So Long, Sweet Ladies

Last week our butterflies started to come out of their chrystalis one each day. We never were able to catch one as it was breaking out they always seemed to show up after we went out for a bit. We have enjoyed seeing, watching, and even handling these beautiful butterflies.


But since butterflies life spans aren't that long we knew we needed to let them go. We have been seeing so many butterflies fly by, all headed in the same direction, while we have been outside on walks or at the park over the last week. We found out that the painted ladies are all migrating up to Oregon right now so it was the perfect time to let our three little ladies free.
Each of the kids held one and stepped outside on the porch. The butterflies just stayed there on their hands for quite some time.

We walked further out on the driveway to get them into the sun and they opened their wings and seemed to soak the sunshine in for a little bit. Then one at a time they took flight.Henry's was the last to fly away.
We went back inside to finish doing some school and Ian sat down to play and started to cry a little. "I'm sad our butterflies had to go", he said. It was sort of sad to see them leave. We have watched and watched them for a few weeks as they grew and grew as caterpillars and then waited and waited while they were in their chrystalis. The four days we kept them in their little butterfly habitat didn't seem long enough.

I think we are going to order some more caterpillars so we can watch the process again.