Butterflies!

Since I do not have any restoration stories to post at the moment, I thought I would switch over to some of the activities going on inside our dream home. With a child in the house, that means there is always something going on!

It is summertime in the south which means mama has to try hard to keep a very active five year-old occupied.  Last year, I purchased a butterfly kit and stashed it away for warm weather use. The little one found the box and reminded me, we needed to order our larvae!

The tiny larvae were shipped live to us in a cup with pasty food at the bottom. Not long after they arrived, they started to eat...and eat...and eat, which made the grow! Soon, the larvae attached themselves to the lid inside their individual chrysalis. We transferred the larvae lid to the pop-up butterfly cage. While the larvae started to turn into butterflies, we read about what was going on in the book I had ordered at the same time I bought the butterfly kit.

Finally, the butterflies began to hatch, one-by-one. While the butterflies gained wing strength, we made a flower garden for them in the bottom of the butterfly keeper.  With a dropper, we placed sugar water in the dish and along the flowers.  They knew exactly what to do!

Today, we released the butterflies.  One will stay with us until she passes on.  Unfortunately before I knew the butterflies had hatched, the kitties knocked the butterfly house to the ground and hurt the wing of one of the painted ladies. Thankfully, she is eating from the flowers we have dotted with sugar water and seems happy.  She just couldn't fly away with her sisters.  

My little girl seems to understand what is going on with our special butterfly. She put the butterfly house back in her room and said she would be a good vet to the little injured one. We will definitely order more larvae so we can enjoy the butterflies again soon!