butterfly!

Several weeks ago I noticed something was eating my carrot tops down to the ground. It was a bunch of caterpillars. I brought them inside and Isa wanted to keep them, so every time we ate carrots from the garden, gave them the tops. They ate fast. In a few days made cocoons on some sticks we had in "the bug house". Ended up with seven cocoons. I wasn't sure anything would happen. But this morning Isa came running to me: "Mommy, Mommy, A BUTTERFLY HATCHED!" She was so excited. We took some pictures, and then she put her hand down in the jar, let the butterfly crawl onto her hand, and lifted it out. It drifted over to our fence for a moment before flying away. It was so beautiful. I think it's a swallowtail.






Do you remember the praying mantids we had in her bug house? Months ago I released them back into the garden. I've seen one again recently- it's now longer than my hand, bright green. It hangs out in the jumble of zucchini stems- one of the few things left in our garden. It left an egg-case in a tomato plant, but I think that might have got destroyed in our tropical rainstorm when Hannah passed by us. Once I tried to pick it up to show Isa and it pinched my thumb hard! I want to find it again and take a photo, but this time I'll see if I can get it to crawl onto a stick for its portrait.