The Butterfly Lady...

Would you call me that? The Butterfly Lady...

or perhaps you would refer to me as a Caterpillar Cat...

it matters not, either title I love.

Here is the story of how it all began, the first update to that story is here.

I have lot's of happy news to report, 

so let's get down to the nitty-gritty of what's going on with the butterflies.

This story began when I brought 8 Swallowtail Caterpillars inside that I found on my dill.

Things went well and on August 24th, 
I released 3 with the neighbor children, that story is here.

Later that day, a 4th emerged, the hubs and I released #4 alone and it flew away immediately.
The last of the eight caterpillar's to pupate, we named Mikey.

He did not pupate correctly into chrysalis and that butterfly died.

Back to the release on the 24th, 

I found this Monarch Caterpillar on my milkweed 
and I decided to bring it indoors.

My butterfly house is big enough and I have never "raised" a Monarch.

That Monarch pupated into chrysalis pretty quickly, on August 29th,

and should emerge 10 - 14 days after that.

The Monarch's chrysalis is clearly different from the Swallowtail.

Pictured above, it is a shiny green, with gold specks, attached to the top of the butterfly house.

I was watering the garden on Thursday, the 31st, 

and found these two Swallowtail caterpillars on my parsley.

There is no more dill, they ate all of it...

I just could not resist so I brought them indoors.

So...in summery, 

I have 3 Black Swallowtails in chrysalis form in the picture above.

I have 2 Black Swallowtails that are in the caterpillar stage,

and 1 Monarch in chrysalis.

- that's all folks -
but it was a lot - right?