The Butterfly Release

The butterflies emerged before I was ready for it. The first one was born inside it's little cup because I was still waiting for the lurker to build it's chrysalis (which it never did and has since passed on) so she has little wrinkled wings. I promptly moved the rest of the chrysalises into the netted cage so they could have a safer place to live. The rest emerged unscathed and were so beautiful to look at. Here you can see the empty chrysalis and underneath their is some red goo on the mesh netting that came from the wings and the chrysalis. I'm not really sure what it is.

The butterflies should have been released a lot sooner, but it has been pouring rain in Columbus and we didn't want to send them off into a wet world. We waited until yesterday when the sun was shining. Here's Eli slowing unzipping the zipper.Three of them quickly fluttered away on the wind, but our little damaged wing lady had a harder time. She could hardly get off the ground but she eventually disappeared from us as well.I'm really tempted to order another set of caterpillars and do some journaling with Eli. It was so much fun the first time to watch the changes!