What I've been up to

So,  I don't have much time here, but I just thought I'd update the blog on what I've been up to while I have not been posting :)

First off, I graduated on Monday!!!!! I'm so very excited to see what happens next in my life. I already have a job lined up so I can work and save money for college, and it's a fun job, working with a friend raising and selling butterflies!!!!

I've also been getting ready for my (senior!!) prom. I don't have any pictures of my dress yet, but I can tell you this: I got it at a vintage store ♥ So now I've been stalking youtube and pinterest in search of the perfect hairstyle and makeup looks! If you have any suggestions, send them my way, and they will be much appreciated :)

Allison and I have also been working on a short film, which we showed at our homeschool achievement night. Personally, I think this is our best yet, but I'll let you be the judge of that..






Until next time.......
~Erin

It's so hard to say goodbye.....

So true, so true.


I thought it was important to do one last post on the visiting caterpillars, as they will be going home any day now. I will miss you, caterpillars, but I know your "mother" is anxious to see you again!

Almost all the kids are in their Chrysalis now, and it's kind of funny to see them all hanging there! It was so funny, in fact, I decided to take pictures, so you, my readers, could enjoy the site, too! Aren't I nice?!

It's a wall of caterpillars!!!

Chrysalis Christmas tree ♥

The roof of the mesh cages are COVERED in the little green beauties!

I saw for the first time ever a caterpillar turn into a chrysalis. Even after raising caterpillars all last summer, and even into early fall, I never once saw one change, but this year, I saw almost all of the little darlings change! It was so gross! But also way cool. I'll spare you the details. Those who haven't raised their own butterflies wouldn't understand....It may be gross, but it's totally worth it.

It's so hard to say goodbye to my little charges, but I'm ready to get you back where you belong, and go on to the next adventure!

Lost in a forest of caterpillars.....

Almost all of the largest caterpillars have made their "J". It's so funny to see them all glued to the mesh ceiling.

Them times...they are a changin'

Last night, the first caterpillar made his J, meaning he will soon be in a chrysalis! Yay! And another one made his J this morning.


If you would like to learn more about raising your own butterflies, check out this website. It belongs to the same friend for whom I am caterpillar-sitting.

Leaning tower of.....caterpillars?!

I don't think I'll ever get tired of watching the caterpillars. They are so funny! For instance, all the caterpillars gang up on a single milkweed plant, demolish it, and move on to the next one. A couple days ago, there were so many on a flimsy little plant, that the weight was making it tip over!



I would also like to draw your attention to the "leaf" below. This is what the eensy caterpillars do to their milkweed leaves. The big ones eat the whole thing, flower, stem and all. Pigs.

See how they've grown!

This was Sunday, the day I got the caterpillars...{BTB, these are the largest ones.}

And this is them today, Friday, when they all got a nice sun bath and a breath of fresh air as I cleaned out their cage. Getting pretty big, aren't they? Some of them are looking like they might make their J before it's time for them to go back to their family next Sunday.

Caterpillars in a tree.....

It's that time of year again!!!! You veterans of my blog will know that I mean CATERPILLARS!!!
Right now, I don't have any of my own, but I'm babysitting some 50 caterpillars and 6 butterflies for friends while they are on vacation. I've actually had these guys for almost a week, but this is the first chance I've had to post about them. So I'll concentrate on the intro in this post, and I'll update you on everyone's size and condition in the next one. Sound good? Cool.

This is the set-up we've got going on in our dining room. The three shorter mesh cages are caterpillars, ranging from small{as in ennsy-weensy, barely see them} in the cage closest to the camera, to large at the back. The tall cage sticking up in the middle is full of butterflies.

Here's the butterfly house!

This time around, I have a few painted ladies, as well as Monarchs. Painted ladies like hollyhock, and their eggs are blue, rather than white.

This is what the large caterpillars looked like a week ago.

Our supply of milkweed

This pot has every plant you will need to raise a butterfly from egg to butterfly! Cool, huh?

Come back for my next post, where I update you on all the kids!

~Erin ♥

One last update....

I just wanted to give an update on my caterpillars, seeing as this will probably be one of the last posts about them for awhile. You see, it's nearing time for them to migrate to Mexico for the winter, and, if there are any caterpillars even still on wild milkweed this time of year, by the time they were butterflies, they would be very late to the party, and would most likely die in the coming chill. I'm sorry to be so gruesome, I just wanted to explain. And, because of the above reasons, I have decided to stop my "caterpillar rescue mission" until the spring. But, until then, I still have a couple babies in the "nest", so to speak. I've 7 chrysalis, all green as can be, and two caterpillars. One of them crawled up to the top of his cage, and is now preparing to go into his "J", which should happen tonight or tomorrow. The other is still relatively small, and eating like crazy.

My injured butterflies sadly passed on just a few short days after I first posted about them. They are now buried in the back yard. And a butterfly emerged to damaged, I thought it was dead, until I tried to pick it up to take it outside, and it rolled away from me. I managed to get it out of the cage, and layed it on a flower in the sunshine to die in it's natural habitat. I checked to make sure it hadn't fallen out of the flower pot many times throughout the day, until it finally died. So sad.

I may have some final release pictures to show when I have some butterflies to release, so, take heart!! This may not be the last butterfly post after all!!!!

~Erin

My once-again-rapidly-growing family......

ore caterpillars have come!!!!!!!! But, they are all still itsy-bitsys, so they aren't that interesting yet, and WAY to difficult to photograph. BUT, that friend who got me hooked on butterfly raising is currently on vacation, and I was asked to butterfly-sit. So, my babies are having friends over for a two-week long play date :)

I was brought everything from teeny-weenys to fully grown butterflies, and everything in between. But, before I get into that, check out my new caterpillar station!


It's still a work in progress, but it's more organized, and it's not on the dining room table. Everyone on the left half of the picture is mine, and everybody on the right half of the picture is being baby-sat(sitted? Na)

So, I bought this table at a garage sale for $1 for the very purpose to which it is being used.


My temporary charges are about a thousand caterpillars(actually, it's only about 10, but they eat like you would expect a thousand caterpillars would) and these two poor little butterflies. They have special needs. In case you can't see, neither of them have whole wings, one has legs only on one side of his body, and the other has two normal legs, and then two really stumpy legs. They can't fly, and they can't walk, they can only flutter helplessly, and if they want to get somewhere without flying, they have to kind of roll. It's really sad, but they seem to be really "healthy" meaning they do a lot of fluttering and eating. Right now, they are outside in their little mesh cage, catching some rays :) They seem to really like it, because they are just fluttering their little hearts out!

I will continue to keep everyone updated on the butterflies and caterpillars, both mine and my friend's!

~Erin

36 hours

Last night, my mom and I watched a movie called "36 hours". It's a World war 2 movie that was made in 1965. Here is a summary:

In this World War II thriller, Maj. Pike (James Garner) awakens in a hospital suffering from amnesia. He's told that D-Day occurred five years ago and is asked pointed questions about the event by his doctor (Rod Taylor). But what Pike doesn't know is that D-Day is in 36 hours, and he's actually in enemy hands. Oscar winner Eva Marie Saint plays Pike's "wife" in this taut drama based on Roald Dahl's short story "Beware of the Dog."


Doesn't that sound really interesting? I don't usually like war movies. They are pretty dull and too hard to follow, what with all the army "lingo", but this movie was REALLY entertaining!! It even had some comic relief that was actually funny, which doesn't often happen in those old movies. Apparently, humor was different in the 1940's, because I rarely laugh at the "funny" parts. But with 36 hours, there were a couple funny scenes that I was laughing at, though, it may have been because of the late hour, but still............ I would definitely recommend this movie!!! It was pretty clean, too! Even in those old movies, when there is a "love interest" they always end up kissing at least 20 times throughout the story, but you don't see any of that here. So, yeah. WATCH THIS MOVIE!!! IT'S REALLY GOOD!!!!!!!



On a totally different note, my very last butterfly emerged from its chrysalis this morning. now I have to go milkweed hunting again and hopefully find some more babies!!!

The release.....

Today, I released all of my butterflies. I still have two butterflies in their chrysalis, and they should be that way for a couple more days. Then, I'll have to go caterpillar-hunting again, if I want to continue raising them, which I will, of course.......

My butterfly forest!!


I took the cage outside and opened the flap, the butterflies clinging to the top for dear life

So I just picked them up one by one and set them on various flowers. Most of them flew away, but two stayed for quite some time.



A close-up


This is one of the butterflies that stayed


Here I got a bit artsy with my camera work



This is what the chrysalis looks like once the butterfly emerges

I hope you enjoyed the posts about butterfly raising! I hope I can add more to this story very soon!!

Please comment and follow me!

My rapidly growing family......

Last night, while we were all sleeping, another three butterflies emerged from their chrysalis! And then, while I was eating breakfast in front of the cage, my NINTH butterfly emerged!!! I'm just happy, because now I have some boy butterflies! I think I have three, but they were all flying around so much that it was difficult to keep count!!!!

As of right now, I only have three more butterflies in their chrysalis, and one of those is probably emerging as I type!!!

Yet another butterfly!!

This time I was able to get it on film, so you can actually watch a butterfly emerging from it's chrysalis!!! Aren't you lucky? :)

Another butterfly!!!!

Well, actually, TWO!!! Two butterflies emerged this morning, and I was there to not only see it, but take pictures of it!!! Look and enjoy!

Here you can see that the chrysalis is clear. Can you see the orange and black of the wing?



After a long time of waiting that feels like forever and a day, but it's really only about ten minutes, you hear the chrysalis actually crack, and out pops a butterfly. First its legs......

Then its body......



And then the wings come out, all crumpled up and wet.



Then it hangs there and lets its wings dry and expand to their full potential!And after roughly ten minutes, you get this!!!! For the next twenty-four hours(sometime less) the butterfly will just hang there, letting her wings dry and expand completely, and sometime flapping them, sort of like exercising! Until that's done, she won't eat, or even hardly move at all.

The miricle of birth......

Two of my caterpillars emerged this morning!!! Now, I have two beautiful butterflies, both of them girls! Of course, I had to name one after my friend Allison, she insisted :) Unfortunately I was unable to see either of them emerge, because I was spending the day with Allison at her house, but another one should be emerging any time now, most likely by the end of the day! You see, the chrysalis is green until the butterfly is ready to come out, when it turns clear, and you can actually see the butterfly all wrapped up in the chrysalis shape, and then, before you know it, the butterfly is out and drying it's wings!



not my best photography, but, there you go.....

A delicate process...

Well, this is it. The big one. The one we've all be waiting for!!!

Anywho, yesterday my mom and I transfered the last of my chrysalisss(Chrysali?) Caterpillars becoming butterflies. From the mock-cages to the clothes hamper, and now they are ready to emerge!! But, believe you me, that was no easy feat! When the caterpillars are getting ready to make their chrysalis, they....eject....a substance not dissimilar to a spider's web, from their posterier, and then hang from it when they are in their J, and when in their chrysalis. Unfortunately, This stuff spreads, and sometimes connects to the web of another caterpillar, and this stuff is so strong, that when it DOES intertwine, it has to be cut with scissors, instead of just pulled apart. And, what's more, roughly 8 caterpillars had to be transfered, and they all decided to attach themselves in a very neighborly like fashion.

But, enough chit-chat. It's picture time!!!

Here you can see the web-like substance

These three were attached together by their "webs"


Here are all my children waiting to get hung, if you will.

Here is all of them!!! I have myself a little nursery of up-and-coming butterflies!

Caterpillar update.....

I know it's been a couple of days since I posted about the family, but as of today, 10 of my original 12 caterpillars are now in their chrysalis!! And, from my two days of milkweed hunting, I found three eggs, two of which have hatched. Unfortunately, I lost one of my babies. No, it didn't die, I just can't find him! my third egg should be hatching any time now!
But, enough talk, it's time for pictures!!! Once the chrysalis is dried, you can touch it. That is when I moved two of my caterpillars from their make-shift cage to a mesh butterfly house, which is actually a pop-up laundry basket. It's a very delicate process:

First, you scrape the chrysalis off the top. That white stuff is what attached the caterpillars to the top of the trash bin. It's very similar to a spider's web. You have to be careful not to rock the chrysalis too much.

Next, put a dab of hot glue onto a paper towel. wait until it isn't not, but still wet, and then attach the chrysalis to the paper towel as close to the stem as possible, but NOT by the chrysalis itself.


Attaching the chrysalis


This is what the finished product should look like. Isn't it pretty? With the pale green color, and specks of gold all over!


Once the glue is fully dried, fold down a bit of the top of the paper towel. Bend a paper clip until it is in an "S" shape. Then, poke a hole through the folded part of the paper towel.


And then all that's left to do is to hook the paper clip holding the paper towel onto the side of the mesh laundry bin and.......


Voila!!!! There you have it! The caterpillars are ready to emerge and have a nice spacious place to stay until they are able to be released!

Going a milkweed hunting.....

Today, I realized that my supply of milkweed, the only thing caterpillars will eat, was running very low. Actually, it looked more like a baron waste-land, to be honest. So, after lunch, mom, dad and I drove all around town, stopping at randomly at the side of the road. We dug up two milkweed shoots, I think, which will be planted so that we can start our own little milkweed "garden" and then we also pulled up a bag-full of shoots that I put in water, which will be used as food. But, before I can feed the leaves to my babies, I had to prepare the plants a little.
First, I have to cut off the bottom of the stem, but only the brown part.

next, I cut a slit up the middle about an inch.

And last, but not least, I take the back of my scissors and mash the part of the stem that has the slit.
I know that sounds awful, but it actually makes the plant last longer, about a week for me. You see, by cutting and mashing the stem, this makes it easier for the plant to get at the water. Ah, science! And what's better, while pulling the milkweed, my dad found another egg!


Something really great happened when I got home!!! My caterpillar that made his j this morning is now almost entirely in his chrysalis!!! It's all green, and you can sort of still see the caterpillar through the "walls". Also, I have a second caterpillar that's heading up to the top of the cage, and I'm thinking I may be getting another caterpillar j any day now!

In the left-hand corner, the chrysalis, and next to it, the caterpillar



*LATER EDIT*

I just realized that this was my 100th post!!! This calls for a celebration! Though, it's going to have to be tomorrow's post, because it's almost 11 o'clock at night here. :)

"J"....the letter of the day......

You wanna know why I love the letter "J" so much today??? Well I'll tell you!


ONE OF MY CATERPILLARS MADE HIS J THIS MORNING!!!! For those of you who don't have any clue what I just said, when a caterpillar makes its J, or hangs upside down and twists its body into a "j" like form, it means it's about to make its chrysalis!!! In just a couple of weeks, I'll be getting a butterfly! Isn't that exciting?

Some other related news, do you remember my teensy caterpillar from a couple of posts ago? Well, he's not so teensy any more:

Please comment and follow me!!!

~Erin