Growing

Well here they are, a lot bigger than the last time I shared pictures. Unfortunately, we started with 6 and there were only 5 here.  I'm not sure what happened, either another Caterpillar ate him or I accidentally threw him away when I was changing the towel out. I feel really bad, but glad to see the others are doing well. And yes, those little black dots that you are seeing, are caterpillar poop!

Size comparison

Here is the size difference of only about 24 hours... a just hatched and a 1 day old Caterpillar.  We had a 100 percent success rate with our eggs, all 6 eggs have hatched!

Happy hatch day!

This morning we woke up to 2 dark eggs, which meant that caterpillars we're on the way!  Matthew had a baseball game, so we were gone all day until about 3 pm. When we got home, there they were, 2 caterpillars!  I named one Henry, and Matthew named the other 1 Mr. Caterpillar.  

Eggs in action!

Madeline I came home from her music class and saw a monarch circling our milkweed. She was really great and let us get close to her as you can see by the pictures. We watched get curl her body under a leaf and then she flew off.  You will see that picture, and then the next picture, I turned the leaf over and sure enough there were 2 eggs right underneath of it!  I also had to change out the leaves today for my eggs inside, as you will see in the last picture.






Laying Eggs

2 Eggs!

Milkweed

Here are some pictures of 1 of our milkweed plants. We have located several milk weed seed pods, and are going to try to harvest them. They are very easy to find, you just have to wait until the absolute right time to pick them off. Right now they are still too soft.  Matthew found 1 when he got home from school today!

Sextuplets!

So ever since I saw the monarch butterfly and the monarch caterpillar together, I have become obsessed with watching the transformation in action. Yesterday my caterpillar disappeared, and I was really disappointed. I went on to do all this research, as I think it's a little too big for something to eat at this point in time, and I found out that they can move up to 40 feet away from there milkweed plant. I also found out that most monarch eggs are eaten by aphids and lizards and other such outdoor creatures. I was determined to try to save these butterfly eggs on my own, but had no idea what they look like.  I went on an egg hunt, having no idea what I was looking for. After reading several other blogs about monarch butterflies, 1 of them described the egg as a little white opalescent oval. It basically said, when you find an egg, you'll know. I thought that sounded ridiculous, I was looking for ever and all I would find were holes and dead bugs or spots on the leaves. I went inside the house again, and looked on the computer for more pictures and got some what more of an idea what they look like, and went back outside and looked some more under the milk weed leaves.  Within seconds I found 1, and I was jumping for joy! I went on to search for just a few more minutes, and went back in the house with 6 eggs in total! We now have 6 eggs waiting inside and we will be fostering some monarchs, and photos will be posted daily to inform everyone and anyone who is interested on their progress!  How exciting to know we will see 1 of nature's most beautiful miracles happen right in our own home!