The Hungry Caterpillar

Most husbands will occasionally bring their wives home a bouquet of flowers, not mine. Once a year Brandon brings home a bouquet of caterpillars. How lucky am I?! Last year a secretary dropped off a few caterpillars that were destroying her parsley garden, so that the boys could enjoy watching them turn into butterfly's. This year, Brandon brought home a dozen decent size caterpillars and 2 baby's. This year these were some hungry insects. While we were gone to Wal.Mart to get them a 'home', one of them crawled out of the Mason Jar temporary home, and crawled around our counter top, trying to find food. Instead of finding food, he left a nice trail of caterpillar poo. (Lots of disinfecting happened following that finding!)

After we placed the caterpillars in their 'home' we checked on them daily, making sure that they had enough parsley to eat and occasionally gave them a spritz of water. We all enjoyed watching them grow and marveled as we watched a couple of them start to cocoon. It is amazing how God made these little bugs to spin such an complicated cocoon, and then how they release a liquid moments before busting out of a little tiny whole as this beautiful butterfly.

With a few of the butterfly's, we were able to see them moments after coming out. Their wings were still wet and it took them a few minutes to figure out what they were supposed to do. They would sit on the patio furniture or on our hands and fingers for five to ten minutes before finally flying off. It was truly amazing!