It was chilly this evening! As I was wrapping myself up in a blanket and sitting down to type, I began to think about how fast summer went by! Why, denim and school supplies are on sale, and my Facebook Page is flooded with adorable pictures of school-aged children wearing backpacks and toothless grins!

I want to spend the next few posts sharing some of my family’s summer highlights. Now, as you might know by now, in summer, my family moves to Camp. My husband’s career is such a blessing to our family for many reasons. One of them being that Colin and Owen have the opportunity to immerse themselves in Nature and witness extraordinary miracles – like a butterfly being born.

Colin once stated this summer that he was “rich with caterpillars,” and boy, was he ever! We found many different varieties of beautiful, interesting (such as the White Tussock Moth Caterpillar pictured above), and simply bizarre caterpillars (like the Polyphemus Moth Caterpillar pictured below), but our favorite ones to collect were the Monarch
Butterfly Caterpillars.

Milkweeds were abundant on Camp, so Monarch Caterpillars were too! We gently caught them and brought them home to munch on milkweeds inside of our butterfly habitat from Insect Lore. My favorite caterpillars to find were the ones that were no longer than my pinky nail. After about two weeks of constantly eating milkweed leaves, the once tiny caterpillars grew to be fat and long. Soon afterwards, they climbed to the top of the butterfly habitat, hung upside down, and hardened into a chrysalis.

On the day that the butterfly will be born, the chrysalis becomes translucent and you can see the beautiful orange and black wings of the butterfly inside.

We were so lucky to see this! Colin and Owen were fascinated, excited, and proud as their first butterfly emerged!

Why not act it out too?

Releasing the butterflies and seeing them fly for the first time was thrilling! Colin and Owen cheered them on and often followed them throughout the yard.

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