Hi Everyone!
Couldn't resist announcing it--it's BUTTERFLY TIME!!!!! We got home this evening, after having supper together with friends and I went out to check my little garden bed one last time as the sun was sinking. Checking it is a habit for me, and I am almost always only looking for one thing--butterflies! Or perhaps I should say, caterpillars.
I LOVE butterflies, but I especially love raising them. The first time I ever raised butterflies was in the classroom, where I ordered a tiny caterpillar for each student out of an educational catalog. They each came in a little plastic cup with some green waxy stuff melted at the bottom. That green "stuff" was some sort of concocted food, that the caterpillar would eat. If you were fortunate, after they grew large enough they would attach themselves to the underside of the lid and emerge days later as a beautiful butterfly! This was a fun activity, and my school children loved it. But it was not cheap!
Years later, when I was homeschooling my son in Texas, I dutifully ordered a butterfly kit for him. We "hatched" the butterfly, and it was fun, but--then it was over and it had been so brief. We wanted to do more, but my budget did not allow "more" at the prices in the educational catalog. So--I had to think of something else. After doing a bit of research, I decided to try and attract some butterflies to our yard, and provide host plants for them to lay their eggs on. Most butterfly species will only lay their eggs on a limited variety of plants. I looked for butterflies in our area, and then surveyed the list of their preferred plants. For my area, I found that the Black Swallowtail was probably my best bet. They ate things like parsley, and I KNEW I could find parsley at any store selling garden herbs.
I planted some parsley, and I already had lantana growing in a near by garden bed. The Black Swallowtail would not eat the lantana, but it sure attracted the adults to my yard--where I hoped they would then see the beautiful parsley plant I had planted especially for them! Time would tell. . . .
It worked!!! One day, upon examining my little parsley, to my great joy I found these little black specks on it. Since I had read up on what the larva looked like, I knew these black specky things crawling around were just what I had been hoping for. I had already learned about raising them inside. Out in the wild, most of them end up as bird food. Don't get me wrong--I love birds. But in my opinion, the birds can eat other things. Like worms. Or the seed I put out for them. So I dutifully started gathering every black speck I could find. The only problem was, they ate like crazy. And I only had one small plant. But fortunately, they readily accepted parsley I bought for them from the grocery store.
Later, we took a trip to an Herb Farm, and I found them selling plants--one of which was a herb called "Rue." I had never heard of it before my butterfly research, but I knew that it was also on the list of host plants for the Black Swallowtail caterpillars. So I bought this tiny four inch plant and brought it home to plant. It was happy in my yard, and I ended up getting more caterpillars crawling on this plant than I did on my parsley--though the caterpillars I collected and brought inside would readily eat either rue leaves or parsley, either one. Butterfly hatching went well--at one time I had over thirty larva caterpillars living inside my house. We ended up getting quite a collection of plastic containers to hold them, as too many caterpillars in the same container only leads to dirty living conditions and therefore your rate of successful hatchings decreases. And I wanted as many happy butterflies as possible. I know. I am greedy about some things.
When we moved to another house in the same area, I collected some seeds from the first plant and got it to grow in the second house--yea! Then we moved to another state--what about my Rue plant??? So I collected some more seeds--and managed to get two plants growing from those seeds--yea!
And it is these two seedlings that are growing in my yard today. Where they are large now. AND where I just found three absolutely beautiful little black crawly things tonight! :) Above is a picture of the flowers on the Rue. They are not super showy things. You wouldn't really plant it in your yard because of the flowers. But you would if you wanted caterpillars!
This is a two quart size mason jar, where the little beauties are currently living. Later when they grow bigger I will transfer them to one of my plastic containers. But for now, they are so small that they would crawl out through the vent holes in the lids. Don't ask me how I know this.
Here is a close up of one of my little treasures. Isn't he (she?) lovely???? Black Swallowtails always have the one white spot on their back--when they are tiny, anyway. Always looks a bit like bird poop to me, and honestly I think that is what it is supposed to look like, to help keep them safe. As they grow bigger, they will change in appearance. Once they have hatched out as butterflies, you can actually tell which are the boys and which are the girls, by looking at the wing markings. This is a MUCH cheaper way to get caterpillars to raise. And besides that, it teaches kids where caterpillars really come from--they don't come from plastic cups!
So there you have it. My lovely beauties. You can bet tomorrow morning I will be out examining my rue plants very closely--just in case there are any more out there. That is, if Alison doesn't beat me to it!
This is my favorite part of homeschooling. I love to share with my children the beautiful things God has made for us. And butterflies just happen to be one of my favorites!
