Trails and Tales Contest Third Place Winner
Flying gems—my favorite! Beautiful colors, shapes, and sizes. Scales covering the wings, so tiny you’ll need a microscope to study them. A long coiled tongue, sometimes as long as the body. A most unique life cycle—the Butterfly.
Butterflying started in the spring when I moved my cage from the cold room to the 60°F garage on May 13. Four Eastern black swallowtail chrysalises hung inside, waiting patiently for the warmth of summer.
I was uncertain when I should set my cage outside. Then on May 22, I saw it—a black swallowtail afloat on the breeze. Now was the time. I eagerly transferred my cage to the front porch.
Only three days passed before I saw the first flying gem in my cage. “It looks like you need some lilac juice,” I observed.
So my little shadow Chelsy and I went to the lilac hedge. Snip, snip. Soon a bouquet adorned the cage.
In twelve days my cage was unoccupied, and I cleaned it out in preparation for the summer. First, I pulled out the empty chrysalises, then dumped out the straw from the bottom of the cage. “This cage needs a thorough dusting. Chelsy, let’s take it to the shop and use the air compressor on it.”
After cleaning, we strode to the haymow. “Here, throw several handfuls of straw in, and I’ll smooth it out,” I directed Chelsy. We returned the cage to its sheltered spot on the porch.
“Look, I’ve got caterpillars for you!” The gator jolted to a stop, and off bounded my brother and Chelsy, hands loaded with milkweed.
“We found three worms!” Chelsy informed me excitedly.
“Great! Nice fat fellows,” I rejoiced. “Lay the milkweed on the counter.”
“Can I help?” Chelsy loved to get involved.
“Sure. Get a sour cream container and a lid. We’ll slice holes in the lid and jab the milkweed in.” I snipped the stems short enough to fit into the cage. “Now fill the container with water.”
“All fixed!” I exclaimed after cautiously setting the contraption into the cage.
The summer sunshine made a perfect day to stroll in the woods. Near the end of the trail, I spied a big patch of milkweed—the monarch’s habitat. “Great, maybe I can collect more monarch caterpillars.”
I started searching, peeking under leaves. “There’s a big fat caterpillar and a smaller one.” I continued lifting leaf after leaf. “An egg!” It looked so tiny and vulnerable.
Back home, I soon had my little friends situated in the cage with leafy milkweed surrounding them. I grabbed my calendar from under the cage and noted on July 9: 1 lg. caterpillar, 1 med. caterpillar, 1 egg.
Throughout the month I continued jotting down the changes in my cage: 1st monarch caterpillar hanging in a “J” on 10th, chrysalis by 11th, and so on.
A week later I called from the front porch, “Mom, come look! The egg hatched! See that itsy bitsy caterpillar?”
“Oh, yes, so small I can scarcely see it,” Mom replied.
I guessed it to be only an eighth of an inch long, so tiny its stripes were scarcely visible. It had already eaten its eggshell and started on the tender parts of the leaf. I paused a moment to listen to the continual munching of the two bigger caterpillars whose jackets were getting a bit tight. “Isn’t it about time to change your attire again?” I wondered.
A week later I found the tiny caterpillar had tripled its size.
August 3, two weeks later, found me scrutinizing my egg-turned-caterpillar very closely. It hung upside down in a “J” with its head curled up as if in deep meditation. It had been hanging like this for almost twenty-four hours and would soon be ready to form its beautiful chrysalis.
“Come watch this transformation!” I called to any nearby family members. They all crowded around and then— pop! Its skin split on the back of its head, and it squirmed and wriggled to get out. As its jacket was stripped off, a smooth cover of green took its place. Once the wad of “jacket” had reached the top of the “J,” it tumbled off with a few sharp twists from the “almost-a-chrysalis” critter. It appeared like the caterpillar added another layer of green, and there it was suspended! A beautiful green chrysalis, gold belted and dotted. What kingly clothes! Hanging perfectly still, it awaited metamorphosis.
Fourteen days passed. The fine-looking chrysalis had turned black. Surely my monarch hadn’t died in the pupa stage!
The next morning I rushed to the front porch and searched the cage again. Yes, it was still black! Oh, but wait. A studied gaze revealed a transparent chrysalis, and beneath it a black form with orange wing patterns! It was as alive as always! But breakfast was next, so I made a mental note to check on the chrysalis.
Soon I returned to keep vigil, but not for long. I watched in fascination as the chrysalis split and the upside down, wrinkled butterfly emerged and clung to its papery chrysalis. Its wings and wing patterns were minute.
After half an hour of flexing and flapping, the wings were large and colorful. In a few more minutes it was fluttering around in my cage. I didn’t want to lift it out, for its wings were so delicate and the tiny scales rubbed off easily. Instead I opened the door, and soon it flitted out and up, sailing on the golden summer breeze. “You were more special since I got you as an egg instead of a caterpillar!” I murmured to the departing gem. I watched till it vanished over the house roof. “I wonder where he plans to find his first sip of nectar.” I muse. “Maybe in my butterfly garden?”
Lurch. The gator came to a quick halt and we hopped off. “Careful not to brush against the milkweed. We don’t want the caterpillars falling off.” Only a few short milkweeds waved above the grass. “Did Dad brush hog back here, Chelsy?”
“Maybe.” Chelsy shrugged.
“Well, at least we have two caterpillars, but there really aren’t many milkweeds.” I looked at the neatly trimmed fence rows, fence corners, and water ways that snaked through the fields, all mowed by my diligent brother, no doubt.
“I declare someone has been brush hogging in the Back Forty,” I told Dad while we were doing chores.
“I’d instructed the boys to mow around the fences,” Dad confirmed.
“So how am I to get any caterpillars if there’s no milkweed around?” I wondered.
“I guess you could fence off a patch,” Dad suggested and resumed his feeding.
Perhaps I should, especially as the monarch caterpillars are having trouble recently finding their food source. Too many people do like we do—trim fence lines and ditch banks. My daydreaming tumbled on. I could fence off a corner of the pasture and plant lots of milkweed. Maybe I could even plant a wildflower mix.
One fine July day, a screech sent me flying to the aid of my sister who was busily washing big handfuls of parsley. She shuddered as I rescued four teensy Eastern black swallowtail caterpillars. Sister muttered about sharing parsley with worms. I filled a small cup with water, folded tin foil over the top, and jabbed in parsley and dill sprigs, pleased with the find. After positioning them carefully in the cage, I jotted down the events: 4 tiny friends—only swallowtail this time!
Chelsy and I went to the garden to play hide-n–seek with the caterpillars amongst the parsley, dill, and carrot tops. They were easy to spot, so I enjoyed it—even the challenge of finding eggs.
“Hold these two stems,” I instructed Chelsy, showing her where the caterpillars rested. “Don’t jostle them too much or they’ll fall off.”
“Yu-uck!” Chelsy screeched.
I whirled around to see Chelsy throw a sprig onto the grass. “Chelsy, be careful.” I laughed at the expression on her face.
“That worm started crawling toward me,” Chelsy cried in distress.
After retrieving the stunned caterpillar, I again handed the stem to Chelsy. She only folded her arms and turned her back on me.
So I went on searching and collecting—eight stems, each holding a caterpillar. Marching to the parsley, I snipped two big handfuls. “You may carry these, Chelsy,” I instructed.
Back in the house, I slipped parsley stems into a cup. Better fill another one, I decided. My cage was filling up, but I settled all eight worms in with a leafy green meal.
“Grab the water squirter, please.”
“Can I spray them?” Chelsy asked eagerly.
“A little,” I agreed. “I’ll do some of the hard corners.”
“Look at that worm,” Chelsy exclaimed as she showered the caterpillars. “It has little orange horns.”
“He feels threatened. He thinks you’re going to eat him, so he’s trying to scare you away,” I informed her.
All through September I persisted in my hunt for creepy-crawlies. On the 8th, my cage was chockful with fourteen more caterpillars. Soon chrysalis after chrysalis hung on the wooden frame of my cage. Some attached to the screen, but they seemed to prefer the sturdy frame. At times I got to watch the caterpillars wriggle out of their skin and put on a green chrysalis that soon turned brown, the color of their surroundings. These were not as handsome as the monarch chrysalis, but a marvel just the same.
Others I scrutinized as they stretched their new tiny wings. I enjoyed deciding if they were male or female. “You must be a male,” I informed the butterfly. “You have yellow dots around the perimeter of your wing. The female has little yellow, but flashy, iridescent blue laces on the hind wings.”
Three caterpillars died of a mysterious disease. Two chrysalises turned black, and the butterflies never emerged. So I pulled those out. On one, I broke the “shell” off, exposing the intricate parts of the head and thorax of a butterfly. I marveled as I examined God’s fascinating creation—the eyes, antennae, straw-like tongue, and legs all tucked inside this tiny case. Who but God could have positioned it so perfectly within?
I tallied up the count on my calendar. Twenty-two Eastern black swallowtails flew out of the cage door throughout the summer. Now, down in the cold room on the shelf is my butterfly cage. In it are twenty-eight chrysalises waiting for summer’s sun and rain, food and flowers to burst forth.
