On the second day of school we were walking up to the school to get Jackson and found a little friend. We offered it to Jackson’s teacher thinking she might like a fun little thing for the kids to watch….she held back a shriek and rejected the poor little guy. So, we took him home and put him in our fanciest old spaghetti sauce jar with holes punched in the top.  I’m telling you, we lucked out. About 2 days later the butterfly had formed into a chrysalis. It remained that way for about 2 weeks. At that point I noticed it was looking much darker. It appeared to be turning black. I was worried that it was dying and getting moldy but at closer look it was actually the darkness of the black wings forming. The next morning we woke up to a beautiful swallowtail  butterfly.

stunning home, huh?

it appeared to attach to the stick by a few small strings…it looked so delicate but amazingly strong enough to withhold  the ear hands that jostled it.

almost there

ta da….

no one’s home! pretty impressive handywork!

We let her go after breakfast. It was a super windy morning so she hung out on our flowers out front most of the morning. Owen and I checked it out later in the morning and she blew onto the sidewalk. Yes, she was a she to us. Not sure how all of that works with butterflies. But she was a she to us. Anyhow, when she decided to fly it took her a little while to get the hang of it but we sat and watched her figure it out. Owen cheered as she began to get higher and higher!

It was such a neat process to watch. Those of you that know me know that my first instinct would not be to have a big caterpillar sitting in my kitchen but these boys are pulling me into their excitement and I might, I just might have a bit of my mom in me. She was notorious for hiding a fawn in the shed at boarding school to keep as a pet, attempting to break a wild horse behind the school gym and had a collection of monkeys and toucans.  No joke.

our not so fortunate guy (yes, this one was a guy) lived in another spaghetti jar paradise but only enjoyed it for a couple of days!