Meet Kitty! Megan named it. He is a Eastern Black Swallowtail. He is our first one to emerge!
I think he is a boy because the males have more yellow above the blue. Females have small yellow dots and more blue on their wings. We think when he closes his wings he is prettier than when his wings are open.
We let him free after playing with him for two days. He really liked the butterfly bush we put him on and ate for a long time. Monarchs usually eat a little and then fly up high into a tree.
I think we have seen him once since letting him go.
It has been a bad year for Monarchs. I was only able to raise three from caterpillar stage. I did not find any eggs and saw very few butterflies. We are praying that next year is a great year for them again.
But, we are raising Eastern Black Swallowtails. When we got back from Colorado, Mark went to check our gardens. He said we had some caterpillars on our dill. We researched them and discovered they were Eastern Black Swallowtails.
We found out that they eat anything in the carrot family; like dill, Queen Anne’s Lace, carrots, fennel and parsley. We collected the big ones because the big ones looked like the pictures in our book. We researched the little ones to find out that they were the same caterpillar, they just change three times!
When we brought them in, we cut off as as little as we could from what they were eating, and started feeding them Queen Anne’s Lace. Momma wanted her dill and fennel for us to eat! They don’t eat as fast as Monarchs, but they eat as much.
Fourteen of them are chrysalises–we have two caterpillars left–but do not know when they will emerge. If they don’t emerge this fall, they will overwinter and emerge in late April or May. I want at least one to emerge soon. I hope to watch it emerge too.
We are doing verses this year. Right now we are reviewing what we learned already. We are going to read the Bible in chronological order. We will also do our normal school work.
We did our self portraits (we try to do one at the beginning of every year). Momma said I am getting lots better on my drawing.
I am looking forward to doing a lot of different kinds art!
The butterfly on the right is a Monarch. Monarchs do not have the line on their bottom wings and the dots are not in sets of two, they are more scattered.
Monarchs are larger than Viceroys. They also fly differently. The Monarch glides while the Viceroy flies sort of crazily.
Lastily, Monarchs fly to Mexico in the fall. Viceroys overwinter in their leaf blanketed chrysalis and emerge in early spring. Monarchs will back and arrive later in spring. If they are blown off track, they can find their way back.
It is hard to tell the difference. It is fun to learn enough to tell which is which.
I have been raising Monarchs since June 3 this year. There are not that many :( .
My first one I found June 3 and it was an egg. It hatched on my birthday, I named it Curious. When he was roaming, I found my first caterpillar. It was half way through its stages. Megan named it Stripes.
Curious made its chrysalis and when he emerged we were watching him. It was fun because I was watching him while I was eating breakfast. I heard a little crack and I looked up and I saw that he was pushing his chrysalis open. I ran and told Momma and we watched it. Stripes made his chrysalis the same morning.
Stripes eating after her surgery. She came through with “flying colors”.
I let Curious go at the park. I did a class about butterflies and since he was a butterfly, we let him go at the end of class.
Stripes enjoying her first flower.
When Stripes emerged, she was fine, but later her wing tore somehow in her cage. We looked on the internet to see how to fix it. We saw that we could put tape on it. I will try to write later how we did it. We got it fixed and let her go. She could still fly, but it was a little wobbly. If you see a butterfly, with a taped wing, it is probably Stripes!
I have one more in a chrysalis. I named it monkey. After vacation, we might look for more. We have seen Monarchs flying around again.
Early Saturday morning, we got up and ate breakfast. When I got up to get some more food, Megan walked in front of me. I stared at her! I asked her, “are you really Megan?” I thought Daddy was coming to get me, but they surprised me by bringing everybody.
The first day at camp was rainy. We had chapel. I think this year’s chapel was very creative because the pastor was teaching us how to be super heroes instead of villains. His sons and daughters were pretending to be the different people. The oldest one was Captain Kindness, the oldest daughter was Miss Meanie. The youngest son was Doofus Boy who obeyed Miss Meanie. The little girl was Little Nurse. When Captain Kindness ate the sin pill that Miss Meanie put in the zebra cake, he looked at his dad, the pastor, and said “can I leave now? I don’t feel like being nice today.” The whole week they were talking about cure for eating the sin pill.
When we came into the chapel, Doofus Boy was passing out the sin pill. We ate them and then they told us what they were. The pastor wouldn’t let us get the pill to make us like God again! We could eat the pills the nurse made to make us holy again. We learned that you really have to ask Jesus into your heart 🙂 .
For skit night, one of the skits had two people holding up a blanket. Then someone would toss a little object in to make it bigger. Like once someone had a little elastic that he through in saying “I want to make it bigger.” He threw in the elastic and out came a hula hoop! Then somebody came with her baby, and said “my poor baby, I keep dropping it.” Then she trips over a rock and it goes over the blanket. Out came a guy with a “diaper (a pair of pants) on.
I did not pass my swim test, but I able to go to the deep end if I had my councilor with me. I went off the high dive! I went canoing, paddle boarding. I went on the splash boats.
We played a game were the counselors would be in different spots with “weapons”. One was a pool noodle, a spongie, and squirt gun. Our job was to go as a cabin and get the things the counselors were guarding. I almost got one, but I got another one, if I had been just a little slower, I would not have made it.
Another game was like that one, but the counselors where disguising themselves or hiding. You tried to find them and if you did you got a little tag. A green tag meant you where the first person to find her. A copper one meant you would not get as much points as a green one. One of the counselors was hanging out with the teens. He had a green coat and a sleeping bag and a hat over his face. When I asked the teens if he had seen any junior counselors they said, maybe. I asked the guy if he was a counselor and everyone said “sh, he is trying to sleep.” But I knew he was a counselor because I saw his face, and I got a green tag. There is a golf course there, and a church you try to get your golf balls under it. My friend Casteel saw some camouflage pants and looked under the church and someone was hiding there so we got another green tag. The rest of them were copper tags.
I had so much fun at camp that I will have to tell you more later!
My alarm went of at 5:00 this morning. Then we got ready to leave to go to Lake Ann. A fun camp I love that has lots of neat activities and good chapels.
Please pray for safety as Daddy drives us to camp, about 5 hours away. After he drops us off, he will return home.
I am looking forward to camp. My friend Casteel is coming with me! Please pray for us this week as we play and learn new things.
Yesterday, Momma wanted to see a fawn. Today we took a walk at the park. We saw a lot of turtles and a Great Blue Heron, and a buck. As we were looking at the Great Blue Heron, Momma pointed across the river in some trees. There was a fawn! I told Momma her wish was granted 🙂
I had the camera, so I took the pictures. This one was my best one before it ran away. We walked around to the other side of the water to look for it, but we could not find it.
Later in the week, we were driving around the park and we saw a doe with her fawn. We think it was the same fawn. I tried to get pictures, but it kept running. Mark got a few good pictures though.
Meet Kitty! Megan named it. He is a Eastern Black Swallowtail. He is our first one to emerge!
