up nicely and were ready to attach to the coffee filter thing on the top and form chrysallises.  Then we attached the coffee filter thing to a mesh enclosure so that when the butterflies emerged, they could fly around in there until they were released.  All was well, except that one of the chrysallises fell down early-ish in the chrysallis phase, and another one fell down shortly before emerging.  We wondered if those two would emerge at all.

The first three emerged and it was so cool to suddenly have butterflies flying around in the enclosure!  We kept them in there for about a day then Eliza and Luke helped me release them after school.

It turned out that one of the butterflies had severely damaged wings.  It could flutter, but not fly. So we created a habitat for it using an oversized vase, a paper towel soaked in honey water, and some grass, flowers, and a twig.  Eliza named it Reggie, which means we also started referring to it as he, even though we have no idea if it's a male or female.

The other two butterflies emerged in time to be released on Earth Day of all days!  We were so glad that all of our butterflies survived.  Jack joined us for the release that day, and he brought the chicks out too.

I didn't expect Reggie to last the night, especially since we didn't see him eating, but he did - and he's now lived in his little habitat for two weeks, the average life expectancy of a butterfly!  Whenever we notice that he's been still for a while, then suddenly see signs of life, someone will exclaim, "He's still alive!"

We were able to see him eat from the honey water a few times, and Eliza loves taking him out and holding him.  Then, earlier this week she tried taking him outside and letting him drink from the nectar of the flowers on one of the trees in the front yard and he seemed to enjoy that.

When we were outside with Reggie, one of the kids commented that we have the coolest pets, which made me laugh.  I don't know any other family who has 4 hens, 1 rooster, 4 chicks, and a butterfly.

Also, it has already been decided that we will bury Reggie when he passes away.  I guess that means we can't feed him to Bandit...