Releasing Monarch #2

Monarch Release

Raising Butterflies

A couple of weeks ago Evie found a couple of caterpillars in our garden.

That first one is a monarch caterpillar. The second one is a painted lady.

I brought both inside the house and placed each one in its own jar, with food of course, so Evie could watch them form their chrysalises and eventually emerge as butterflies.

The painted lady emerged as a butterfly on Friday afternoon last week. We released it Saturday morning. The monarch emerged as a butterfly this morning. We will release it tomorrow. I contemplated letting it go today; however, the weather is less than ideal. It is chilly (in the low 60s), windy, and has been threatening to rain most of the day.

So, there will be more pictures coming (hopefully) when we let the monarch go. But here are pictures from the painted lady release. Evie stuck her hand in the jar with the butterfly, let it climb onto her hand, then happily admired the butterfly until it flew away. Hopefully we'll be able to repeat the process with the monarch.

Stillwater

A couple of days after the St. Croix River crested (in the last week of June) we drove over to the town of Stillwater to go take a look.

 

And we have some new blooms in the yard.