BUTTERFLIES!! 2018

Name Time

I have butterflies! I thought there would just be the one that I talked about in the last chapter, but there are currently four butterflies waiting to be released. I'll talk more about them later.

AND NOW, THE NEWS

A whole heck of a lot happened since the last chapter. All the eggs and caterpillars that I had so far were from my own milkweed plants in my own yard. In other years, most of the ones I got were from my grandma's house. So today, I decided I might as well check her plants for a few eggs to up my bug count. Well, my friends, I did not find a few.

I found A LOT. 35 in total. 22 eggs, 12 caterpillars. That doesn't add up, you say? Well guess what, friends. The story doesn't end there.

I was just strolling along next to the deck, when suddenly, I noticed something. A small, green, shiny something. I went to take a closer look and.. oh! It was a Monarch chrysalis, hiding on the underside of a wilted, yellowish leaf. In any normal circumstance, I would've liked to leave it be. But, well, the plant was dying. And I know very well what lurks around the plants by the deck.

Ants. Ants are not friendly. Ants eat chrysalises.

And so I believe I did that chrysalis a favor when I carefully cut the leaf off of the plant and brought it home with the rest of my bugs.

Speaking of the rest of my bugs...

WOW there are a lot of them. In case you forgot how to math (understandable, it's summer), 35 plus the 41 that I already have makes for a grand total of... 76!! Of course, not all of them are eggs or caterpillars. There are 10 of them that are currently butterflies or in chrysalis.

So, in conclusion, I have 66 baby Monarchs to raise into butterflies. I can't imagine how much they'll be eating. I'm still a happy and proud parent, though, and I'm glad that I've been collecting more and more each year.

Oh yeah, about the butterflies. So I have two boys and two girls, and I'm probably gonna release them tomorrow. Usually each year I have a naming theme for the butterflies, and this year I was thinking it could be names that my readers come up with! So if you have suggestions for naming these butterflies, comment them and I'll take them into consideration.

See ya!