“Come see one of your friends,” my husband pleaded. I had just put toothpaste on my toothbrush for the nightly ritual of getting ready for bed. I was too tired for this game. But I went anyway.
“It better not be a snake!” I exclaimed.
He assured me, “I wouldn’t do that to you.” History says otherwise.
He opened the kitchen door to the back porch and there it was. A black swallowtail butterfly!
I was ecstatic! “I can’t believe it hatched. I thought the chrysalis was dead.”
I understand that a chrysalis is supposed to look dead for its own protection, but this one was on a garden trellis that had been knocked over by the wind, carried in and out of my monarch butterfly domain. It held 3 different monarch chrysalises this past winter. I was grateful that I hadn’t taken the dead-looking thing off. I left it without hope or even an inkling that it would ever hatch.
This is the caterpillar from last summer. June 9, 2021 to be exact. I had taken my grandsons on a trip to a nearby farm. The caterpillar was on a parsley plant. The plant was in a small black plastic pot as if it had just been delivered from the nursery. I took the caterpillar and the plant and placed them into a butterfly net enclosure. It made the chrysalis not long after this, but never emerged. Until last night, 9 months later. Currently, the beauty is still hanging on to the screen. I hope he gets the courage to fly. My little miracle!
Reflections on the Teche 