I've been looking for the time and content to re-start this blog. A global pandemic seems like as good a time as any :-) I had a big long post partially drafted about where I've been and what happened to me, but then I decided, why not just skip to what's actually happening now.
I've been working INSANE hours from home since California shutdown began in March (sure, take a job in crisis management for your restaurant company - it'll be a hoot!). Although I've been logging 12-15 hour days including weekends & holidays, since I am working from home, I've had more oversight of what's been going on in my back yard. This led to the observation of a couple of Monarch butterflies hanging around one day and I thought "hmmm...I should get a milkweed plant for them." Milkweed being the only plant that they will lay their eggs on and the Monarch population being in serious decline...seemed like a good idea at the time.
Ha!
I thought we'd a attract a couple of butterflies and maybe end up with a caterpillar or two. Boy, was I wrong. So, so wrong.
I mentioned the idea to my mother and she kindly gave me a pretty, flowering Butterflyweed (species of milkweed with yellow flowers) plant as a Mother's Day gift. I set the pot out in the backyard and didn't think much about it although I did observe a Monarch land on it and it appeared to be laying eggs.
A few days later...we had not one or two, but about 7 caterpillars! They very quickly ate their way through this plant and I had to go grab another from my mom's house that she had bought for herself since we clearly needed an emergency food source.
After a few caterpillars disappeared and, after I did some hasty on-line research, I learned that they deliberately leave the plant when they are ready to make a chrysalis. I have no idea what happened to those first few, but since a determined search turned up no chrysalises anywhere nearby, I was determined to ensure the rest of them survived to become butterflies if I could. To this end, I quickly ordered a mesh butterfly habitat online figuring it would arrive about the time the next group of caterpillars was ready to make a break for it.
The day the enclosure was supposed to arrive, I woke up to two pieces of news. One was a "sorry to inform you" notice from Amazon that the enclosure was damaged in shipping and had to be returned to the vendor. Two was the next caterpillar in line had left the plant and was slowly crawling up our outdoor garbage can.
Now, the garbage can did not seem like an ideal place for a chrysalis so I quickly grabbed a plastic container and some milkweed leaves and put the caterpillar and leaves inside of it. I then went online to order another enclosure. When I went back outside, caterpillar #2 was crawling across the brick patio and looked like it was about to be lizard lunch. I found another container and in he went. Before the emergency enclosure order arrived, I had to repeat this process with a third caterpillar/container.
Once the enclosure arrived, I moved 2 plants with remaining baby caterpillars on them into the enclosure.
I've spent the last 2 weeks with 3 containers on my kitchen counter...each with a chrysalis in it. By the way, watching the caterpillar morph into the chrysalis is a fascinating and yet kinda revolting process. I always thought they spun a cocoon (probably because I raised silk moths once when I was a kid), but noooo. The caterpillar hangs upside down in a "J" shape, then its skin splits up the back like a zipper and this wriggling green chrysalis emerges. It's weird.
Somewhere during all of this, I also had to go on a hunt for more milkweed plants given that we had way more caterpillars than I ever planned on and they'd already reduced the first two plants to nothing but stalks. Trips to Green Thumb & Home Depot proved futile as they were totally out. I had to order plants online and then finally also found some at Roger's Gardens.
So, now I have 8 milkweed plants (two mostly eaten), 2 butterfly/caterpillar enclosures (because the original one eventually showed up after the emergency order arrived), and 3 plastic containers of chrysalises. One enclosure is empty and will house the butterflies after they pop out but before they are ready to take off. The other enclosure has the remaining plants with caterpillars and one new chrysalis that was just formed last night. Oh and there are still more caterpillars that just hatched LOL.
Finally today, after all that, our first Monarch butterfly hatched out of its chrysalis! This was the one I rescued off the garbage can. I expect #2 to hatch tomorrow as it was about 24 hours after the first one that it formed its chrysalis. They'll spend a few hours in the butterfly enclosure to dry and strengthen their wings and then I'll release them.
See, I told you it was a saga :-)
KJ
P.S. If you're interested in having your own Monarch saga, here are a few helpful links:
https://www.joyfulbutterfly.com/
https://monarchwatch.org/
