Wendy

About 3 weeks ago Bryn and I found a caterpillar crawling around on the carrot leaves in the garden. I had recently watched an episode of “John and Kate plus Eight” where they caught caterpillars and watched them change into butterflies, and I did the same thing as a little girl. So, we caught this caterpillar and Bryn lovingly name it Wendy. We have had a great time watching it grow and grow and grow. Watching Wendy eat it is no wonder how a plant can be devoured in such a short time.

After about a week Wendy climbed up to the top of the jar and attached herself to a stick (I really don’t know if it is a Wendy or a Wendell, but we refer to it as a ‘her’ because Bryn would be devastated otherwise.) It seemed to take a couple days for this part of the process to complete, but we woke up one morning and Wendy was completely in a cocoon. For the next couple days we watched Wendy and noticed that it wasn’t a quiet process that was going on inside that cocoon. There was definite movement and ‘twitching’ going on. I was completely enthralled. The ‘twitching’ only happened for a day or so, then all was still.

Now it is about 2 weeks after Wendy went into a cocoon and this morning we woke up to a wonderful surprise. Wendy had come out of her cocoon and we had a beautiful butterfly. The kids and I were a little excited and maybe a little anxious because we weren’t sure what to do with her next. We took her out back and opened up the jar so she would be able to ‘be free’. Only I think we were a little premature in our actions. Wendy wasn’t quite ready to fly away. We watched her walk around on the patio for a few minutes, and we were able to get a few great shots of her spreading and drying her wings. She was quite beautiful. But it was obvious the patio was not where she wanted to be. So we got her popsicle stick and helped her into a bowl and carried her to the flowers out front. It didn’t take long to see that this was where she wanted to be. The kids and I just sat and watched. It was simply amazing.

Our tummies finally reminded us that we hadn’t eaten breakfast so we went inside and gave Wendy some privacy. A few hours later Tanner and I went out front to check on her. She had climbed to the top of the flowers and had her wings completely spread out. I had a chance to take one more picture then she was off. It caught us a bit by surprise, but it didn’t take her long to disappear.

Bryn was disappointed that she wasn’t able to see Wendy fly away, but came to peace with it when she remembered that Wendy was flying off to find her family. See the dark spot in the top right hand corner? That's our Wendy! Fly Wendy Fly!