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  A friend from church told me about the Deming Young Farm to catch monarch caterpillars for my preschoolers.  Instantly, I fell in love.    It has a beautiful open range meadow, accommodated with wild flowers, milkweed (hence the caterpillars) and trails.   There is also a private garden patch with sunflowers and vegetables right off the trail.  I can't help but marvel how beautiful everything is. 

 It sure is an interesting place.  

We've been there three times now.  The first time was an unsuccessful caterpillar trip.  We didn't really know what we were looking for or where to find caterpillars for that matter, so we just wandered along the trails and enjoyed the beautiful weather.

Our second attempt with my friend- who introduced us to the farm in the first place-WAS successful. She found a monarch within the first 5 minutes of arriving.  She showed us the milkweed as well as clues for caterpillars, like half eaten leaves and caterpillar droppings.  It was tedious, but still kind of fun to search for something that you knew was there but nowhere to be seen.  It wasn't until I made my way back to my car that I finally found MY first monarch hiding in the leaves. I left the farm with Mason and Twiggy-who was much MUCH smaller in size- and we took them both home in Jakob's bug catcher.

I brought Danny along for our third trip to gather more milkweed for Mason, the very VERY hungry caterpillar, as well as show off the farm and the beautiful rolling hills.  After gathering more milkweed along the trail, and to my surprise,  I found another caterpillar munching happily under some leaves.  I took a few pictures and then decided to switch Twiggy for this fat, little guy because I was hopeful that he was better ready to move on to the next  phase of the life cycle: the chrysalis. Twiggy looked like he had another layer of skin to shed (did you know that monarchs shed there skin 4 times during their caterpillar lives?  I didn't) and so I decided to switch him for the bigger one to help speed up the process.  I soon named this caterpillar Fatty.

I took Fatty and Mason to preschool and we continued to watch, observe and record what was happening to the two of them.  Mason was first to attach his cotton button at the top of the butterfly cage and drop down in a "J".  Fatty, on the other hand, ate and ate and ate for two more days and then followed mason to the top.  Mason was hard to observe because he dropped rather quickly and cocooned while we were at church. SNEAKY SNEAKY!  Fatty on the other hand, took his time and allowed me to experience some unique moments with him:

 I got to watch him attach his hind legs to the cotton button and slowly lower, detaching each leg-one by one-until all legs except for one held on to the cotton mat.  After detaching his final leg he swayed back and forth into a "J". I waited patiently for that final leg to let go; which I'm glad I did because I got to see LIVE! Next, I watched and waited as Fatty "liquidized" to prepare for his Chrysalis.  It took two days in the "J" until finally at the end of day 2, Fatty unzipped his final layer of skin and squirmed into the chrysalis.   I was able to watch most of his transformation and it was absolutely fascinating.  

Right now, I patiently wait another 10-14 days for Mason and Fatty to emerge as beautiful butterflies.  I hope I'm lucky enough to observe that!

It's silly, I know, but it's also very fascinating.  You should try it!