Butterfly Gold!

A beautiful monarch butterfly! We didn’t catch it flying around our flowers. We grew it from a caterpillar and hatched it in a jar.
“God changes Caterpillars into Butterflies, Sand into Pearls, and Coal into Diamonds. Using time and pressure, He’s working on you too.”
Rick Warren

We started with these little creatures which had been hatched from an egg of a mother monarch. We found more than we could care for! We harvested the milkweed plant from outside of our garden. We shared many caterpillars with Nana, Jayden, and Elijah too.

Stage two is the larva, also called the caterpillar. For about 14 days we fed it milkweed. It ate and ate and continued to grow in size. It made it’s way to top of the jar, secured itself and then dropped down into a “J” shape.

Stage three is the pupa. The caterpillar formed a hard shell and created this sight. Inside the shell, the pupa changes into a butterfly. This process takes about 10-14 days.
Looking closely you can see specks of gold!

Closer to the time of revealing itself, the once green pupa turns black. Looking closely you can see the outline of the wings within the pupa.
“The caterpillar does all the work but the butterfly gets all the publicity.” George Carlin